Jo Thornely recaps My Kitchen Rules: Where two of our favourites are eliminated

MKR is getting serious. A team is being eliminated in every single episode, and two of our favourites are the first to stuff up something simple.

PHEW.

Now that the bad guy’s gone, we can get back to what this show is supposed to be about: Cooking and destroying people’s hopes and dreams.

And as a bonus on top of losing a bad egg, we get two good eggs back in the robust and hirsute form of Tim and Kyle.

(giggle) Hey guys.

Hey girl hey.

But things get serious here in the home stretch. In every episode, teams will compete against each other. In every episode, a team will be eliminated. Every. Episode.

Indian Bjork is extremely shocked.

But before the teams get to be in fake mourning for competitors lost, they have to pretend it’s fake morning and cook:

BREAKFAST

With the possible exceptions of lunch and dinner, there is no finer meal than breakfast, and today

teams are challenged to create a good reason to get out of bed.

Each team only cooks against one other team, mano e mano or in this case, eggo e eggo. Most

choose what, in a normal dimension, would be obvious winners: BFFs forever, eggs and/or bacon.

However Karen & Ros and Della & Tully laugh in the face of the breakfast gods by choosing scallops and salmon fillet respectively. Look, I don’t know what you non-hung-over breakfasters usually eat, but mate, non-smoked seafood before 10am is illegal in some countries.

But we have to ignore the rules of brekky for now, because we can’t ignore the most pressing of all dramas: YOLK DRAMA.

The pressure to present the perfect golden spherical pond of yolk is intense. It’s like the Three Bears, with Manu as Goldilocks.

David and Betty’s crumbed yolk is too hard.

Hashtag should have made hash browns.

Valerie and Courtney’s spicy potato yolk is too soft.

Most of the egg is on their face.

But Tim and Kyle’s crumbed yolk is juuuuuuust right.

Doesn’t that look delicious

Unfortunately Goldilocks doesn’t like crumbed yolks, but does like morning seafood, so the teams we think are the worst are safe, while the teams we thought would win now have to cook:

LUNCH.

Court and Dunk make spiced pork with a bean salad, because pork is the greatest way to be our

friends. But is the bean salad too simple?

Yes. Yes it is.

Valerie and Courtney make a spicy lamb pot pie with mashed potato, because mashed potato is the easiest way to be our friends. But is there too much mashed potato?

Yes. Yes there is.

There’s too much Bjork on his fork.

David and Betty make a Thai beef salad, because steak is the quickest way to be our friends. But is there enough dressing?

No. No there isn’t.

Tim and Kyle make crispy-skinned salmon with a ginger and sweet potato puree and Asian dressing, because putting three incongruous things together and accidentally using mushroom-flavoured soy sauce before realising your mistake but having beards and saying things like “ripper dipper” is the most complicated way to be our friends.

But is it good enough to win the round?

Yes. Yes it is.

The mashed potato just squeaks through, which — OMG — means that one of these teams is going home:

I DEMAND A RECOUNT.

But not before they make:

DINNER.

I’m a bit torn here. On the one hand you have delicious Asian flavours and self-purported Instagram fame and semi-relentless hashtagging with David and Betty. On the other hand, you have incredible meat dishes and home smoking and quick puns and clothing printed with pictures of cool stuff.

We were so ready to say goodbye to Josh, but it’s weird and horrible to think that we won’t see one of these teams cook again.

The only thing to do is to indulge in a bit more drama before the end of this episode, in two distinct forms: Vague Loss Of Confidence Drama and How Pink Is Too Pink Drama.

Betty and David are cooking a Vietnamese-style beef cheek stew. David’s twist is to puree the carrots instead of including them in chunks, and Betty’s twist is to panic almost to the point of inactivity about absolutely nothing. She’s flat, she’s lost confidence, and worst of all, she doesn’t make a ‘hashtag’ gesture the entire time she’s cooking.

Someone either reboot or retweet her, quick.

On the other side of the kitchen, Court and Dunk are cooking a fancypants lamb roast, and prepare by talking about how they have plenty of time to cook the lamb properly.

The second step in their recipe is to completely run out of lamb-cooking time forty minutes later, resulting in lamb rarer than finding a slice of processed cheese in Pete Evans’ fridge.

Pinker than a slapped arse, mate.

The air and background music is unbelievably tense as we wait for Betty’s mood to improve and Dunk’s lamb to pan-sear, but both teams manage to pull something impressive together by the time the judges start tasting.

The judges taste, offer their critiques, and then …

… nothing bad happens. Everybody is allowed to stay and they all move into a house together and live happily ever after …

… is how I would end this episode if I was in charge.

But it’s not true. The gregarious, clever, relationship-goal-inspiring, delicious-food-cooking Court and Dunk are eliminated, and it’s a bit sad.

You guuuuyyyyysss.

Who’d have thought that without a narcissistic dud like Josh to distract us, we’d develop actual human attachments during this show? From this point on it will really feel like something large is missing every time a team goes home.

But it’s time to dry our tears and pull ourselves together. You’ve got another episode to watch tomorrow, and I have to call Court and Dunk to invite myself over for dinner.

Jo Thornely is a writer who loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Follow her @JoThornely