Previously on MasterChef: the judges, breaking with years of tradition, prized flavour over presentation in an overly elaborate dessert, and Snezana was sadly sent home, leaving us all with a Snez-shaped hole in our lives. But time, tide, and umami wait for no man, and so everyone is forced to dry their eyes and move onto the next terrifying stage of their food journey.

The nightmare begins when the amateurs arrive at the kitchen to find the judges standing in front of microwaves, raising the exciting possibility that today’s challenge will be to reheat yesterday’s pizza to restaurant quality. “This week we’ve been looking at what’s trending,” says Sofia, “and this appliance has been making waves since the Fifties.” Right. So… not what’s trending, then.

The judges demonstrate some brilliant microwave hacks to cut down on cooking time, proving that anyone who cooks with anything but a microwave is an idiot. This is enormous fun, but obviously today isn’t about fun: it’s about inducing migraines. Therefore, the amateurs will be required to choose one of the four judges’ hacks (Andy’s crispy chicken skin, Jean-Christophe’s sweet potato crisp, Poh’s marshmallow meringue, Sofia’s white chocolate crumb) and incorporate it into something that could loosely be termed a dish.

Alex plays to her strengths by immediately making some bad puns. She’s done her hair in a way that, if you squinted and turned the light down as low as possible, could be mistaken for a Princess Leia do, which leads to her calling Darrsh “Darrsh Vader”. Alex continues to evade arrest.

The judges gather to argue about whose microwave hack is the best. “It’s not a competition,” says Andy. “It IS a competition!” Jean-Christophe rages, his Gallic blood rising. Andy and Jean-Christophe will duel with pistols later, but for now let’s get back to the kitchen. American Josh is making a Jamaican shrimp curry, and reveals that his father is Jamaican.

This leads into a tinkly-piano-accompanied montage of old childhood photos, which means that today American Josh is either going to cook the best dish, or go home. He becomes emotional as he thinks about his father and his children and his shrimps, which puts enormous pressure on the judges: do they have the guts to send home a man who literally cried today? Are they really that vicious?

A tinkly-piano-accompanied montage of old childhood photos means that today American Josh is either going to cook the best dish, or go home.

Darrsh admits that desserts are his safe space, but he knows if he wants to win immunity, he has to find a way to stand out from the crowd by making dessert revolting, which is why he is combining ice-cream with chicken and mushroom. Andy congratulates him on his willingness to take a terrible idea and run with it.

And now to Sue, who is as surprised as anyone to find that she’s still on this show. Her chicken roulade sounds interesting, but as Sue signed a contract specifying she could never be on screen for longer than ten seconds at a time, we quickly cut away to Mimi. Mimi is hoping to make something that makes the judges say, “I feel understood by this cookie”, so we quickly cut away from her as well, as she is clearly having some kind of episode.

Meanwhile, Poh asks David how he plans to incorporate her meringue hack. David is making a pumpkin banoffee tart: he saw Darrsh’s plans for a nauseating dessert and said, “Hold my beer”.

We check back on Darrsh. “I’m rendering the fat from the chicken to go into the caramel,” he says. We miss the next few minutes of the show as we search for a bucket. Darrsh’s crème anglaise has split, and who can blame it?

Meanwhile Sue breaks with tradition by appearing more than once in an episode of MasterChef. She explains that she wants to make an onion soubise because it has her name in it – “Sue-bise”, get it? Understandably, the audience immediately turns against Sue for this shameless attempt to horn in on Alex’s terrible pun territory.

Speaking of Alex, her ice-cream is in the churner. “It’s all up to the ice-cream gods now,” she says. She has misplaced her faith — Darrsh’s chicken and mushroom ice-cream proves that there is no ice-cream god, and we live in a cold and uncaring ice-cream universe. Elsewhere, David is squatting in front of his microwave, but his meringue is not rising, probably out of shyness. Ten seconds later, the meringue has risen and the show’s ability to sustain suspense
is in serious doubt. Meanwhile Mimi believes her cookies look cute, and questions remain as to whether she actually knows she’s in a kitchen.

Time is up, and the cook finishes in the funniest possible way, as Sue discovers that she has gotten her piping bag mixed up with Mimi’s and instead of applying delicious onion soubise has garnished her chicken with chocolate banana mousse. It’s actually surprising this doesn’t happen more often on MasterChef: if I were a producer I’d be secretly swapping contestants’ ingredients around on purpose all the time, just to make things more interesting. Half of them
seem to do this kind of thing on purpose anyway.

Tasting begins, with American Josh first, serving his Jamaican shrimp curry. He subtly reminds the judges that this is his father’s dish and he hasn’t seen his dad for six years and if they don’t give him immunity they are all bastards. Despite the fact that the shrimp curry does not contain an ice-cream element, the judges think it’s great.

Next is Sav, who hasn’t been seen before now and so has no chance. Then Nat, whose “sweet ginger ninja” is tasty despite its incredibly annoying name. Then Sumeet — see above re: Sav.

Now it’s Alex, who serves fig leaf ice-cream and macadamia crumb on what appears to be a haemorrhoid cushion. The judges think it’s absolutely delicious and interestingly do not complain that the ice-cream didn’t have enough crispy chicken skin in it.

David steps up with his unhinged pumpkin banoffee tart. He explains that scientifically, combining pumpkin and banana makes sense. The judges all call him a nerd, but still say they love the tart, making it impossible to trust anything they say from now on.

Sue brings forward her chicken, banana and white chocolate disaster. The judges berate her for accidentally doing what David and Darrsh did deliberately. Then on to Mimi and her take on fortune cookies which is fine in a dull way. Then it’s Australian Josh, whose sorbet has far too many ingredients. Jean-Christophe compliments him on his willingness to try things that he is clearly bad at. Next is Steve, who’s made something or other which is not good.

Finally the moment of truth for Darrsh and his chicken and mushroom dessert. It’s a completely mad idea that no one in their right mind would ever even consider eating, so naturally the judges think it’s brilliant. The suspicion grows ever stronger that the judges are not technically human.

The three cooks who have best demonstrated the ability to make everyone forget that at one point this episode had some vague connection to microwaves are David, Alex and Darrsh, the judges deciding that they don’t even care about American Josh’s dad. In the end David is given immunity for hitting that sweet spot between delicious food and deadly poison.

Tune in Sunday, when the contestant least able to make a chocolate fudge sundae using lard and tripe will be going home.