‘MasterChef’ season 7, episode 5 review: Problematic pies

There are few things worse than watching a new episode of “MasterChef” while hungry. One of them is probably watching said episode while hungry only to then realize that there is a competition coming up that is all about pie. Seriously. We’re pretty much falling over while writing this.

Let’s begin, though, with the Mystery Box Challenge led by Claudia Sandoval and guest judge Aaron Sanchez, who proved to be a really entertaining figure over the course of the hour. We wouldn’t mind if he was to sign on perfectly, even if we don’t know if he’s got the time for it. Mexican ingredients were the theme here, and Tanorria emerged as the champion. These early challenges are interesting in that you see some people rise to the top who you haven’t really gotten a chance to know very well just yet, and we like what we saw from her here.

Could we criticize her for going a little mad with power later, after she both decided on the pie theme and had the opportunity to declare some home cooks safe? Absolutely, but this is part of the fabric of the show at this point. People always relish in the glory for one reason or another, but kudos to her for her strategic choice of saving people she thinks that she can beat later. It’s not about friendship! It’s a competition, which is why we sometimes don’t get it when people don’t go for their own safety in these competitions, unless they are really just there for their image more so than the grand prize and all the goodies that come with that.

Terry was declared the champ of the pie challenge, which makes it the second time he’s done really well in an Elimination Challenge. Right now, he and Andrea are probably our picks: We’ve seen a lot of them for one, and they’ve done well on more than one occasion.

Unfortunately for Brittany, tonight was the end of the rode after her strawberry rhubarb pie, despite looking nice, turned out to be a disappointment. This was one of those “looks can be deceiving” pies, and the primary lament we have here is mostly that we really didn’t get to know her very much over the course of the season.

All in all, this was a fun episode that brought us more of what we like for the show: Adventures in the studio kitchen and some cooking creativity. We’ll take this over an outdoor challenge any day. Episode Grade: B+.

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