For someone who spends an inordinate amount of time watching cooking shows, I don't exactly have the most sophisticated palate. I don't know what truffle oil tastes like, I've never had a souffle, and I actually hate duck. So, while I enjoy pretending like I know something about the dishes contestants on MasterChef and Hell's Kitchen are cooking, I'm mostly making it up and being judgey for no reason, which is why I live on the Internet.
But tonight I found my calling. Back-to-back challenges with seafood and donut themes, respectively? Frankly, I'm mad I wasn't brought on as a non-celebrity guest judge. CHRISTIAN, YOUR BBQ SHRIMP GRITS NEED TO BE IN MY BELLY RIGHT NOW.
Anyway.
Technically speaking, we should have entered this episode with 19 contestants remaining, but at some point between last week's challenges and this week's, Little Gordon fell ill with some sort of mystery sickness and had to drop out and now we're down to 18. I thought they might eliminate two people this week to ensure an even number for next week's team challenge, but they didn't and I just picture last season's wedding episode, when team captain Natasha had Krissi sit out and Krissi had a meltdown. (Fun Fact! If you Google "MasterChef annoying contestant," Krissi pops up first...and second. And so she shall live on in infamy.)
After several warnings about how whatever was underneath the Mystery Box being alive and dangerous (and a lot of terrible guesses about what might be under there, like snakes and a snapping turtle), the contestants reveal a bag full of live shellfish. At first I scoffed at Kira's jumpiness about the moving food, but that was before I realized how active live prawns are. But even more jumpy is Ahran, who has been waiting these past few episodes to finally get her chance to shine.
And shine she does. This is really our first sighting of Ahran, an 18-year-old high school student from California. The important part of that description is "high school," as Ahran brings with her all the fun drama and angsty bitterness we all miss from our high school days. She harbors an unhealthy obsession with Courtney, who seems to remind her of some queen bee she crossed paths with at the pep rally. Not only that, but she thinks the judges are unfairly favoring Courtney and stupidly tells Joe so. And then HE said, "Are you kidding me?" And she was all, "You know it's true!" And I was like, "OMG, can I have that last five minutes back?!"
While all this fun was going on, there was also a Mystery Box challenge being conducted. The top three wound up being Francis B (fast becoming a threat after several strong showings), Ahran (she and Francis both presented similar spicy seafood stew-style dishes) and Christian (whose BBQ shrimp and cheese grits were a nod to his New Orleans roots and LOOKED AMAZING). All three won praise from the judges, but Ahran's was the only one Graham singled out as a "seafood boy band," I'm assuming for its sweet harmony and nonthreatening, slightly androgynous good looks. So Ahran clearly won.
To her credit, Ahran refrained from celebrating with a hearty, "IN YOUR FACE, REGINA GEORGE!" Instead, she retreated to the back room, where the judges told her she did not have to compete in the next challenge and that she would be choosing what everyone else would have to cook: muffins, cookies or donuts. She chose donuts, clearly the most difficult item and the one most likely to have at least a few contestants who had never made them before. The group was tasked with making a dozen, and making them uniform enough to fit in a box.
Right away, there were struggles.
Courtney wasn't the only person with problems. Kira added shortening at the wrong time. Francis B. strangely opted for donut holes that looked terrible and would never fill the box provided. And Leslie...well, nevermind, Leslie's in his happy place, so let's just leave him alone.
The clock stops and everyone's done. BUT WAIT. Ahran gets another present for her Mystery Box win. She gets to look at everyone's donuts and elect to save someone. Most adults would opt to save someone that is weak, like Kira or Cutter, in hopes that a stronger person will go home in their wake. But in the 45 minutes that we've actually gotten to know Ahran, it's pretty evident that maturity is not her strong suit and she saves her friend (and dreamboat...and threat to win the whole show) Francis B., despite the fact that his horrible donut holes would almost certainly have gotten him eliminated. She does so under the guise of "wanting to beat the best," which is just something reality show contestants say when they want to save someone they like even though they know it's a terrible idea. (I'm looking at you, Woo!)
Leslie, Victoria, Daniel and Scottish Francis all got good reviews for their donuts, the latter shocking all the judges with just how good they were considering he did 12 times the work everyone else did. In the end, Leslie and Scottish Francis took the win, with Leslie nabbing the slight edge.
The bottom three were Kira, whose donuts looked good, but had no filling and were a strange consistency; Cutter, who also somehow missed putting filling in; and Courtney, who might have mistaken salt for sugar and horrified everybody.
Based on this particular challenge only, I would think that Courtney would have been a shoe-in to be eliminated; she didn't take enough of a key ingredient and then mixed up two very basic ingredients to make something inedible. But the judges often take past performances into consideration (or are simply playing favoritism, according to Ahran) and so they got rid of Kira. Oh Kira, whose name I just learned today, we hardly knew ye.
Dish I'd Most Like to Try: Christian's BBQ shrimp and cheese grits, by far, with one of Leslie's zesty donuts for dessert.
Dish I Made Myself: I'd like to say that I knew a pastry would be one of the challenges tonight and that's why I had chocolate chip pie for dinner. That is a lie. I had chocolate chip pie for dinner because it was left over from Father's Day and it was delicious and I wanted to have it for dinner. I regret nothing.
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