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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Meg Watson

Contestant left 'devastated' as final two revealed – as it happened

Andy Allen, Melissa Leong and Jock Zonfrillo, the judges of MasterChef Australia 2020.
Andy Allen, Melissa Leong and Jock Zonfrillo, the judges of MasterChef Australia 2020. Photograph: Network Ten

Can’t believe I just spent two hours writing in this blog when Khanh summed it all up in three words.

Updated

This means that tomorrow’s Masterchef: Back To Win grand final will be between Emelia and Laura.

They are both fantastic cooks! But it’s impossible to think of a grand final of this show without Reynold. He truly was the GOAT.

If you want to revisit some of Reynold’s best work over these past few months, there’s a great little thread going on here:

He really did create food magic. People are not taking this departure well.

People are, however, responding well to the way he chose to go out. His story is a stark reminder of how difficult these past few months have been for those who were already facing different kinds of disadvantage.

Reynold did his incredibly family proud. And we now know that first-hand! His brother Arnold just tweeted a very sweet message:

“Thank you for leaving the legacy of our family, story, our name. Most importantly thank you for showing everyone that nothing is impossible.”

I’ll see you back here tomorrow night for the impossibly Reynold-less grand final.

Updated

“Reynold, to us, you embody what this competition is all about,” Mel says.

“Your obsession with excellence, and your relentless pursuit of perfection is what makes you one of the brightest and most promising stars of the MasterChef universe - as well as the Australian food industry.”

“This competition has given [me] so much. I’m so happy to be here,” Reynold says through tears.

Reynold crying

“I feel so devastated. I really believed that I could win … I don’t know where it’s going to take me, but I know that from here on it’s nowhere but up.”

Reynold is eliminated

Laura’s apple might have looked like a pear, but she nailed the caramel - and that’s far more crucial than the shape.

“Reynold, your dish may have looked better but Laura, we unanimously agreed that yours ate better,” Jock says.

This is why Reynold, he announces, his going home.

Laura immediately apologises. Reynold tries to keep it together for a beat, but collapses in tears. He turns his back to the camera and hunches over the bench.

No one can hug him. Not one can touch him. It’s even more crushing than I thought it would be.

Reynold hunched over the bench
Reynold crying

Martin says that everyone should be commended for putting up with his deranged creation. They all leave with their sanity, and for that they should be proud.

Jock announces the winner of the challenge and the first person going into the finale: Emelia.

Emelia looking surprsied
You called it, mate! Photograph: Network Ten

She starts crying. But it’s nice cleansing happy crying, in this sandwich of Reynold despair.

Ok. This is it. The judges are tasting Reynold’s toffee apple.

There are some positives: the raspberry leaf, they say, is the best one of the day.

Unfortunately, the caramel does not have the right taste. It’s too sweet. This throws off the balance of the dish. It affects everything. Between this, the size of the apple, and the consistency of some of those oven-baked leaves, it’s enough to send him home.

In the end, it’s an easy decision. This is going to be horrific.

The support for Reynold is pouring in. This season of MasterChef has done such an incredible job of telling these stories.

And, now a very hard transition to the dish that will probably send Reynold home… Of course, the judges immediately notice that the apple is too small.

“There is a lot riding on this mouth of food,” Andy says.

Reynold breaks down: ‘I haven’t had an easy life'

Reynold is emotional, and he starts talking about what this moment means for him more generally.

“I haven’t had an easy life - as an immigrant,” he says. “I’m not the kind of person to talk too deep. I keep it in a little box, you’ll never see me get emotional until I speak about it. But my mum and dad are both very hard workers - my brothers as well. It’s one of those things: no matter how hard my family works, there’s always something that knocks us down.

“I hate this.” He starts crying.

Reynold crying

“We do have KOI - people think it’s successful, and it is, it’s great. But there are moments where we took the success for granted … now we’re trying to keep our head up high, maintain our image. People see our product as so great, but why is it that we’re still struggling? That’s the sad part of this business. The hospitality industry has never been easy.

“I didn’t come here for the fame - I came on here because I love to cook ... Winning - it’s not about the title, it’s about being able to give back to my family.”

This is heartbreaking.

Mel, the only one qualified for this discussion, comforts him: “Don’t discount the hope that you give - for everybody who is trying to realise a dream.”

“To be honest with you, the only thing that stands between you and the grand finale is this dish right here,” Jock says.

Wow, great insight, someone get this man some more money!!

