ppl

GOAT Billie! What an amazing end to a horrible season. I hope the producers realize that the Season 5-esque x vs. x format doesn't work. Billie received very generous scores in round 1. Does it make up for all the crap that the judges put her through this entire season? No. Maybe next time they shouldn't break people down and reduce them to tears to level the playing field. Disgusting tactics from them. Billie showed why she is the Masterchef. Perseverance, attention to detail, accuracy and quickness was what led to her 2nd title. Not to mention her humanistic qualities with her kindness and humbleness shining through each challenge. She embodies what a true Masterchef is. I had an inkling that Jock preferred Sarah over Billie and that was confirmed today. Jock gave Billie a 9 while Sarah got an 8 for the Heston finale dish and 17 points vs. 16 in favour of Sarah over the two courses. Heston looked like he had a stroke or COVID or even COVID-induced stroke. Poor guy. I hope he is ok.

Finally! Dan is out!!!!!!!! You just knew that if Daniel had an edible sorbet on the plate, Billie would have went home. The judges were already starting to spin Daniel's main as being a good course minus the fish skin. Not Billie's finest work. She was lucky Daniel made two rookie errors. Her time management was off this time. She self-sabotaged by trying to do too many elements for dessert and that impacted the rest of her dishes. If she had maybe one or two less elements on dessert, she would have the time to cook the duck perfectly and perhaps balance the entree with more time. Her Lamington dish looked really good though. Sarah sacrificed being late in making sure her dishes were presentable and balanced. She chose the right strategy because every time, being late doesn't count in a service challenge. I liked her scampi dish. Seeing Billie and Sarah book their places in the top 2 is a nice feeling after all of the questionable judging this season. I'm really happy that 2 of my top 3 actually made it to the finale. Onto Heston!

Why did they give Daniel dish of the day with Peter's savoury course when they explicitly said his plating wasn't as nice as Sarah's and her savoury flavours were identical to Peter's? Wtf. Andy helping Daniel peel his walnut. WTF?! Andy looking at Sarah putting in her second batch of cocoa tuiles into the oven and not saying anything about the plastic film on top. WTF! Loved Billie tonight. She was supportive and gave meaningful tips to everyone like telling Sarah about the plastic on top of her tuiles. Not barking out the meaningless "You GOT THIS!!" phrase over and over. Extra content: The judges were asked to reminisce about their favourite moments of the top 3 and Andy's favourite moment of Billie's was when she did the Kirsten Tibballs' pressure test because he saw how stressed and pushed to the extreme she was that he thought she deserved a semi-final place for that alone. FUCK OFF. Top 3 service challenge. I love this challenge. Can't wait to see who crumbles tomorrow.

Once again, the judging is biased in favour of Daniel and against Billie. Seriously, the judges are nitpicking every little thing that Billie does wrong and using a 3 Michelin Star standard to judge her dishes while helping Daniel and ignoring flaws in his dishes while using kindergarten standards to prop up his dishes. Telling Daniel to check on his fish after already giving him a big hint with the cured salmon is inexcusable at this stage. It is top 5. They should be able to stand on their own with their ideas and time management. If you really want to know how biased these judges are, Billie has never won immunity in a winner-takes-all against the other Masterchef contestants this season. Meanwhile, Daniel has never been in the bottom 3 besides Marco Pierre White's elimination (probably because they don't dare to go against Marco's opinion).

The judges' decision to send Michael home was the wrong one. If Montana didn't meet the brief then she should have been sent home. I remember the old judges kicking people out for not following the rules of the challenge. There were lots of social media engagement today from Facebook, Twitter and other places that vilified the decision or posted sad tributes to Michael's departure. It's these decisions that people will remember and end up changing the channel. It might not happen in the short term but next year, when people decide on whether to watch it again, they might think twice about watching Masterchef.

I don't know which one is the bigger travesty: Michael not making the top 10 or Aldo and Daniel both making the top 10. Nice to see that Rick remembered Billie! Her Spanish stew looked divine.

Michael with the dad jokes. Julie with her best Marco Pierre White impersonation. Tommy teasing Michael. Brown team is ready for a comedy tour. The Brown team switching the entree and main course was a disaster. I think, if they had kept the order of dishes the same, they would have scraped out a victory in the end. Beer and chocolate do go well together. It's been done before on Masterchef. Pistachio is a common dessert flavour so I can see how it all worked together. Maybe she put too much beer in the crisp or the blackberries didn't work together with the rest of the dessert?

I don't believe that. I think they knew what was coming and wanted to save Daniel from doing the pressure test. They knew that he would have to cook a dessert with only a review against people who have made desserts before. He even said himself that the review is hard to decipher. The way the judges talk about Billie is the same way people talk about bringing down Goliath. They don't really like her and want to send her home but can't do it. It's those biases that some viewers can see through and be turned off by when someone is being unfairly criticized or conversely praised for their dish. This season is critical for these judges. The ratings are way down even with the return of the favourites. People are up in arms about almost every judging decision already. If they choose an "unworthy" winner, it will accelerate the decline of Masterchef. At least Billie had the top dish once again.

