The Strictly cast this year is weird.

Would you like some Pasta Recappolare?

At a Cloche for Words

It’s the final heat and we’re ending up with a strong lineup of celebrities including the body swapped golden retriever that is Vito Coppola who is in a constant state of zoomies

Diane “Ross’s Secret Mother” Carson, progenitor of one of the most insane sentences you’ll ever hear outside of a Lana del Rey track listing

Three times great Sugarbabe, Mutya Buena

OJ Borg Whomst I Do Not Really Know But Very Much Enjoy The Nice Giant Man

and Dominic Skinner discovering empathy for the first time in his life

I would’ve thought having this attempt at a cut crease immortalised on TV forever would have been enough

I WILL NEVER FORGET IT, DOMINIC.

As ever, we start by revealing their “mystery” ingredients from under the cloches and only furthering my scepticism of this round was Mutya revealing a pile of premium scallops

I just don’t think anyone would (or should) gamble scallop money on the potential of Diane treating high end seafood like she treated her poussin

I want to know what this poor tiny chicken did to deserve being put through this hell? Because if being hacked to death like it was on the receiving end of an arthritic wolverine wasn’t enough, she’d drowned it in white wine

and shoved one (1) single shallot inside it because that’s all that would fit <3

the only way this chicken deserved any of this is if was a reincarnation of the Zodiac Killer.

Mutya on the other hand got on surprisingly (read: suspiciously) well with her Scallops which she’d served with rice and a chilli and soy onion sauce that was for some reason served entirely separately despite definitely not being a dipping sauce

they were also very pleased with her cooking of the scallops, even if watching her cook them was definitely triggering Gregg’s flight or fight response during his chat with her

fight it is.

The poussin and the scallops were the only meat options which was a lucky little coinkydink for OJ Borg who is a lifelong vegetarian and found himself in possession of John and Gregg’s desire for a dessert

Keep dreaming boys, because you’re getting… Pineapple and Mushroom tacos?

I’ve had pineapple salsa with many things and it’s lovely. I do however reject this dish more vehemently than anyone could ever reject a Hawaiian Pizza. That’s A LOT of very chunky pineapple, just the thought of the mouthfeel of it alongside the mushrooms and the soft flatbread makes me make the same face as the cat that sniffed the pesto pasta

John and Gregg claimed they loved it though. They are wrong.

As well as finding out about basic human emotions, Dom was coming face to face with a celeriac for the first time

to be fair to him, celeriac does look like the head of a bog body and as though if you desecrate it there’s a chance it will curse you and your family for the next century. Dom seems to be safe from any sort of generational doom as John and Gregg were both very happy with the little Celeriac Rosti breakfast he’d made

the only real issue was the fact as he watched Diane hacking a chicken to shreds like a honey badger with a grudge and Vito… being Vito, so he’d panicked and thought he hadn’t done enough so he mixed some mustard into creme fraiche to make an unsettling blob

the thought was nice, but he could have avoided it if he’d just looked over at Mutya who was only serving 2 and a half things on a plate.

Lastly we have Vito who had come into this challenge with the single aim of making pasta and NOTHING on this earth was going to stop this act of Italian destiny. Luckily he got Goat’s Cheese so John and Gregg were safe from Pineapple Ravioli. Although he did have to be told it was goat’s cheese because the best he could do was identify that it was not in fact a sausage roll

and I will now be pitching a Vito Coppola hosted gameshow called “Sausage Roll or No?”

it can replace Alan Carr’s Picture Slam that felt like 45 minutes of scrolling through LOLCat memes with your mum while the contestants desperately laughed at everything to fill the silence of being filmed in a cavernous studio with no live audience

I just wanna talk to the BBC commissioners. I have so many questions.

Despite Vito coming in with the single goal of pasta making and his grandparents on his shoulders like an angel and devil

he would not end up making an actual pasta shape, instead choosing to present pasta Rettangolare which are just sheets of hand towel sized pasta for you to gnaw your way through

I don’t wanna be the one that explains pasta to an Italian but… babe, with a minimal amount of extra effort this could’ve just been pappardelle?

speaking of minimal effort – his “sauce” was a mixture of olive oil, butter and partially melted goat’s cheese

I would say this is the worst thing an Italian Strictly Come Dancing professional has done this year but… not a great year for them, is it? At least Motsi will be less confused now

I have three Italians and no money! Why can’t I have 3 money and no Italians?