Time to taste: Reynold’s fancy apple

Reynold is giving a speech about “never giving up” while desperately battering up his misshapen apple with toffee. I can’t hear it, but I can only assume he’s sadly muttering “It’s still good, it’s still good, it’s still good” under his breath.

And then, right when he’s convinced himself things are good, things are bad again. He snaps the apple’s chocolate stem.

His hands are shaking, crushing everything within their grasp. There are seconds left. Ten, nine, eight, seven… and he finally slides a new stem into place. He does it.

I can’t believe how much anxiety this has given me.

Mood.

Reynold with his head down

And, we’re back for the verdict on Laura’s fancy toffee apple.

“Compared to Emelia’s, you can’t really compare it,” Marty says. “The apple isn’t really an apple shape.” Not a great start.

The much better news: the flavours are bang on.

The caramel is taken to the absolute limit of being burnt, and the texture of the leaves is perfect. Laura is clearly in a very strong second place. And, considering how little of tonight’s episode we spent with her, I’m guessing this is very bad news for Reynold.

It could be worse...

Updated

Time to taste: Laura’s fancy apple

Laura’s apple doesn’t look quite as round as Emelia’s or Martin’s, so she paints some extra toffee ‘round the sides. She’s a bit worried about this, and her stem - but confident in the rest of the components.

Laura's apple

We’re off to an ad break as the entire country prays for Reynold.

Time to taste: Emelia’s fancy apple

Each contestant has five minutes to plate their dish. Emelia is stoked with how her dish has turned out. Her apple looks just like Marty B’s, her leaves are well formed, every element is on there.

“This is it. This is all I can do, on a plate,” Emelia says.

Emelia's toffee apple. It looks great.

Mel says she should be “so proud of herself”. And she bloody well is. Emelia reckons this is the dish to take her through to the grand final.

She says she’s dropped all the anxiety that comes along with the MasterChef kitchen, and she’s ready to just live in the moment and advocate for herself. Love this for her.

Marty thinks it looks “pretty damn good” - “it’s a very, very good effort”. They taste, and the praise gets even better. “I think that was an extraordinary dish,” Marty says.

“She’s done an incredible job,” Jock says.

“She has nailed it,” Andy says. This is one step ahead of “bangin’” in the four-point Andy Allen compliments list, so she must have done well!!

Emelia looking happy
All that, and the lipstick is still intact. Photograph: Network Ten

The cook is over.

Laura says “I have chest pains. It hurts so much.”

Same.

Emelia is re-doing another thing!! She’s making a new caramel for ther chocolate caramel stem. She’s operating on Poh’s clock at this point. With 10 seconds to go, she’s trying to remember what a twig looks like.

Laura is desperately counting up all her elements. (Remember: they have a final five minutes to plate it all up in front of the judges). Her main problem is the shape of her apple. It’s sunken in a weird way, after coming out of the oven and kind of looks like a pear.

Meanwhile, Reynold...

The thing I love about MasterChef is how practical it is. A new challenge for iso 2.0.

Eight minutes to go! And Reynold isn’t the only one in trouble now. As Emelia’s dicing her raspberry jelly, she looks up and finds that her caramel is totally burnt.

That is surely a more significant problem than a misshapen apple?

From the gantry, 500 choral singers scream in unison.

Everyone is (rightfully) freaking out about time. There are an impossible number of things to do - the first of which is a chocolate stem.

“I’m not even going to look at the recipe,” Reynold says. Mate.

Emelia’s apple scroll is out of the oven, and it’s perfect! She’s preening over it like a proud mum mouthing “pretty pretty pretty”. Laura’s is good too - beautiful and round and full.

Reynold’s, on the other hand, looks like a melting fruit roll-up. It will go nicely with the raspberry leaves which he just evaporated with a hairdryer, screwed up in a ball and threw across the room.

Andy looking serious
“I’m all shook up” - Andy, probably Photograph: Network Ten

More disaster for Reynold

45 minutes to go! And things are not going well for Reynold. His plan to go off the set recipe surprisingly did not work out. Jock asks what’s going on with the leaves in the oven.

“It’s all goo- OH MY GOD,” Reynold replies, cooly.

He desperately clamours into the oven and all his pumpkin leaves have flattened and lost most of their detail.

Flat leaves
Trash leaves. Photograph: Network Ten

He has a million more steps to do. He can refold them a bit, but at this point you just have to accept the failure.

Emelia, what an inspiration.

She has now done THREE batches of leaves. Truly, how??

Laura’s impossible raspberry leaves come out perfectly (without any help).

