There were no Korea highlights for Danielle, Michael and Adam when David Chang visited, so now they're in the doghouse. Ellie claimed she was sick, and had a note from Mum to prove it, but she's facing expulsion too. Things sure are getting tough at the pointy end of MasterChef.
Adam surprises us all by saying it's his first elimination challenge. You know, Adam. The dive shop guy from Brisbane. One of the many you've barely noticed while they skulk in the safe middle ground, proving it is possible to be on a top-rating show six nights a week and yet remain almost anonymous.
Tonight, he says, he's looking for danger. "The reason I came on MasterChef was to see if I could put myself through fear again." We can only assume he's planning to dive through that burning ring of fire this evening.
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Elsewhere in MasterChefland Michael wakes up with a naked Hayden in his room. Around the nation, the pause and rewind buttons of a million recording devices take a thorough beating.Michael says he wants to cook for his mum; last week, he was cooking for his dad. If he keeps chewing through rellies like this and he makes it to the final, he'll have to dedicate his last supper to a second cousin once removed in Tbilisi.
Ellie has miraculously arisen from her deathbed to tell us life isn't fair. "Yesterday I was really sick and couldn't compete," she sulks. "The rules are that if you are sick on a challenge day that could put you into an elimination, you automatically will go into that elimination." Hmpf.
She adds that the biggest pleasure you can get out of food is cooking for your family. Evidently she missed the 100 Things To Do With Cream in a Can class while she was comatose.
Adam likens the kitchen to a coliseum. "We're fighting for our survival today," he says somewhat unnecessarily.
We all know George's mum is on tonight, but George is playing coy. He tells the four gladiators they're going to be cooking food that "comes from here", and clutches his sternum like he's got heartburn. Something oily, then.
"This person has also taught me that food is family," George continues. Is it cannibal night?
"This person," he goes on, "is my mother".
Dude, don't you watch the ads? We knew that already.
Mary Colombaris comes out and finally one of the most pressing questions of our time is answered: so that's what George would look like if he wore a toupe styled after Sam Newman's hairdo.
"Who's the better cook," asks Emperor Mattius Prestonius. "You or George?"
"I think I am," says Mary. "You want to know the reason? I don't bastardise my food."
Ouch. Taken down by Mamma on national telly; I don't care how many restaurants you own, that's got to hurt.
And so to the challenge. Tonight the worst best amateur chefs in the country will be making four dishes: pita; tzatziki; koupes (a meat pie); hummus; and shamishi (a fried pastry filled with semolina custard). Yes, I know that's five. No recipe for the tzatziki or hummus, recipes for everything else including the bread, 90 minutes to do it all.
Danielle realises she's going to have to get everything right tonight, thereby establishing herself as the clear frontrunner.
Adam points out that the worst of them will go home at the end of the challenge. Watch out Danielle, he's right behind you!
George asks Adam where he's going to be getting his heart from today. "I'll get my heart from all my friends and my girlfriend," Diverman answers, once again raising the spectre of cannibalism. Did he say he wanted to find fear or strike fear?
Ellie is struggling with her dough. "I don't have any muscle at all," she says while looking kneadily at Mary. Mary obliges by taking over. Gary disobliges by dragging her away.
Michael's mastered the lost-puppy face too, and this time it's George dragging Mary away before she has a chance to finish the whole four courses and whip up a batch of retsina in her down time.
George chips in with one of his hilarious off-the-cuff unscripted one-liners. "Greek is the word, and today it's got heart, it's got meaning." Ooh, there's that heartburn again. Frankie Valli, are you watching this?
They have to make semolina custard for the shamishi, and it has mastic in it apparently. Isn't mastic something they use on building sites? You wouldn't want to use the wrong one by mistake. That'd be a massive drastic mastic mess-up.
High above on the balcony, Alana proves her worth as a clairvoyant by predicting Ellie's semolina custard will be lumpy. And yea verily, it was lumpy. Ellie admits she's flustered and her brain has gone lumpy. She can make the custard again, but she's stuck with the brain.
