MASTERCHEF
Episode 15
David Martinez is not a joke...no, seriously.
Onto the real story of this episode:
The Curious Case of David Martinez: David, I think, has become more of a punchline than anything else during this competition. The dude is so easy to make fun of, yet at the same time he's such a character that he makes the show really, really fun (unlike, say, Brian or Justin from HK). So here's how David's day went and how he went from being number 1 to number 699 in a matter of minutes.
1) David beats out Bitchin' Becky and Christine to win the Mystery Box Challenge thanks to some raw prawns and a complementary balance of sauces and seasoning. For weeks David has been hiding in the shadow of each eliminated contestant, rarely ever showing any signs of pulling ahead. He's delivered some stinkers and holds the dubious dishonor of having Joe Douche Alarm Bastianich toss his food in the trash. But he's hung in there mostly because there's always been someone worse than him each and every episode.
2) He's given a huge advantage. He even says "I will not squander this advantage." Can you guess what happens? The Elimination Test calls for each cook to construct a dessert using either bacon, corn, or beets. Not only does David get to pick what everyone cooks with, but he gets to view three different samples of a corn dessert and gets to ask as many question as he likes. In essence, he's spoon fed how to make this dessert. This should be a shoe-in for him, right?
2a) As the background music provides a soundtrack of determination, David proudly proclaims "David Martinez is not a joke." Well, as he gets his 5 minutes alone to shop for his ingredients to cook up some rice pudding...
3) ...he forgets to pick up the rice...
4) Face palm as the doors to the pantry shut with his basket full of all the ingredients for rice pudding...except the rice.
5) Epic fail.
David then goes around and asks each cook if they have rice. As luck would have it, Bitchin' Becky grabbed some as a backup plan and graciously gives it to him. That brings up the question: did she do the right thing? Ultimately she wound up with the best dish for the Elimination Test so maybe it was karma. But from a competitive standpoint, maybe she should have said piss off. Frank brought up a good point that if he's gonna win he wants to beat the best and beating others while they forget main ingredients does cheapen things in a way. I can see both perspectives. It was nice of Becky to give him the rice. There's a lot of nice people in this competition, as evidenced several weeks ago when Frank was trying to give a member of his team immunity and they kept refusing. But this is a competition and David blew his huge advantage. Not sure what the right answer is.
So David had the best dish of the Mystery Box, he had a huge advantage, Becky gave him some rice, so how did his dish turn out?
"It's really, really, really inedibley disgusting." - Joe Bastianich
Wow. What's even more shocking is that David actually didn't go home. His second saving grace of the day other than Becky is Felix and her creation of breaded cat-poo shaped as nipples.
Becky's dish looked good and she rightfully won. Her cheer was, naturally, annoying; "I feel SOOOOO good!" Frank was second. Monti and Christine ("this is a smart use of spices as opposed to David's dish" says Joe) also put up notable plates. Josh's plate of some kind of weird caramel corn was in the bottom three along with David and Felix. Felix got eliminated.
How is it that David is still here? Pretty simple actually: Felix doesn't have the backbone to be a MasterChef. This is the second time her dish has been grilled and she once again crumbled to the ground in an ocean of "woe is me" tears. Look, no one likes to hear that their work sucks, but when you're in a field and a competition that constantly provides you with feedback, you need to learn to take the good with the bad. That's why David is still here because, as I've joked, he doesn't show any emotion whether he's whipping up something good or bad.
Oh yeah, one more thing about Becky...
Really good episode.
2) He's given a huge advantage. He even says "I will not squander this advantage." Can you guess what happens? The Elimination Test calls for each cook to construct a dessert using either bacon, corn, or beets. Not only does David get to pick what everyone cooks with, but he gets to view three different samples of a corn dessert and gets to ask as many question as he likes. In essence, he's spoon fed how to make this dessert. This should be a shoe-in for him, right?
2a) As the background music provides a soundtrack of determination, David proudly proclaims "David Martinez is not a joke." Well, as he gets his 5 minutes alone to shop for his ingredients to cook up some rice pudding...
3) ...he forgets to pick up the rice...
4) Face palm as the doors to the pantry shut with his basket full of all the ingredients for rice pudding...except the rice.
5) Epic fail.
David then goes around and asks each cook if they have rice. As luck would have it, Bitchin' Becky grabbed some as a backup plan and graciously gives it to him. That brings up the question: did she do the right thing? Ultimately she wound up with the best dish for the Elimination Test so maybe it was karma. But from a competitive standpoint, maybe she should have said piss off. Frank brought up a good point that if he's gonna win he wants to beat the best and beating others while they forget main ingredients does cheapen things in a way. I can see both perspectives. It was nice of Becky to give him the rice. There's a lot of nice people in this competition, as evidenced several weeks ago when Frank was trying to give a member of his team immunity and they kept refusing. But this is a competition and David blew his huge advantage. Not sure what the right answer is.
So David had the best dish of the Mystery Box, he had a huge advantage, Becky gave him some rice, so how did his dish turn out?
"It's really, really, really inedibley disgusting." - Joe Bastianich
Wow. What's even more shocking is that David actually didn't go home. His second saving grace of the day other than Becky is Felix and her creation of breaded cat-poo shaped as nipples.
Becky's dish looked good and she rightfully won. Her cheer was, naturally, annoying; "I feel SOOOOO good!" Frank was second. Monti and Christine ("this is a smart use of spices as opposed to David's dish" says Joe) also put up notable plates. Josh's plate of some kind of weird caramel corn was in the bottom three along with David and Felix. Felix got eliminated.
How is it that David is still here? Pretty simple actually: Felix doesn't have the backbone to be a MasterChef. This is the second time her dish has been grilled and she once again crumbled to the ground in an ocean of "woe is me" tears. Look, no one likes to hear that their work sucks, but when you're in a field and a competition that constantly provides you with feedback, you need to learn to take the good with the bad. That's why David is still here because, as I've joked, he doesn't show any emotion whether he's whipping up something good or bad.
Oh yeah, one more thing about Becky...
Bitchin' Becky: It's not that this prissy little bitch is always a finalist in every challenge, but it's the fact that she jumps around like a TOTAL NEWB every time they call her name. Like "OOOOMMMMGGGGG I'M TOTALLY IN THE TOP 3 OMMMGGG AREN'T YOU HAPPY FOR ME?!?!?!" Just SHUT UP AND TAKE YOUR PLATE UP THERE, BECKY!
Really good episode.
Monti telling the prawns that David forgot the rice for the rice pudding. Even they couldn't believe it!
