'MasterChef' react: Restaurant Takeover! And the Top 5 are...

“Please. Bring! Your calamari. Down to the front bench thank you.” –Unique Gordon Ramsay Cadence of the Week

Three of the Top 6 had to fight for their aprons in a fried calamari pressure test following a relatively smooth Restaurant Takeover at Wolfgang Puck’s downtown L.A. Chinese restaurant, WP24. I say relatively because despite a raw scallop or 22 and some lettuce cups that resembled soggy blankets, the home chefs gamely worked with what they had, which was zero skills in cooking Asian food. Krissi the bully hates Asian food! Not even MasterChef judge Joe Bastianich would have any idea how to cook in a wok! That restaurant was doomed from the start. I’m surprised there weren’t more customer wok-outs. (Sorry.) (SPOILER ahead.)

RESTAURANT TAKEOVER

The Red Team (Captain Natasha, Jessie, Luca) fell behind early on, as Luca had poured cold water into a steamer. (I feel like we’re not seeing nearly all of this guy’s dumb errors. There’s so little time!) They picked it up during dinner service, wining the approval of a random diner who’d eaten at a lot of high-quality Asian restaurants and thought the Red Team’s beef was “right up there.” Sure, why not trust that guy? He seems wealthy.

Meanwhile, the Blue Team (Captain Bri, James, Krissi) flew through appies, but faced trouble during the entree. Gordon Ramsay, who was expediting, finally started swearing when Krissi put out cold and raw prawns. Should she do them over? Just half the table? “Half the f*cking table?! OF COURSE THE WHOLE F*CKING TABLE!”

Krissi was having a meltdown but it was no match for my own as a viewer, because THESE EARRINGS WERE KILLING ME.

“I am literally ruining everything for this team,” Krissi announced re: both her choice of accessories and oh, the fact that the stovetop was not turned on as she attempted to prepare the prawns.

COCKTAIL HOUR

I wish they would have shown more champagne-slurping once the contestants had been told the judges would decide, overnight, “Which team! Is headed. To the dreaded. Pressure test.” Like, what’s their living situation? Do Krissi and Natasha share a bathroom? Are they making Bri sleep outdoors next to adorable animals on a locally sustainable farm? Has anyone from the Hairnet Outreach Society ever come around to the group and begged, for the love of God, for Bri, Jessie, and James in particular to AT LEAST wrap their luscious locks into a messy bun during challenges?

Sadly it seems all of these very plausible scenes had been edited out.

PRESSURE TEST

Gordon hilariously forced Bri to choose which of her trio should get to sit out the pressure test — then after she’d chosen herself, he announced, “Fortunately for you, you do not have to make that difficult decision.” Oh…great! Okay! Jerk. Meat-eater.

The challenge: Prepare a classic fried calamari appetizer with marinara sauce. It seems super basic but is technically difficult to master. Especially if you refuse to try the meat, thereby practically assuring it will come out raw.

“So you’re not gonna taste the squid.” “Correct!” Bri lit up. Don’t worry about her though. She has a fire that no one else has!

Krissi outright lied that she’s been in EVERY pressure test and she was sick of it. Then Jessie, Luca, and Natasha began taunting Krissi from the balcony and in some sort of crazy person power play, she FLICKED MARINARA AT THEM WITH A WOODEN SPOON. It would’ve been much more physical if they’d been closer, she promised. “You can f*cking beat me with a bat. I’m gonna get up, and I’m gonna win this competition.”

Who the f*ck in their right mind would try to beat Krissi with a bat?????

In the end, no one succeeded. James’ sauce smelled like a tin can, Krissi’s batter tasted like fried dough you’d find at a street fair (um, yum), and Bri put out raw protein and a marinara sauce infused with LEMON JUICE. Agggggghhh! Bri was eliminated.

Krissi crossed herself in thanks, sadly not incorporating the saucy spoon she’d earlier used as a weapon.

Your top 5: Natasha, Jessie, Luca, James, and Krissi.

Bri thinks James is gonna win it! But I’m pretty sure the rest of us know it’ll be Natasha.

NEXT WEEK

Oh my God. It’s the judges’ sons! Look at this! I can’t handle the matching outfits!

Looks like Graham’s bespectacled toddler will be a pretty harsh Mystery Box judge.

Plus: Gordon Ramsay’s offspring will ask Jessie if she has a boyfriend. I can’t wait.

Thoughts on the night? Discuss!