We’re in the last 50 minutes and Marty says the toughest one is the last: the pumpkin.

Right on cue: Reynold has a problem with his leaf. The pumpkin leaf has to be fried, but it shouldn’t be oily. Reynold decides to chuck his leaf in the oven to bake off some extra oil. “I know this isn’t in the recipe but...”

Oh, god. Those are famous last words.

Emelia is on to her raspberry leaves. They’re so delicate that she can’t handle them without them breaking. She’s starting over. !! Again: they have two minutes for each step of this recipe. I don’t know where she’s pulling that extra time from.

Some good news for Laura: her apple is looking in much better shape (ie the correct shape of an apple).

Things are not so good for Reynold. His apple scrolls are tight and flat, and he doesn’t have time to do it all again. He just has to power through and try to somehow shape it further down the track.

There are a lot of anti-Laura tweets out there that need to be reined in, folks. Everyone has their difficult moments.

Reynold’s apple massacre

Uh oh, Reynold opens his apple moulds and it’s a total massacre. The tight ribbons have tipped over and they’re gushing caramel everywhere. He’s doing open-heart surgery and his patient is dead on the table.

Tight apple scrolls that look like hearts
rip Photograph: Network Ten

Marty B points out the next crucial moment: when the leaves come out of the oven. You have to be very, very quick to get them out of the mould and twist them into shape.

Also, as Emelia learns, you have to do it in the oven. Sounds safe!!

Emelia does a great job, even as the judges closely watch on. I am honestly exhausted from watching all this.

Everyone’s painting and wrapping their little fruit rollups, to varying degrees of success.

Emelia ditched one of her two apple rollups because it was too loose and floppy.

Reynold has two options, but they’re rolled so tightly they don’t really look like apples at all.

Laura’s looks quite good - it’s rounded as the same way as Marty’s, so she doesn’t bother with a second.

Emelia saves Laura

Argh! WHOLESOME ALERT. Emelia comes to the rescue - losing valuable minutes on her 769-step recipe - to help Laura position the apple in the right way. It takes a while. Reynold also stops to help and offer support.

Laura really was about to break down, and she may not have figured it out at all. Helping her out is a big decision when there’s $250,000 on the line!

It’s a real throwback to the moment that Jess stopped to help Amina in a (particularly cruel) pressure test in May. The good news: Jess’ sweet spirit lives on! The bad news (for Laura): that challenge ended up sending Amina home anyway… Do you reckon she can recover?

Updated

What do you all reckon about this?

I’m in two minds: the judges are there to guide and mentor, but directly helping a contestant complete a set task seems unfair at this point in the competition.

For anyone confused by what’s happening with the apples, it is the extremely up-market version of this:

Laura, on the other hand, is really struggling with the apple. She’s burning through ‘em. Nothing’s slicing in the way that it should. She can’t work the machine in the right way.

She says “my eyes are watering”, which is posh talk for ‘crying’.

I wonder if anyone will help her out?

You know who would…

Updated

They keep referring to these as “apple scrolls”, which is very triggering for me as a former Bakers Delight employee.

45 minutes have passed, and those pumpkin/persimmon leaves must have made for boring TV because everyone’s miraculously finished them off-screen.

On to the apple slicer! We’re right on schedule for some failure.

The contestants have to keep continuous and steady pressure on the blade to ensure that the apple slices in one even strip. Emelia’s having trouble, but her third attempt looks decent.

And ah, Reynold smashes it first go??? Marty utters a guttural “woh” sound when he sees it, which Reynold will remember for the rest of his life.

Laura says the pressure is on her today because both Emelia and Reynold are both dessert gods.

Reynold thinks the pressure is actually all on him, as he’s never been in a semi-final before. He does have an advantage, though, because he’s completely in love with this man’s sadistic sugar cooking.

Emelia correctly says “it’s the biggest pressure test I’ve ever been involved in”. Do you think it’s the toughest one we’ve ever seen? Remember when a croquembouche was the toughest thing you’d find in the MasterChef kitchen? :\

There are literally 113 steps to this recipe. The challenge takes place over 225 minutes, which means they have about two minutes for each step. That includes reading time.

Pressure test: ‘recreate my life’s work’

Tonight’s challenge is a pressure test, where contestants must recreate an extremely Fancy Toffee Apple from renowned chef Martin Benn.

I have no idea what I’m looking at. I could honestly not name one ingredient of what is before my eyes. I assume one is apple, but I could be wrong.

