It's a titanic battle on My Kitchen Rules as we finally discover the answer to the age-old question: who is better at food, people with beards or people who are without beards? Yes, it's bewhiskered blokes Rob and Dave versus vivacious vixens Jane and Emma in a sudden death cook-off, though it should be stressed that the episode will not actually result in the deaths of any contestants: only the deaths of their dreams. It will be a night of narrow squeaks and frantic, sweaty finishes.
Rob thinks he and Dave have a big advantage because they've cooked in the kitchen before. Rob is utterly deluded. Their actual advantage comes from the phrase "Shake 'n' Bake", which they plan to repeat so many times during the cook-off that Jane and Emma will hurl themselves out a window.
"Time management has always been our downfall," says Jane, possibly because more than 80 per cent of her cooking time each episode is spent making idiotic comments about Emma being in love with Steve.
On the beardy side of the wall, Rob and Dave reflect philosophically on how quickly time passes. They both agree that it passes pretty quickly. Life is a puzzle, Rob and Dave agree. Up on the balcony Drasko and Bianca opine on the competing teams, while Rose pretends to be interested in what they're saying. Rob and Dave become overexcited by the smell of their tomato sauce. Adam thinks Jane and Emma need to focus on their entrée – as a professional tennis player he learnt this lesson years ago.
Manu says Jane and Emma have to make sure the salad is perfectly dressed and the prawns are perfectly cooked, but in fact they just need to do better than Rob and Dave – Manu is either lying or doesn't understand the show. Emma declares that the danger in cooking prawns is overcooking them – also untrue, as the danger in cooking prawns is actually having them lay eggs in your brain.
Meanwhile Rob is browning off his medallions. We've all been there, fellas.
"Ten minutes to go! Show us your passion!" yells Manu, for whom English is a second language, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant to say something that meant something. At this stage Jane and Emma suddenly realise that they have to put food on plates in this round. This comes as quite a shock.
Judging time, and the six wise monkeys taste the various crustaceans that have been hurled at their mouths. Liz declares that Rob and Dave's lobster has been poached beautifully, and reports them to Fisheries enforcement officers. Pete is excited by the first dish because the lobsters are unvaccinated. But Jane and Emma's prawns also go down well, although Shaz preferred the lobster ravioli, but she's not a judge and should just shut up.
It's main time, and Jane and Emma commence pulling out their shanks, while Dave begins pocketing his fish. Jane is making a pea pesto, in line with her self-claimed identity as history's greatest monster.
Dave's pockets are done. Rob compliments him with the phrase "all over that like a fat kid on a Chiko roll", and is immediately sent to a four-week sensitivity training seminar. Meanwhile Jane explains to Will and Steve how to make donuts, in one of the dullest exchanges human conversation has ever known.
. Bianca continues to worry about Rob and Dave. Viewers continue to wonder why we have to keep listening to Bianca. As Rob and Dave race against the clock, Emma has separated her pasta. "I can't stuff this up," she says, vastly underestimating herself. Both teams are running out of time, as MKR becomes a chilling metaphor for the ephemerality of life.
In the nick of time, both dishes are plated up. Jane and Emma are slightly disappointed that their main looks like a bowl of cat sick, but Liz "low standards" Egan doesn't mind that at all. The lamb ragu is the kind of food Colin likes – so finally we know. Disastrously, though, Rob and Dave have overcooked their fish. Except for Pete's, which he claims is cooked well – but then his tastebuds have been warped by activated almonds and mastodon steak.
Dessert time, and Jane and Emma's Italian donuts are pitted against Rob and Dave's mini-pavlovas with raspberries and passionfruit and probably a few stray beard hairs. As Emma fiddles with her oil, Jane wisely intones, "You can't rush crème anglais", a truth that all of civilisation's greatest leaders have known in their hearts. So focused is she on her non-rushed crème anglais that she can't come over to help Emma, who is wrestling with one of the fundamental questions of existence: how do you fry a donut? She doesn't know. I wouldn't have thought it was that hard – those kids at Krispy Kreme seem to manage OK. We spend so much time watching Jane and Emma's struggles that you might think Rob and Dave are doing fine, but if there's one lesson MKR has taught us, it is "NEVER assume that Rob and Dave are doing fine".
Dave is happy with what he's achieved so far: a thin smear of red liquid at the bottom of a saucepan. The mini-pavlovas are, to the shock of onlookers, quite small. "They've taken mini to a whole new level," says Kat, who hates life more and more every day. Meanwhile Jane is stirring custard and sprinkling sugar on donuts AT THE SAME TIME – it's like she's some kind of crazy person with two functioning arms or something.
Judging time, and Liz is impressed with the fruit flavours of Rob and Dave's dessert, although this is less due to their culinary skill, and more to do with the fact that fruits taste like themselves. The pavlova might be too soft, but then again that might be an outdated attitude to masculinity. On the other hand, the donuts are perfect.
So with a better main and a better dessert, Jane and Emma have clearly won, but I guess the charade of announcing the scores has to be gone through. And it is. And Jane and Emma win and live to giggle inanely about Steve another day. Deeply depressed, Rob and Dave are forced to give up their food dream and pursue their second love: establishing a global network of beard-topiary franchises. But not before they say "Shake 'n' Bake" one last time, to remind us of how little we'll miss them.
