Masterchef US Season 6, Episode 8: Happy 100th Episode, Now Two Must Go!

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Being the 100th episode of Masterchef, a party is called for. Catering is expensive so they wrap it into an episode of where the cheftestants cook the appetizer and entrée. The winners move on but two will be chopped in the end.

*Team Red(Olivia)
Both teams have to produce an appetizer with oysters and caviar, and an entrée with duck breast. Olivia goes for elegant and fussy which means complicated and time consuming. She wants smoked oysters but ignores Tommy’s warning about how to do that. Christopher does not do a test cook and winds up overcooking a lot of oysters which means not so many oysters to plate now. Their appetizer ends up being a salad and not well received by the judges. Derrick is agitating to get things better and Olivia starts losing it until Gordon gets her head straight. She takes command and the entrée is much better than the appetizer.

*Team Blue (Nick)
They come out of the gate strong but falter on the entrée course. Nick does not keep his eyes on what others are doing so Charlie lets the carrots burn in the oven, duck breasts sits around too long and gets cold, and underdone duck shows up. Not a great day for Nick in the end. His team loses to Team Red and must face the dreaded pressure test.

*One Must Be Saved Or All Must Go
Team Blue learns one will be saved but they have to decide who will leave or face them all leaving the show. Masterchef does this to purposefully manufacture tension. Ultimately Stephen is saved but leaves lots of lingering tensions that will no doubt bubble up later in the show.

Photo: Fox
Photo: Fox

*Dreaded Pressure Test
For your consideration: a simple three-tier birthday cake. Sounds easy if you do not have a clock ticking down to your possible doom. Claudia has the most outstanding cake while Nick and Sara have okay cakes but good enough to save them. That leaves Amanda, Charlie, and Shelly on the bottom.

*Charlie’s Fiasco
In perhaps the weirdest way to make a cake, Charlie decides to create a short stack birthday cake. Except of course that makes it look not only weird but darn impossible to properly put the frosting and toppings on. It is a messy stack, so messy that when it was being made Christina had to turn away. In all the cakes ever presented on the show, it was the worst. It even makes Tommy’s famous worst cinnamon rolls in history shine by comparison. No matter how good it tasted, the presentation was so awful that no surprise he was sent home.

*Amanda’s Downfall
Amanda has shown real talent on this show and probably will run her own restaurant one day. She started out great making a cake she knows very well but she took the sponges out of the oven too soon. They literally fell apart on the plate and it was plain it was raw. The judges were aghast and she began losing it. At this point it is pretty obvious she is going home. There is no way the judges can overlook this technical violation. Gordon gets her to dress up the cake and make it presentable. To that I say what the heck? At this point there is no point in dragging this out any further. I would have said I am so sorry and ask for the apron. No need to make this any more painful. That is not what Gordon did though. He made her present the raw cake underneath the frosting. Then when it came down to decide between her and Shelly’s undercooked and muted flavor dish, they did something worse.

*The Head Fake
Often on this show they will mislead a person to think they are safe when they are not or vice versa. So Gordon calls Shelly to take off her apron. She and Amanda hug with Amanda believing she is safe. And then Gordon drops the bomb telling Shelly to head upstairs leaving poor Amanda there to be sent home. This was cruel and unnecessary. It really makes me mad at Gordon and the producers for what they did. They head fake someone who clearly was on the road to go home to believe, just for a moment, that she was safe. Shame on them! And Gordon is the rear end of a donkey as far I am concerned. I have been concerned both on Masterchef Junior and this show that a certain level of meanness has crept into this show. And this demonstrates it. Get stuffed, Gordon.