Previously on MasterChef: Sav fell victim to Darren Purchese’s famous sadism, and departed the kitchen to floods of tears, never to return again.

Or…DID SHE?

One assumes that being eliminated from MasterChef, like being hurled down a bottomless shaft by Darth Vader, is an end to the matter. But tonight, just like Emperor Palpatine, somehow the eliminated contestants have returned, to wreak terrible revenge on the kitchen that wronged them. The gang’s all here: Juan, Sav, Lily, Khristian, the tall guy, that other one, whatsherface, everyone!

The non-eliminated contestants erupt with joy upon hearing that they won’t be cooking today, as their weeks on the show have taught them to loathe food and all it stands for. They’re also happy to see their old rivals return and get the chance to suffer the crushing disappointment of being eliminated twice. Just one of the returnees will remain in the competition – whoever cooks best today stays, the rest are kicked again to the kerb.

The returnees are each given a pair of secateurs, a pair of gardening gloves, and a card with the name of a herb on it. They will have to go to the garden, harvest their herb, and do something with it, preferably food-related.

The show kicks into high gear as we experience the high-octane thrills of watching people run in and out of a garden. On the balcony the safe amateurs watch, still wearing their white aprons for some reason, smiling smugly at the desperate flailings of the already-failed beneath.

Khristian wishes to cook a dish that reflects a) Khristian, and b) how far he’s come in the competition (ie not very). He will fulfil a) by making a rack of lamb, which perfectly reflects him, because he is himself young, cute and woolly.

Juan tells the judges he wants to surprise them with a nice dish. The judges agree that that definitely will surprise them. Juan’s herb is coriander, which most people would see as a disaster, but he’s decided to lean in by making a blue cheese panna cotta with pumpkin, cunningly hiding the coriander’s awful taste within the awfulness of the other ingredients.

Sav is feeling flustered because Sri Lankan cuisine doesn’t use herbs and she can’t figure out how to get chives into the dish. In fact, it’s very simple to get chives into a dish: you just sort of drop them. But Sav is inexperienced and stares blankly at her chives, seeking understanding but failing to gain any insight into their essential nature.

The entire kitchen is suddenly shocked by the revelation that at one point there was a woman called “Steph” on the show. This could change everything. We’re just starting to recover from this bombshell when a guy called “Jonathan” appears and turns us all upside down again.

Khristian is feeling the pressure, noting that Andy “grew up in an Aussie household” and therefore would be an expert on lamb. However, we’ve met Andy’s mum, and we can be fairly certain that Andy’s upbringing did not prepare him to judge any kind of human food.

The show kicks into high gear as we experience the high-octane thrills of watching people run in and out of a garden.

Back to Sav, who continues to find chives utterly bewildering, but has come up with a plan to overcome her confusion: she’ll start talking about her mother so nobody notices what she’s cooking.

Snezana reveals that stuffed capsicum is a Serbian national dish. No wonder she emigrated. She looks at her oven and is struck by the fact that her oven is only one oven. She needs two ovens. She asks Juan if he needs his oven. Juan tells her that yes, because he’s actually in a cooking competition right now. She asks Khristian. She asks Jonathan. She asks someone called “James” who has snuck undetected into the kitchen. After asking almost everyone, she finally finds a spare oven: it belongs to Steph, who doesn’t need her oven because she’s not allowed to be near heat. Snezana rejoices: her dish is saved thanks to her parasitism.

Sofia and Jean-Christophe chat to Steph, and note how much more confident she seems than before. There’s a simple reason for this: this person is not actually Steph, and nobody has picked up on it because nobody remembers what Steph looks like.

With ten minutes to go, Jonathan has finished earlier than expected, which as we know from his previous stint on the show, is kind of a habit with him. Meanwhile Sav is panicking as the judges aggressively interrogate her about her prawns, and realises that she has no choice but to talk more about her mother. Meanwhile, Steph is happy with her pasta. “I want the judges to see my creative side,” she says, which would make a total of one side of Steph that the judges have seen.

It is time for plating, and for most of the people in the kitchen to have their life’s ambitions destroyed for the second time. “I’m definitely here to stay,” says Snezana without evidence.

The judges bravely begin putting things in their mouths. Firstly Juan’s blue cheese panna cotta in a pumpkin crown, which looks like the disembodied eye socket of some hideous sea monster. It’s theoretically good. Next, Khristian’s lamb and orange and cauliflower and Brussels sprouts and god knows what. It’s pink in the middle and everyone leaps for joy.

Next, Steph, with her weird-shaped pasta. She’s been focusing on Sardinian cuisine, which is just so Steph, isn’t it? No wonder she’s become such a fan favourite. Anyway her pasta is fine but Sofia wishes there were an extra squeeze of lemon, causing Steph to look at her with the most chillingly passive-aggressive smile this show has ever seen.

Next, Lily, who we’ve barely seen today and therefore has no chance. Then, James, who I am absolutely sure was never on MasterChef before tonight. Then Jonathan, who also has no chance but who Jean-Christophe calls “sexy” so he has something to take home with him.

Now, Snezana and her unsettling stuffed capsicum and Serbian bread and suchlike. She is very pleased, and so are the judges. They thank her for finally allowing them to eat something nice after the garbage everyone else has been serving up.

And here comes Sav, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Chives. She has made a Sri Lankan feast comprising pork and prawns and potatoes and cashews and just so much stuff, she surely wins on volume alone. She also talks about her mother some more, just to make clear how immoral the judges will be if they don’t pick her. “Every time you cook, we feel all that emotion,” says Sofia, who has already forgotten yesterday’s pressure test. The Sri Lankan feast is a triumph, obviously.

Judgement time. “There was a lot of great dishes,” Andy lies, before nominating Sav and Snezana as the standouts. It’s Snez’s stuffing versus Sav’s Chive Talkin’, and in the end it goes to the cook who used their herb most creatively. Which is…

Sav! Makes that whole Darren Purchese thing yesterday feel like a big waste of time, doesn’t it? Anyway, one night out and then straight back in, Sav lives to cook more curries and tell more stories about her mother. All hail her, and the other seven losers go home to ponder why the universe seems to hate them so much.

Tune in on Sunday, when in a surprise twist everyone eliminated in every other season of MasterChef returns to compete for a place.