Reynold’s Wild ‘MasterChef’ Dish Would’ve Been Better If 10 Hadn’t Shown It In Ads All Week

On the scale of gripes, this is low. Honestly it’s somewhere around “what happens to all the leftover food?” and “where does all that water come from if the benches aren’t all plumbed in?” It’s a tiny wee gripe in the grand scale of things. But in another, more true sense, I’m deeply, furiously shitty about it. Murderously angry. Just a big ball of rage. Because it’s all well and good for Reynold to have done the almost literally impossible with that truly insane dessert on last night’s MasterChef. But god damn it would have been so much better had Channel Ten not liberally splashed it about its ads for the entire week leading up.

All week long, and even throughout the week before, we’ve been liberally teased about the “Greatest Dish Ever.” In fact, Ten framed the entire week’s worth of MasterChef programming around it. Best Dish Week, they called it. As if “Greatest Dish Ever” didn’t quite get the concept across the line.

“What could the dish be?” I thought repeatedly. “What feats of gastronomic magnificence am I to bear witness to?”

Turns out the answer to that was “literally the same thing we’ve been showing you front-and-centre in the thousand times we’ve advertised it this week.”

Every ad Ten ran for MasterChef throughout the entire week had some form of Reynold’s final dish in it. It bordered on ridiculous.

Hell, the ones early in the week flat-out showed the dish in full, caramel pour and all.

Of that bunch, very objectively, that one’s the best. It’s not even a close contest. And not even the cleverest of liars would’ve dared attempted to tell anyone that it was anything other than Reynold’s hand that put it together. That’s an instantly-recognisable Reynold dish. He’s literally built a very successful, nationally renowned business on the back of it.

Channel Ten ran same ad on their official social media pages the very next day.

The ad even pauses after it shows off the dish and gives us “that was an incredible” splash screen. We’re supposed to remember it!

Only when last night’s episode arrived did Ten make any sort of effort to conceal the identity of the dish. And even then?

Look at that. It’s literally right there.

If they’d tried just a little misdirection by attempting to say “Jess might have done this?” then maybe – MAYBE – I would have partly believed it. But honestly, who the hell else is gonna swan into the Kitchen and make a chocolate tree in a time-limit challenge? Khanh’s not doing that, god love him. Brendan sure as shit isn’t. I’d put money on Poh climbing a tree during a challenge at some point, but she’s absolutely not about to make one.

But even when they tried to hide it, they still gave it away.

That’s a pretty bloody unique bowl. You’re not about to mistake that for a pile of $3 IKEA numbers stacked up in any sharehouse cupboard.

Lo and behold, a little over halfway through last night’s episode, the bowl appears.

Oh so it’s Reynold’s. That thing you’ve been literally showing us front-and-centre all week that was obviously Reynold’s? Turns out it’s Reynold’s. The Greatest Ever Dish is Reynold’s. What a fucken shocker.