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Well, the first week was fun, but now it's time to get down to what MasterChef is all about: punishing failure. It's an all-in elimination, which means that apart from the immunity winner Julie, everyone has to risk elimination, except for the ones with immunity pins who can avoid it, unless they don't use them in which case they can't. Simple.

The cooks enter the kitchen as the judges applaud with what can only be interpreted as heavy sarcasm. Jock explains that at the end of the day, one of them is going home, sadly not realising that many of them have no home to go to and will have to go back to the streets.

The elimination is in two rounds. In round one, the Fans go up against the Favourites to make a "jaffle", which is what New Zealanders call thongs. Whoever makes the tastiest jaffle will save their entire team, who will join Julie on the balcony to hurl abuse at the other team.

Harry declares her intention to make a Big Mac-inspired mushroom jaffle, causing all and sundry to wonder what the hell she's talking about. Meanwhile the judges confer, Andy telling the others how much he enjoys having his chin burnt, before moving on to tell Minoli she's not got enough time so she better stop faffing about talking to judges. Jenn is also struggling with time management. "I'm taking a big risk," she says, sprinkling gunpowder in her pan.

Michael is making a lobster Thermidor jaffle, which is a good indication of just how badly the pressure is starting to affect contestants mentally. To prove how serious he is, we are treated to a brief shot of Michael gazing intently at a quiche. It's a moving moment. Meanwhile Christina bursts into hysterical laughter as she realises that her dish is a terrible idea.

Up on the balcony, Julie, the main character of the show, watches on. "It smells amazing, guys," she calls down. "YOU smell amazing, Julie!" Christina shouts back, bafflingly. The judges begin singing a song about Julie. The cooks all raise their lighters in the air and start swaying.

Time to serve the jaffles. "I am happy with the jaffle," says Jenn, unfortunately juxtaposed with a closeup of her jaffle which proves she shouldn't be. Melissa likes it, which is further evidence. After an extended period of jaffle-tasting, and also some tasting of some things that aren't sandwiches because they have no bread in them – looking at you Jenn and Christina – a winner is announced and it is Minoli, thank goodness. This means the Favourites are safe from elimination and it is the Fans who must confront the cold hard reality of this cruel world. The Favourites head upstairs to join Julie and laugh about their inherent superiority.

In round two of elimination, the Faves must cook "the dish that changed your life". This is a challenge for those contestants whose life has never been changed by a dish, but an even bigger challenge for those whose life was changed by food poisoning.

When Steph thinks of dishes that changed her life, she thinks of Celebrations, so she heads out to the local servo to buy a box. Keyma is cooking a dish her grandmother used to make, having consulted the Big Book Of MasterChef Cliches, while Ali, thinking back to her childhood, is making an authentic Glasgow fish pakora. Meanwhile Chris's hands are shaking so much he can't open his sauce bottle, and frankly it doesn't look good for him.

Matt explains to Jock and Andy that he is making a fish dish based on the time he went to a restaurant and found out that fish exist. Part of the dish is a "strawberry nam jim", or at least that's what it sounds like: Matt is from New Zealand so it's never easy to know exactly what he's saying. Jock and Andy are shocked. "Nam jim?" they ask. "Nam jim," says Matt. "You're really making a nam jim?" asks Andy. "Yes I am making a nam jim," says Matt. This continues for several hours.

Meanwhile Harry tells an emotional story about the time she changed her name to Harry which gave her the confidence to burn cabbage in a public place. Her immunity pin is bothering her. She takes her tray out of the oven and stares at it, having no idea how it got there. She puts it back in the oven and hopes it goes away by itself.

Time is ticking away. Chris is increasingly frantic. "I can't over-cook anything," he says, but he underestimates his abilities, because he has burnt his noodles, which is not a euphemism. He cooks another batch of noodles, in the same oil that he burnt the previous one, a decision that causes Melissa to pull a face. But if he thinks he's got problems, at least he's not Harry, who is worried about her lentils.

Harry can play her pin and stay safe, but she feels like she needs to back herself, to have the self-belief that she can, indeed, get sent home with an immunity pin. She does not play the pin.

First to serve is Matt, who has made a strawberry nam jim, which is a nam jim with strawberries in it, as opposed to a nam jim without strawberries or a standard nam jim. What a nam jim is I have literally no idea, but gee it sounds exciting, doesn't it?

Chris serves his noodles, hoping the judges cannot taste his incompetence. They can.

Steph serves a cake, the dish that changed her life when she was 19 and she ate a cake. Andy is stunned by the way the cake is able to be cut by a knife. Not only is the cake cuttable, but it also tastes like a cake. Success!

Montana serves something or other but hasn't been in this episode at all so it doesn't matter. Same with Daniel. Ali's Scotch pakora is fine, as is Keyma's lamb and potato thingy.

"It's been four years of my life trying to get into this competition, so I'm not ready to leave," says Max, and you can understand his feelings, although you've got admit if he got eliminated first time it would be very funny. And comedy is definitely on the cards, because his tart is undercooked. This is the tart with which he proposed to his wife, so it's even more devastating that she will now know he is not the tart-maker she thought he was.

Now it is time for Harry to serve her pumpkin and lentils. "It nearly put me to sleep," says Jock, which is a bit unfair, as the inclusion of Mogadon in the sauce was deliberate on Harry's part. The judges are baffled by Harry's self-belief.

Judging time, and the big question is what would be funnier: Harry going home with a pin, Max going home first time after spending four years trying to get on the show, or Chris losing because he couldn't be bothered changing his oil?

The judges lecture these three on their failings, making it clear that they have all, in a very profound way, brought shame to their families. But the most shameful of all is Chris, and he is GORN.

"Chris, we've loved having you here in the kitchen," says Jock, doing an admirable job of remembering his name. "Thank you for being part of the family – now go and never return."

And so Chris walks sadly into the sunset, while Harry lives to stupidly waste her pin another day. Tune in tomorrow, when the season's first mystery box presents the cooks with a seemingly insoluble murder.