An under the Cloche Dish Ranking:
1. Dominic’s Empathetic Breakfast
2. Mutya’s By Virtue of Everyone Else’s Failures
3. Diane’s Evil Little Chicken
4. My Complete Rejection of Pineapple Tacos
5. Vito’s Slippery Hand Towels

Dinner Party

In order to decide who was going home, the contestants had to run the gauntlet of cooking their two course dinner party menus which for Diane was two years of pent up social engagements

which you would think might’ve resulted in something a little more elaborate and aspirationally middle class than a Chicken and Mango Curry of Unexplained Miscellaneous Origin

that’s just the mid-week meal of a pensioner who thinks they’re pushing the boat out with the M&S Fruity Chicken Curry? She was far from the only one falling into this trap – Dom was openly admitting his Chicken and Chorizo Pasta was the brainfart of a Wednesday night smash and grab through his fridge

which you would absolutely be able to tell from the fact it’s Chicken and Chorizo in a cream sauce with a wedge of lime

he does at least get bonus effort points for having made his own pasta – a competition he was in against Vito who was at least making verifiable tagliatelle instead of a conducting a pasta-based geometry lesson this time

but there was the undeniable problem that what he’d made was essentially just his Goat’s Cheese Covered Rectangles with Truffle instead of goat’s cheese

this didn’t end up being nearly as big an issue for John and Gregg as it did when Snoochie Shy got eliminated for serving up two instances of Anonymous Coconut Curries in a row. Nor did the fact it looked like someone had tried to bury a bowl of linguine in the woods, whereas Diane’s perfectly innocuous presentation of her curry got scrutinised

I don’t want to look a gift Vito in the mouth, and I don’t blame them for doing anything and everything to keep the emotional support animorph around but…

He did at least then go on to give John and Gregg the booze fuelled tiramisu (and then some) that Christine’s child-friendly version had left them longing for

and they somewhat regretted using that Monkey’s Paw because it was more tiramisu than either of them could actually manage

did Motsi wishing to be able to tell 3 Italian men apart TEACH YOU NOTHING?

Diane had at least managed to claw back some points that her curry lost her with her very nice looking Baked Lemon Pudding

which John thought was a lovely bit of retro nostalgia [tone indicator: positive.]

Dom and Mutya found themselves competing over a pair of cheesecakes. A battle Mutya lost on multiple grounds having been bested in a knife fight against her cheesecakes while trying to plate them up

and then serving them up on what was less of a Buttery Biscuit Base and more of a Digestive Biscuit Hockey Puck

I don’t believe for a second that John and Gregg were able to cut through that base with anything less than a chainsaw and 20 minutes of free time. But they loved the Vanilla flavour, but did prefer the slightly more interesting Raspberry and Peach Cheesecake that Dom had made

he does of course lose numerous points for serving them in Mason Jars. IT’S 2024, FREE THE CHEESECAKES! Let them soar!

Mutya’s main course was definitely her strongest dish with John and Gregg both really loving her Chicken Adobo and certainly not making the mistake they’d made with the Rendang all those years ago

Gregg still wants to be able to travel to the Philippines in the future

Malaysia will still not have him

come World War 3, Gregg Wallace and MasterChef will be footnotes in the “inciting incidents” section of every Key Stage 3 history textbook.

OJ started his menu off with a whole roasted cauliflower covered in everything from tahini and chermoula to half a jar of paprika

he did manage to scrape it off, or at least buried it in enough extra toppings to hopefully balance out what could’ve been an act of nuclear warfare against John Torode who sweats at the mention of white pepper

it does look amazing and probably the dish I’d be most likely to order if I saw it on a menu. I think he did a really great job of making something like a cauliflower seem more interesting without cutting it up and calling it a steak.

His Torta tal-Lewz were slightly less of a hit, more for the fact they looked like someone had had to piece a cryptically vague recipe in the Bake Off Technical Challenge than anything else

but his frangipane hadn’t quite set and there was only so much the whiskey cream on top could hide and obscure.

A Dinner Party Dish Ranking:
1. OJ’s Paprika and Cauliflower
2. Gregg Wallace Avoids International Controversy
3. Diane’s Throwback Pudding
4. Vito’s Family-sized Tiramisu
5. Dom’s Cheesecake Imprisoned
6. Vito’s Woodland Tagliatelle
7. OJ’s Torta tel-lose
8. Dom’s Midweek Randomised Pasta
9. Diane’s £3.50 M&S Ready Meal
10. I’M LOSING TO A CHEESECAKE!

All five of the menus were a little bit all over the place – I think the only two people who were undeniably safe as houses were OJ and Mutya. The other three had valid concerns across the board. I did think Vito would get the usual Early Strictly Elimination, however it was Diane getting offed this time

not quite as glamorously camp without the pink prosecco and a cinematic orchestral version Bell Biv Devoe’s That Girl Is Poison going off. The Traitor’s will never have a more unhinged song cover.

and so, onwards!