In a MasterChef first, the contestants are cooking for the U.S. Coastguard. And in this first team challenge of the season, its a big deal with the chefs cooking for 101 people.
Up first, it is all about picking the team leaders for this MasterChef team challenge. And with no one else stepping up, our captains are Alejandro and Christian, with Christian running the blue team and Alejandro leading the red team. While Alejandro wanted input from his team, Christian made it clear that it was all about what he thought was the way to go and no changes were allowed to be made without his say so.
To start things, the teams have to make their dish for the judges to try. And they have 30 minutes to get everything together and show the judges what their plan is.
From the start, it felt like Alejandro had a better flow with his team. Whereas, over on the blue team, things felt less respectful as there was yelling and lack of communication right away. However, even with the issues on the blue team, it definitely seemed like they knew what they were doing when it came to creating these dishes and bringing the flavor. Unfortunately, it was the red team that struggled with their dish, with improper cooks, a lack of seasoning, and a veggie that needed more work to be edible.
MasterChef breaks into two teams led by Christian and Alejandro for their first team challenge
For the red team, it felt like being team leader was even more of a challenge for Alejandro than he expected it to be. And with only minutes to go, it felt like they were never going to be able to feed 101 people in the time they had to eat their lunch.
Of course, over on the blue team, the lack of real communication was not helping them either. With people yelling at each other and slamming things around, it makes sense that when they were getting ready to plate things, the actual food wasn’t ready.
Not only did we have undercooked steaks, but even the blue team found themselves with raw fish. This may have been a team challenge, but it felt like there was a sad lack of actual team work in the mix. But when Alejandro put steaks that fell on the ground back on the grill, he was basically fired from the roll of team captain, and it was Michael who stepped up to finish the challenge for the red team.
By the end of the challenge, it is clear that the judges were less than thrilled by what went on in the kitchen, with Aaron Sanchez telling the blue team not to celebrate completing service until the votes are in, and Gordon Ramsay basically letting the red team know that he was disappointed in what went on with their team.
Once all the votes were in from the Service Members of the Coast Guard, the team that walked away with the win was the blue team! In fact, it seems the red team got 30 votes and the blue team got 71. And that meant there was a clear winner this time around.
This left the red team on the line for someone to go home. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the person who was sent home was Alejandro, the former leader of the red team.