‘MasterChef’ season 7, episode 12 exclusive preview: Brandi shares her story with Gordon Ramsay

Hopefully you enjoyed the Olympics over the course of the past two weeks, and with its conclusion comes the return of another exciting competition to the air in “MasterChef.” Wednesday will mark a pair of episodes airing back-to-back; think of this as a way to make up for a little bit of lost time.

In the exclusive sneak peek below, you can get a glimpse at what is the Mystery Box challenge you’re going to see in the first hour. The remaining home cooks are going to have a chance to take on some expensive, fairly-exotic ingredients, ones that not every one of them is going to be intimately familiar with. Think for a moment about Brandi Mudd, someone who comes from a tiny town in Kentucky that apparently doesn’t even have a stoplight. She’s not exactly going to have a lot of practice cooking something like Octopus.

Still, Brandi’s clearly making her best effort with it, and she has a little bit of fun sharing her story with Gordon Ramsay in the preview. He’s certainly taken with the idea of someone coming from such a rural part of America to this competition, and of course he jokes with her about whether or not she has indoor plumbing as a result.

Could you consider Brandi to be an underdog contender to win? Certainly so. This season is in an interesting spot where we don’t think any one person has cemented themselves as the guaranteed favorite to win, even though we have seen contestants like Terry be fairly dominant to date. There’s enough time for anything to happen, and if Brandi makes it far, her story is certainly endearing enough that you could feel great about her walking away with the title.

Before you go, be sure to check out some other recent “MasterChef” interviews and other scoop over at the link here! Also, sign up to get some further TV scoop sent to you via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Fox.)