How To Get A Head In MasterChef Without Really Crying

It's the show's first vegetarian challenge! That means we're going to focus on Hetal tonight, because she's a vegetarian, as we're reminded at every opportunity. Since we all know how things work on television shows, we know how this is going to go: A supremely confident Hetal will struggle with the challenge right in her wheelhouse.

But along the way we get some reliable jackassery from Stephen, who whines about being picked first because it's Tommy. Derrick is also pissed about being Hetal's first pick. He's momentarily placated when the teams open up the huge crates in the kitchen -- as teased last week and this week at the top of the show, the crates labeled "Vegetables" are crammed with greeny goodness, while the meat crates are empty.

Blue Team goes for a chickpea-cauliflower curry with coconut rice, and Red Team is making a butternut squash cradle with black lentils and mushrooms, and they're preparing a dinner service for fifty VIPs (Very In-attendance People). Tommy loses control of his team almost immediately, but that's almost as much to do with him being indecisive and asking the team what they should do instead of deciding himself. If he were as confident with the team as he is in his talking-heads, he'd have had them all bent to his will immediately.

Because of the turmoil on Red (Blue's biggest problem is its rice is too watery) and a selection of shots from satisfied Blue diners, we're led to think Red is going down, but they win handily, in part because Tommy finally tells Katrina to shut up and Red coheres as a team during plating (although maybe if the diners loved the dishes, Tommy's insubordinates should get part of the credit?).

So we go from a vegetarian challenge to what is best described as a "fuck vegetarians" challenge: The losers have to prepare a dish with the severed animal heads at their stations. Hetal: lamb. Derrick: halibut. Claudia: pig. Olivia: cow.

Despite Hetal looking like she wants to cry and vomit, she makes it through, with all the contestant's dishes looking great. No one screws anything up -- Olivia is eliminated largely because her dish, while very good, didn't taste enough of its star: decapitated cow. Olivia leaves -- a steady but mostly invisible contestant, prime candidate to make me say, "Oh yeah, her" in montages later this season.

Rankle time! Least to most objectionable:

1. Claudia
   Claudia's a little concerned because Hetal's the only one who knows the Indian spices she's cooking with. Good thing she's team captain! In the pressure test, she doesn't whine about having to be there (HINT DERRICK) but makes a mouth-watering pig ear and cheek tostada with mango salsa and chipotle crema.
2. Olivia
   Invisible (meaning steady and reliable) as usual, but enjoyably tells Graham to leave her alone so she can cook.

   Screens: FOX

   With her pressure-test dish -- barbecue beef cheek with braised kale and cheddar polenta -- the last to be tasted, she knows that the mild criticism (Gordon says it's hard to identify the beef) means she's in trouble, and hopes the judge realizes she took a risk while Hetal once again made Indian food.

3. Hetal
   Hetal's understandably excited about a vegetarian challenge but runs into problems when she doesn't delegate or communicate with her team enough, and she feels extremely guilty when Blue loses.

   Seems about to fall apart as the pressure test unveils the cavalcade of severed and skinned animal heads, and to be fair, I love me some pork but that pig's head is going to give me some Lord of the Flies nightmares. Hetal impresses with her braised lamb tongue and cheek with jasmine rice and arugula salad, but Gordon's frustrated that she showed more finesse with the meat than she did with the vegetarian dish. In Hetal's defense, a) a popularity vote doesn't mean Blue's dish wasn't better, and b) given this is the show's first vegetarian challenge, maybe it's not a big deal that Hetal has been holding her own well enough to make the Top 7 so far?

4. Tommy
   Poor Tommy. Gloats about how his captaincy means he's finally going to get to show he can lead, and then his team walks all over him, despite trying to assert himself with "Nobody's listening to me, you guys!"

   Strangely seems to think Gordon will be sympathetic to his complaints about his team overruling him. But he does tell Katrina to shut up, which seems to work, although you know she's carrying that one with her for a while.

5. Katrina
   Almost immediately starts stepping over Tommy's suggestions for his own team, orders him around during actual cooking.
6. Nick
   Mostly absent from the episode. Says "Me and vegetarians don't really see eye-to-eye" with a stereotypically dudebro "because I'm a man who enjoys sex with women" subtext.
7. Derrick
   Like Stephen below, complains about being his team's first pick. Why? "Hetal does not have the voice of a leader." Hey, Derrick, what's the difference between a drummer and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four!

   During the pressure test (which he bitches about not deserving, because Blue gave Hetal everything she wanted) he comes up with a great if overcomplicated dish, after setting a blowtorch on fire and managing not to go out all Spinal Tap.

8. Stephen
   GOD this guy. Is picked first by Tommy for the Team Challenge and then WHINES ABOUT BEING THE FIRST PICK, because it means he has to work with Tommy. Because Stephen is an unceasing joy to have on your team.