How the fuck did Daniel escape the bottom 4? His lamb fat wasn't rendered down properly aka. not enough char on his lamb. He didn't execute the brief properly. Meanwhile, they put Billie into the bottom 4 when her peaches were considered the best use of fire of all the dishes and stunningly delicious. Absolute fail on the judges' part.

Hey look, Aldo is cooking from his heart and soul once again. If only the other contestants were as respectful and humble with their cooking as he is, maybe they would cook a beautiful dish too. The editing sucked once again. I wish they would have cut out Aldo completely or Julie-Marco bonding time and have it spent on more reunion time with Marco and Billie. Billie and Tommy's dishes looked mouthwatering and scrumptious. Aldo's dish was hideous. It looked like tongues licking half cut lemons. I liked Alvin's dish but prawns with egg floss and a sauce in 75 minutes seems like poor time management.

I'm glad to see Marco back in the Masterchef kitchen again but that dish looked awful. At least put some micro herbs and flowers to make it more appealing to look at. Nice to see Keyma step up and win immunity. Maybe this will be the start of her plating up more fine dining dishes. I'm glad they kept screentime on Harry and Mindy to a minimum and we got to see some other cooks for a change. Marco's back on Sunday so we get to see the reunion between Billie and Marco. I'm waiting for her to knock his socks off after his comment about these Masterchef contestants being the strongest cooks that ever fed him.

Michael is a force of nature in team challenges. He has won every portion of his team's service challenges. I would kill for a Michael-Billie pairing team up in the future. Billie's dessert far and away looked the best in concept and look. I am loving that she is revisiting past dishes and updating them in new and inventive ways. I'm happy that she had Dish of the Day. I really wish that the rules were broken this once and she got to cook off for immunity tomorrow. I would love to see her keeping up with Marco again or at least do one of his pressure test dishes. Aldo is not that great in team challenges and also really bossy. Sarah has had clashing flavours in a few of her team challenge dishes so far. Steph disappeared into the forest after deciding on the Yellow Team's menu only to reappear for Billie's dessert. I hope she charges the editors for that. Finally some real acknowledgement from the judges on Billie. It only took her making the dessert by herself to get it.

Don't know why people are so up in arms about Matt being eliminated. It was a gelato challenge set by a gelato making chef. It should have been obvious to everyone that gelato is the most important part of the dessert. Not enough gelato = instant elimination. Good on Montana for not giving up and reconstructing the beehive dessert upside down. Who is editing this season because the editing in this episode was so shitty that Michael was practically montaged even in a pressure test. Have to give Daniel props for blowing sugar perfectly twice. Maybe he can teach this to future contestants so they can add that to their Masterchef audition checklist.

Hmmm...

Maybe it's just me but I can imagine that the flavour combination of curry leaf, passionfruit and white chocolate would work very well. You have the sweetness of the white chocolate, the tanginess and tartness of the passionfruit along with the fragrance and the spice of the curry leaf all coming together in 1 dessert. It really shows the lack of depth that the new judges have where they don't have the imagination of wondering if a certain ingredient can go together in a dish. The old judges, while not perfect, did sometimes could see where the contestant would be coming from and aiming for with the flavour profiles of their dish. Could the judges be any less complimentary of Billie's dish? I hate that they keep muting their praise of Billie's dishes. Coming out of her shell, Mel? There hasn't been a dish that hasn't poked its head out, Jock? WTF was her immunity pin winning dish then? Or her confit duck that you said was perfect? Or that turmeric papaya semifreddo? Look at the difference in what was said inside the tasting room and what they told Billie. Inside the tasting room: 10/10, restaurant quality dish. Balance is perfect. Feedback to Billie: Delicious, masterfully executed. Meanwhile, they was a lot of word salad thrown around to Daniel's and Matt's dishes that would have sent either of them home if only the three of them minus Ali cooked.

No way Matt deserved to have Dish of the Day with that Tuna Wellington he served up. His looked the worst out of all of them. A Wellington is supposed to have the defined layers of protein/mushroom duxelles/pastry. His Tuna Wellington had a few chunks of mushroom duxelle missing and it looked like the mushroom duxelle was going to run out onto the plate on one of the sides of his pastry. His tuna was also more cooked than Josh's. These errors should have been factored into the decision for Dish of the Day. Meanwhile, Billie had a bigger piece of tuna than Josh's and her crepe didn't wrap around the whole tuna but her tuna was raw in the centre and she had defined layers of her Wellington. I would pick hers over Matt's any day of the week! I get the feeling that the new judges don't really like Billie for some reason. Then again, I also felt that Gary didn't like Billie either. Before I watched the episode though, I actually went onto Twitter and they had a post up about picking out Josh's Tuna Wellington from a lineup. I chose Billie's dish as being Josh's! Talk about plating better than the guest chef! Oh look, Harry cries and gets another free pass. How many times did the judges come over to attempt to save her? Just get off my screen already. I went back and checked this since I was curious too and she was only in 5 pressure tests (4 if you exclude Heston's finale pressure test dish -- Marcus Wareing's Braised Veal, Darren Purchese's Passion Flower, Keeping up with Marco (no elimination), Brett Graham's Flame Grilled Bonito). Fun fact: she had the top dish in all of them.

