Not this time, though. They pick Sheetal, who thinks her pan-roasted tenderloin with blueberry wine sauce and creamed Brussels sprouts tastes good, though she concedes she has no real basis of comparison. Gordon thinks it looks immaculate. Graham calls it a -- say it with me now, people -- "restaurant dish." But how does it taste? "A dream come true," Gordon says, after one of those MasterChef dramatic pauses that ceased being dramatic weeks ago. More to the point, she managed to balance the acidity of her sauce with the richness of the meat. She gets a thumb's up from the judges, even after Joe and Gordon argue about whether some olive oil should be drizzled on the dish. (Joe is pro-olive oil, Gordon is against, in a debate that devolves into insults about the British people's inability to grow olives on their sceptered isle
The judges summon Whitney and her pan-seared venison with southern gravy and roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes. Gordon is justifiably concerned about the gravy. "I give you the most amazing cut of venison, and you go a stick a gravy on it," he says, more than a little wounded. After tucking in, Gordon confirms that the venison is well cooked and that the dish works. "It works better than it looks," he says, which is probably more of a compliment than it comes across as. "You've managed to confirm to all three us that you know how to cook venison," Gordon continues, "which is quite rare at 22 years of age." Gordon ordered his backhanded compliments in bulk this week, apparently.
Final dish: It's Sharone. Lee swallows his tongue. Sharone has made a pan-seared venison with a blueberry puree; there's also a venison tartare with borscht. It's sauce-tastic! It's also splattered with seasoning and smeared with sauce -- like Jackson Pollack helped plate the dish. "The plating is a disgrace," Joe sniffs. "You're lucky you're even up here." Hey, you invited him up here, dude. And the reason why is that Sharone cooked his venison perfectly. "It's the vomit to the side of the plate I'm struggling to understand," says Gordon, who solves the problem by covering up the splattery side of the plate with a napkin. At least Lee no longer feels bad about Sharone's dish being selected. Anyhow, the judges all like how Sharone butchered and prepared his meat; they just wish the rest of the plate wasn't such a disaster.
Ah, but only one of these dishes can win, and it certainly won't be Sharone's. So who takes top honors in the last Mystery Box Challenge ever, until we do this again some other time? Sheetal wins, partly on the strength of her own dish, I think, and partly because the other two seemed flawed in their own particular ways, what with their gravy and fruit smears. No matter -- Sheetal now gets to choose the main ingredient in the invention test. The theme shall be dessert. "Big dessert lover?" Gordon asks, expecting the answer "yes." Sheetal is not. Well, isn't this awkward. "Time to start thinking sweet thoughts," Joe tells her. Time to see which three ingredients she has to choose from, and I will be severely disappointed in the MasterChef producers if all three choices aren't living animals that Sheetal has to personally butcher. ("Your three choices for the main ingredient are baby condor, harp seal and the most amazing kitten.") Instead, it's honey, berries and vanilla. Vanilla condor? No, just vanilla.