• The MasterChef recap collection: we watched the show so you didn't have to

Welcome to our favourite time of the week, where we send a contestant home and promptly forget about their existence.

The gang enter the MasterChef kitchen ready for this elimination round, but are surprised to see a big-screen TV in place of the judges. The contestants are all like "what could possibly be going on" like the producers haven't just told them to act confused. But before we have time to discuss it, Andy's mug pops up on the screen. Great, he has become a YouTuber! Andy gives us a selfie-point-of-view of his "day on the plate". This means ordering croissants from Lune and tacos for lunch and cooking steak for one in his apartment. If this isn't Channel 10's play for Andy as Bachelor 2021 then I will eat a poo chute.

Melissa's day on the plate begins with cake for breakfast and snuggles with her cat and ends with slurping pasta. This woman is speaking my language!

A normal day in Jock's life shows that he owns the fanciest pasta machine on the planet, and, man, I thought my juicer took up too much space on my kitchen counter. Jock says that making pasta is the most beautiful thing in the world and now we know why Laura makes so much of it.

The judges come back as real humans and Andy lets us know that the deal for this elimination is that you can cook anything from each of the judge's pantries based on their Day on the Plate. Good luck to whoever tries anything with the HP sauce from Jock.

As the contestants rush to shop for ingredients, it starts looking like Coles during the first few weeks of lockdown panic-buying, except instead of loo rolls and penne, it's tomatillos and vanilla beans.

One brave soul has taken a bottle of Jock's HP sauce, so he scours the kitchen to find them and presumably shake their hand. Turns out it's Amina, who has decided to take a leaf out of Laura's book and score brownie points with Jock.

Here's Dani. She has decided not to use her immunity pin this challenge and is going to have to work hard to get her tacos done on the platye time. Another day, another Usain Bolt reference.

Sweet Brendan has decided to make biang biang hand-pulled noodles, and if you haven't seen how they are traditionally made – Google it; it's soft porn for noodle fiends. The producers treat us to a cut of Brendan banging the noodles in slow-mo.

Reynold's hair looks like it's in about week four of lockdown. Just like his mohawk, Reynold's dessert also looks out of control; there are so many elements and techniques jammed into it the name of the dish is looking like a one page essay.

The whipped ganache is normally meant to set overnight, but Reynold decides to risk it for the biscuit and blast chill it for an hour instead, saying he likes the adrenaline. Look, some people get their kicks from riding motorcycles over cars, some get them from hoping a ganache cools in the fridge in time. To each their own!

Hayden has taken the Mexican route from Andy's pantry and is making chilaquiles. He decides to make his own hot sauce, but scrapes all the jalapeno seeds out because he doesn't want to make it "too hot". Sounds about white.

Oh god. Poh is staring blankly at her oven. We all know where this leads. Sarah asks Poh if she's ok from up in the gantry. 'I don't know," replies Poh. Let the chaos begin.

So, to back up, Poh is making her classic vanilla slice, but her pastry is too blonde. She needs to take it out of the oven so it cools in time. This is all very triggering for her and she begins to take us back in time, explaining that in season one she was known as the "Poh-llercoaster" – high highs, but low lows. Over the last 10 years, she has come to accept that this is just part of her nature, and wow, this is the kind of self-actualisation we all need to hear right now as we cry over our terrible iso sourdoughs.

Meanwhile, Reynold is just casually floating around his station like a Buddhist monk. He has actually defied modern science and set his whipped ganache in no time at all. He's also managed to add almost all of his 1000 components to his dish and still has 25 minutes to go. Reynold tries to play it down, but we all know everyone else may as well go home.

Ben Milbourne is having an existential crisis about fish collars and salmon tail. His heart wants him to do a fish collar, but he reckons his salmon tail is cooked perfectly (am I the only one who thinks it looks extremely burnt?). He says he might make a last minute swap at the end, which seems like a very bad idea.

With 10 minutes to go everyone starts to lose their s--t: Dani's taco tortilla looks as thick as a pancake; Rose's panna cotta still hasn't set; Poh is standing around waiting for her pastry to cool; and Amina's kebabs fall to mush on the grill. HP sauce: so little promise, equally little reward.

So far we haven't seen much of Laura, but we can safely assume from the Italian she spits out at Sarah she's making pasta, so I guess we've seen it all before anyway.

