Jo Thornely recaps: The ‘he said what?’ episode of MKR

CHANNEL 7 did everything it could to drum up hype for “the incident” in last night’s MKR episode. It turned out to be a moment of extreme stupidity.

WELCOME, everyone, to the ‘HE SAID WHAT?!’ episode of My Kitchen Rules.

Aside from being one of the most annoying episodes of MKR of all time — due almost solely to tonight’s restaurateurs Kelsey and Amanda constantly shouting at a pitch that only kelpies can hear and mispronouncing words an uncredible number of times — there was also IT. You know, THAT.

The thing widely promoted as ‘THE INCIDENT’.

Okay, some background:

While the non-cooking contestants were sitting at the table waiting for their surprisingly excellent food, the affable Della asks everyone if they have any secret talents.

That’s a big YES from Albert.

The quite good-looking Josh, one half of the quite good-looking couple Josh and Amy, reveals that he was scouted as a model at the Big Day Out once.

“Hey”, says Matt, whose favourite pastimes are cooking, being told what to wear by his wife and growing muscles. “Is anyone familiar with the term ‘batting Merrins’?”

You can learn a lot from watching MKR — how two apparent screeching airheads can utterly surprise a doubting nation by cooking three near-perfect courses, how people under the age of 50 can pretend they live in multimillion-dollar homes, how busy mums can have supermarket shopping skills unheard of in childless people, and how a paleo diet advocate can suck down a chocolate fondant without blinking.

And now we’re about to learn what “batting Merrins” means.

See, Trent Merrin is an NRL player who is engaged to Sally Fitzgibbons, a very pretty surfer. It’s been noted that perhaps he’s batting above average or punching above his weight on the looks front. Hence, “Batting Merrins”.

Two young healthy kids having fun outdoors

It’s the kind of thing you might say to your friend to teasingly congratulate them, but you have to be selective, maybe reserving it for those friends you know well, who you’d routinely call “dickhead” as a term of affection.

“Amy’s batting Merrins“, continues Matt.

I beg your pardon?

It’s a super, super useful rule to not tell people you don’t know well, male or female, that they’re dating or married to someone out of their league, or even to openly rank people according to their perceived level of attractiveness. It also the kind of thing that exposes Matt as someone so shallow he’d dry out a tadpole.

The reaction of the table confirms without doubt that it was a mistake.

“That’s not very nice, Matt” says Tully, a lady.

“We will not have this. We will not stand for it,” says Duncan, a man.

What? Usually people love being told they’re not attractive.

Does Matt acknowledge that he misjudged his comment and made a mistake?

Alas, Matt does not.

Matt tells the table to lighten up, and then tells the camera something far worse, jamming his foot so far into his mouth he gets spinach and ricotta ravioli under his toenails:

“There’s too many feminists at this table”.

First of all, his comment doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you’re reading, Matt, feminism is a movement advocating that the rights of women are equal to the rights of men. That’s all. It’s not only extremely simple, it also has nothing to do with you judging people’s relative attractiveness at the dinner table.

Secondly, “There’s too many feminists at this table” is the kind of phrase you use when you don’t want to admit you’ve just made an insulting mistake but you do want to look like a douchebag as quickly as possible.

At the time of use, there were ten people at the table, nine of whom could easily be regarded as ‘feminists’. This is not too many feminists, in fact it’s one short. For the record, the world has a population of just under 7.5 billion people, which is also not too many feminists.

Finally, there’s two very loud women in the kitchen, ready to surprise the hell out of us with a perfectly gooey chocolate centre. You’re pulling focus from the fondant.

Fondant hates it when you do that.

All the feminists say AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

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