Poor Minoli! It's unfortunate that the illusion of time would be her downfall in the end. Minoli and Billie's friendship was really nice to see today. Did anyone else catch Alvin and Billie looking at each other when Alla was telling the contestants to not forget about the people around them?

I will miss Sashi. I really liked him on season 10 but I had this feeling that the new judges didn't like him very much for whatever reason. There wasn't much enthusiasm when they were giving him feedback. Aldo and Jenn were HYPER this episode. They would have probably done cartwheels if someone asked them to do it. Harry's dish sounded awful and didn't look much better. I don't know why the judges are so surprised with Billie. Like, come on, she won her season with the biggest crop of talent ever and right now, she's only cooking at 20%. She was the top dish in every pressure test she partook in and she kept up with Marco and cooked in the hardest service challenges ever. Whatever the new judges throw at her, she will have seen it before. There's no stopping her until potentially top 3.

Normally, I would be right there with you but seeing how Christina and Tommy cooked with their immunity pins last episode and then this episode, it might have been a wise decision from Billie to just give up the pin without cooking. She doesn't have to stress about what to make and she can start fresh without recalling her 2nd attempted dish leading into the next episode. I think Harry hasn't cooked as well since being in the bottom 3 with her immunity pin either. Minoli's dish looked fantastic! Montana's really lucky to get shrimp paste as the feature ingredient. I would have liked to work with shrimp paste because it is so yummy. Not liking the editing this year. It's really weird when they don't feature a bad dish and then the judges suddenly spring the result as a surprise. They should have focused more on Matt's bad dish and less on some of the other bad dishes. It would have been good to see what others made too. Christina's likely going to leave next. She already has 2 strikes against her: being female and a favourite. The guys this year are not up to par compared to the ladies. I wonder if we could see a top 10 filled with 9 women and Michael.

I wish Reynold had made a brand new dessert from his time away from Masterchef rather than using different elements from different dishes on Masterchef to create a new dessert. With his sugar ball dessert and now this, it just seems like he takes elements from what he sees on Masterchef and hastily recreates it. I want to see what sort of techniques he's learned outside of Masterchef because we've seen these techniques done before and better by the "original" chef. The judges didn't really seem to praise John's flavours,. They praised Jenn's sorbet and jasmine flavour and Alvin's entire dish with his flavours but we didn't hear much about John's flavours. Max deserved to go home. He actually deserved to go in the first elimination for his tart being undercooked and the filling being too dense but he got lucky. If I had to guess the top 10 from here, I would bet on: Billie Michael Harry Melanie Alvin Tommy Sarah Julie Mindy Steph/Keyma/Montana This seems faves heavy with only 3 fans making it but if they have some sort of quota, I can see Alvin or Tommy being bumped for someone like Keyma/Montana to balance the scales more. The guys this season haven't been strong so I think we're going to have a severe gender imbalance once more guys get canned.

He was pretty good individually back in season 7. While he gets a bad rap for the white chocolate veloute moment, he won 3 Mystery Box challenges and had one of the top 3 dishes in an invention test. He's a top ten cook from the season and is certainly stronger than Stephen, Amy or Rose who placed ahead of him. He, along with Alvin and Julie have been placing undue pressure on themselves to get dishes right. I can understand how placing so much pressure on oneself can lead to a full scale breakdown when you want to plate up food that is perfection. I don't like John but I think he needs to let go of being the pariah and cook. I know he can cook well because I saw it back in season 7. People just get blinded by white chocolate veloute moment and forget about all the dishes that he cooked well. Andy, Billie is not the parfait wizard. That would be Elise (season 8). Billie is the semifreddo queen along with Ashleigh (season 7). Get it right. You're a judge for goodness sakes! What's next? Are you going to mix up gelato, ice cream, panna cotta, mousse too? Why is everyone pronouncing turmeric as tumeric? Reynold's back next episode. Will his dessert be another stunner in looks but light in flavour?

John still hasn't learned that # of teammates ≠ # of dishes. I'd wager a hefty sum that Billie went along with his plan to make 3 dishes in 1 dessert! Alvin, who self-acknowledged that he had no idea about French cooking at all. had zero say. Everyone should just stay far away from John in team challenges or at least keep him as far away as possible in the planning stages. That fans' fish en papillote had zero colour. The fact that they had green beans on a separate dish should be an extra point off as well. Super happy that Michael and Sarah are safe. Aldo even made me smile with his comment about licking the bowl to Melissa. Not a fan of the season 5-esque battle between groups nor having people sit out of challenges. Ditch the groups and let everyone cook.

Immunity Challenge: Wow! I'm really happy that Billie and Michael both won immunity pins! Michael's dish looked especially mouthwatering! I'm surprised he didn't get a perfect 30/30 on the dish. Andy trying to play mind games with Billie. Suck it, Andy! Glad she stuck to her guns and ignored him.