Reynold looking amazed
Get you a man who looks at you like Reynold looks at this apple. Photograph: Network Ten

Jock asks Marty for the story behind the apple.

“I’m from the motherland, just like yourself,” he starts. (Jock is famously Scottish - a nation that does not always love being lumped in with the British, but go on). He says he wanted to really take the “toffee” in “toffee apple” to the next level. The apple has been sliced in one continuous strip, lacquered in toffee, then rolled back up. When you cut it open, you can see all the layers.

Close up of apple
One of my favourite Georgia O’Keefe paintings. Photograph: Network Ten

The leaves are another thing entirely. Emelia notes that they each taste different, and have differing textures too. They look like real Autumn leaves dipped in glitter and 24 carat gold.

Marty gives the broad instructions: the apple is spun out in one go on a Japanese slicer, the caramel is “taken as far as you can without burning it”, the leaves “have been a life’s work for me”. Lol.

“Each leaf is a different colour … it shows you the different stage of a leaf as it falls from the tree. The brown one is muscovado sugar, the red one is raspberry [sour] sugar.” The gold one, he says, is persimmon and pumpkin: it’s a sheet of puree that’s been dried out and fried.

Reynold looking confused
Easy!! Photograph: Network Ten

At the end of the cook, they need 10 complete components on their benches.

They have three hours and 45 minutes to recreate the dish. They have five minutes to plate up right before serving. They have the full recipe on their benches, but whoa it’s quite a recipe.

They’re looking for the best two dishes - the contestant who cooks the worst Fancy Sugar Apple is outta here.

Emelia is having flashbacks to the last Martin Benn challenge she had to do in 2014: the “chocolate forest floor”. Marty eases her anxiety by saying, “Oh yeah, what’s under this cloche today is more difficult by ten-fold”.

Mel hypes up Martin Benn - he’s a titan of the industry, constantly awarded Australia’s best chef, three hats etc etc etc. She then immediately calls him “Marty” as he enters the kitchen. It’s a great power move.

Marty has created his Fancy Toffee Apple especially for today’s challenge. This is a “world premiere”, Mel says. (Is that a thing? Ok)

Reynold is an absolute fanboy. He’s “super stoked”. This is exactly the kind of food sorcery he froths over.

Everyone enters the kitchen and finds the judges all dolled up for the semi-final. Jock is wearing his finest suit. Mel is in a glittering gown. Andy, for some reason, is cosplaying as Elvis in Jailhouse Rock.

Andy in black and white striped shirt

Not everyone loved the montage I guess.

Updated

We’re on!

And we’re starting with a Reynold voiceover. This is an In Memoriam for Reynold’s best dishes - the Alice In Wonderland dessert, the snow globe, the golden snitch. He’s reflecting on the challenges of the past few months. He had to close all his venues due to the pandemic, he was worried for his family (who also work in hospitality). He wants to win, he says, to make his family proud.

Now to Laura: she entered the competition to showcase native ingredients and Italian cooking. We see a montage of pasta, a ravioli slideshow; before it moves on to her best desserts and other Things That Are Definitely Not Pasta. Message received. She talks about pulling herself out of the elimination rounds, working harder, and the challenge of facing off against such strong competitors in Emelia and Reynold. “This is everything I wanted from the moment I walked through those doors,” she says.

Emelia’s turn. She says she’s spent the past six years making cake (what a life). Entering MasterChef again, she’s had to push herself beyond that. The producers kindly cut together a package of every single time she’s cried. “I need to trust my gut, and really back myself: I deserve my place here, I can win it.”

I’m loving this newly confident Emelia!

Some background reading:

Happy Sunday, everyone! It’s that time of the week when you switch over from the coronavirus liveblog (depressing, constant barrage of bad news, existential anxiety) to the MasterChef one (fun, constant barrage of good food, kitchen-based anxiety)!

Tonight’s elimination is the semi-final of MasterChef: Back To Win, and the grand finale will come straight after it tomorrow night. Our top three contestants are Reynold, Emelia and Laura. And that is, incidentally, also my ranking of who’s most likely to win!

Agree/disagree? Send me an email or tweet @msmegwatson with your predictions. I still stand by this one.

On Tuesday night we said a very teary goodbye to Callum after he boiled a bag of sloppy snapper for way too long in the sous vide. You can catch up on that here.

At 7.30pm, the final three contestants will face a huge pressure test from Martin Benn. The dish: a 110-step toffee apple. It took the three-hatted chef 10 years to perfect the dish, but the contestants have just three hours and 45 minutes. Good luck to them!

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