‘MasterChef’ season 5, episode 3 preview: The Top 20 heads outdoors

For the first time on “MasterChef” season 5, the remaining home cooks are going to be heading outdoors on Monday night’s new episode. So what sort of challenge are these 20 going to be facing? It’s really not too hard to figure out, based on the sneak peek below.

This is a show that loves to re-use old tasks, so think along the lines of the following:

• The cooks are all out in the desert, with the appearance of soldiers dropping the judges off, soldiers are probably who will be fed during this episode.
• There is probably going to be a literal army of them, which puts a ton of pressure on the home cooks to get their food done in a short amount of time.
• Leadership skills will be tested, and there will most likely be a fight or two.
• At some point during the proceedings, Chef Ramsay will probably yell “it’s not good enough!” while discussing how a cook could possibly serve crappy food to one of the brave men and women of our Armed Forces.

So why is this so predictable? We imagine that part of it here is that there are only so many things that you can throw at amateur cooks this early in the competition, and this is one of them. It is in some ways familiar given that most have probably had a few cookouts in their day, but also foreign since you have so many cooks in the kitchen, a time limit, and more people you are cooking for than ever before.

If nothing else, we do really like the cast here so far, whether your are talking about Leslie (who already is on everyone’s nerves) or our personal favorite in Willie.

Excited for this episode? Let us know below.