Dani has decided to make her pancake taco into a fine-dining version, which to her means just making it smaller. Oof, way to burn the fine-dining community when they're down.

Thirty seconds to go and Poh finally starts plating up her vanilla slice. The pastry is golden, the cream squiggles on perfectly. The Pohllercoaster is back on top, baby!

Poh is the first one up to the judging table, looking smug AF with her perfectly layered slice. Melissa says "It's the way it shatters that matters," and now you know why she's successful a food writer.

Side note: I will never understand why people enjoy eating a millefeuille, (which is what Poh's dessert is now being called after all this time she was almost going to fail and it could just be a vanilla slice, I see what you did there), it just flakes and squidges everywhere once you have one bite. It's like you need to use a thousand serviettes just to make it seem like you aren't a disgusting adult baby who can't eat something without leaving a giant pastry mess in your wake.

Anyway, I digress. Poh's millefeuille is a winner.

Brendan is up next with his biang biang noodles with cumin beef. Melissa slurps a noodle for about 20 minutes. Jock says the sauce is "pinging in his mouth". Andy says his lips are dancing. I'm starting to think Brendan put something other than cumin in these noodles...

Dani brings over her puffy taco, which Andy agrees with me (thanks, mate) is far too thick and hasn't cooked properly. I would love to know more about Jess' dessert, but all we get is Melissa saying it looks like Toad from Mario Kart. Jess is like… thanks?

Ben Ungermann brings over his vanilla bean ice-cream. I have no more comments about Ben's arrest, so maybe you can infer on your own what it means that his t-shirt looks like it was taken from Hamburglar's wardrobe.

I didn't say it!!!

Anyway, I'm not the only one to make low-brow jokes about Ben, Jock makes his first, and hopefully not last, d--- joke! Ben has unwittingly done some phallic plating with two ice-cream blobs on either side of a very erect shard of pancetta caramel. Is he projecting or something? Well, you know what they say about oven mitt size…

Of course, Reynold has made some sort of contemporary art. There's meringue shards, nut crumbles, frozen cream. Whatever happened to good old cake, says a Karen, somewhere in Australia. It's group hug-worthy. Jock says it's "so good" a thousand times. Melissa says it's transcendental magic. We get it, Melissa, you're a food writer.

Rose's panna cotta is up next, and turns out she needn't have worried about it setting. The texture is perfect. Unfortunately her black sesame crumbs are too blonde. It must have been pretty bad, because the judges all bitch about it as she leaves the table. "She doesn't even go here," says Andy. But in all fairness to Rose, not to be the cook who blames her tools, but with all this "blondeness" happening, can someone pls check the temperature of these MasterChef ovens?!

Old mate Haydo brings his chilaquiles with a coupla beers in his back pocket. Bloody ripper. But, the judges are like, "not cool that you didn't make your own corn chips, bro". Seriously, come on, Reynold makes a science-defying whipped ganache and several degrees of caramels and meringues, and you think a bag of doritos is gonna cut it? Get the bloke out of here.

Laura and pasta number 7,000 is up. Jock loves it, yada yada yada, something about a silky gigolo. I don't care for this plotline anymore.

Ben Milbourne brings up his salmon tail. Jock tears into it and the flesh looks as opaque as brick wall – the salmon is overcooked. Andy says the walnut cream is too acidic. So much so that Jock says it hurts the roof of his mouth. Someone please get the man an ice cube to suck on!

Amina serves up her kebabs. She's not feeling confident, but at least she made everything on the plate, not looking at anyone *cough* Hayden *cough*. Andy says her kebab is not quite right, but the flavour was there. Jock reveals he is not a garlic guy (and he calls himself an Italian?), but he loves it. Bit miffed no one mentioned the HP sauce after all that fuss.

It's time for the final call. Reynold, Brendan and Tessa make the top three. Kudos to Tessa who always seems to make something flawless yet gets about two seconds of air time each episode. More Tessa time pls, producers.

In the bottom two: Rose and Ben Milbourne. Rose's crumb was undercooked and Ben's salmon was over. But Jock says that Ben's walnut cream was so acidic that no one could finish the plate. Jeez, what did he put in that cream, battery acid? Ben is out.

But what about Bandy??!!

Andy has a look on his face like he's about to break up with someone and just wishes he had done it over text. Ben makes it awkward by saying one of the only reasons he went on the show was for Andy. Ben cries, they hug, I cringe. Let's all go to bed.

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