Mary wanders over to check on Adam's mince and breaks out her best James Brown impersonation. "Break it down," she says. "You gotta, gotta break it down. Hunh. Good God almighty."
Adam's doing just fine, she says, apart from the lack of breaking down and the fact that his parsley bits are too big and, ugh, didn't I tell ya to break it down?
"It's so relaxing having Mary in the kitchen," says Adam, apparently under the impression it is Opposite Day.
Mary tells George they've given them too much to do. "We should give them an extra 10 minutes," she says.
"Ya reckon?" says George, almost forgetting whose show this is. "Nah," he adds, remembering. "I'm in charge of the time." And the seasons, George. Don't forget the seasons.
Danielle has found the heart of her meal at last: it's garlic. Tzatziki Danielle style: add some cucumber to garlic. Hummus Danielle style: add some chickpeas to garlic. Custard Danielle style: add some ... well, maybe not. Still, it's a slight improvement on her Korean night secret ingredient, salt.
Three minutes to go and Ellie's got nothing ready. Adam's not much better, struggling with his koupes, which are supposed to be little pastry Sherrins stuffed with mince, but in his hands look more like deflated soccer balls. Mary shows him how to do them, which means he's at least got one right.
Danielle does a batch of shamishi in a vat of oil so hot you could tip it over the side of a castle to fend off the barbarian hordes. Ellie plates up some hummus that looks perfect for rendering your Tuscan-style villa. Michael's selection looks surprisingly good.
He's up for judging first. He again cites his mum as inspiration, a blatant and by now rather tired ploy to win Mary's vote. His tzatziki and koupes are winners, his hummus a dud, his shamishi borderline.
Danielle is up next and she pulls the old "I miss Mum and Dad" stunt too. They like the look of her all-in-one plate, but it's a pity about the stuff on it. Her koupe runneth over ... with oil. Her mastic is gummy and soapy and uncooked. Her tzatziki is good for one thing only – warding off the unwanted advances of randy Transylvanians. "I think Danielle is in trouble with what she's put up here," says Prestonius Maximus. And with that Danielle disappears in a ball of flame.
Ad break over, here comes Ellie, who admits she ran out of love and heart in her recipe but at least she had a handy stash of sweat and panic in reserve. Yum.
She launches a pre-emptive attack on her messy working methods, and Mary offers the kind of indulgent matronly smile that says don't you worry 'bout a thing.
The hummus is "thick and stodgy" says George, but everything else is fine. "There's a reason they call her the Ellieminator," says Mattius Maximus.
Adam says he had a really good time cooking "food that goes straight to your heart". The judges look on approvingly and savour the anticipation of arteries clogging with every mouthful.
Adam's koupes look like a plate of severed peasant fingers – short, fat, misshapen. But there's one that looks perfect, George notes. Oh. It's Mary's.
It seems Adam has used all his dive shop nous on the tzatziki; "it's like seawater," says Gary. His custard pastry is poor too.
It's plea bargain time and Danielle gets in first by hitting the teary switch. She's been chained up in the auto shop in Brisbane, slaving away for her cruel parents, never having a moment of her own. She lost a piece of herself, she says, somewhere between the spark plugs and the Valvoline. Being on MasterChef, "I can feel me becoming complete again". Stop. You had me at Valvoline.
Deeply moved by this Grimm tale, Adam makes a move no one has seen coming. He takes a dive for the team.
"It's like a guilt rod has run through my heart," he says. "I feel like an impostor."
He came on the show, he says, to see if he loves the life he already has, and it turns out he rather does. "I came along thinking I wanted to open up a restaurant." Now, he says, "I know I don't have the desire Danielle does".
This is one of those moments, all too rare this season. A contestant is bowing out, gracefully. In the sea of self-delusion series three has been, it's a true beacon of honesty.
Well done, Adam. A perfect dive.
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