'MasterChef US' Season 6, Episode 14 Recap: Olivia Goes Home

This week on “MasterChef,” the top 8 contestants battle it out in a vegetarian group challenge. In the episode titled “Getting A-Head in the Competition,” the remaining home cooks prepare different kinds of animal heads in the dreaded pressure test.

Tommy and Hetal topped last week’s elimination challenge and had earned the privilege of heading this week’s teams. Tommy is the captain of the red team while Hetal is the captain of the blue team.

Tommy gets first pick for the red team and he chooses Stephen due to his recent strong performances. Stephen is unhappy and thinks that his personality does not go well with Tommy at all. Tommy then completes his team by choosing Katrina and Nick.

Over at the blue team, Hetal’s first choice is not pleased either. She chooses Derrick but he does not believe in Hetal’s ability to lead. Olivia and Claudia are then chosen to complete the team.

The judges tell the contestants that they will be preparing meals for 50 VIPs in this week’s team challenge. All of the invited guests are the who’s who in the vegetarian world. Hetal is ecstatic to learn that she has a big advantage, being the only vegetarian in the competition.

The teams go through their usual huddle in the pantry and Tommy is immediately overpowered by his teammates. They make their own decisions and they manage to overrule all of his suggestions. Nevertheless, they push forward with their butternut squash and Portobello dish. They also decide to add lentils and fried goat’s cheese discs.

Hetal decides to make all the decisions for the blue team because she’s so confident that she knows what she’s doing. She chooses to make a vegetable dry curry and a chickpea tomato curry paired with brown rice.

Unfortunately for Hetal, she choose Indian flavors that no one else in the team is familiar with. She ends up doing most of the work while the rest of her team runs around like headless chickens. Even though they are all good cooks, the unfamiliarity with the dishes is hindering their ability to contribute. Their brown rice turns out soupy and they scramble about to salvage the key element of their dish.

Over at the blue team, Tommy faces some trouble when the goat’s cheese discs do not form properly. They decide to ditch the cheese and focus on the other remaining elements. Tommy gets flustered when all of the strong personalities in his team try to talk down on him. He eventually puts his foot down and tells everyone to shut up.

The blue team eventually manages to get under control after Hetal takes the time to properly instruct the other team members. They start serving a dry vegetable curry of potatoes and cauliflower paired with a chickpea tomato curry and brown rice.

The red team also find their groove after Tommy puts his foot down. They form an assembly line and serve up their butternut squash rounds with Portobello mushrooms and lentils.

The guests vote for their favorite dish and the judges announce the team challenge winners. Tommy’s red team wins via a 13 point landslide. Hetal is devastated to have lost the vegetarian challenge, but she has no choice but to join Derrick, Olivia and Claudia in the pressure test.

Back in the MasterChef kitchen, the members of the blue team randomly choose their stations. Various mystery boxes are waiting for them and they each find an animal head in front of them.

Hetal is disgusted to find a lamb’s head and says that the pressure test is a vegetarian nightmare. Derrick gets a halibut head while Oliva gets a massive cow’s head. Claudia is ecstatic to find a pig’s head under her box.

When it was time to present their dishes, Claudia stood out with her tostada made with pig’s cheek and cabbage. Hetal manages to produce a decent braised lamb check and tongue dish despite never having eaten lamb in her life.

Derrick cooks his halibut perfectly but he is given a warning on restraint by Graham. He puts in too many elements including some smoked mango and grapefruit that did not need to be in the dish. Olivia produced a barbecue beef check with cheddar polenta. Gordon tastes it and says that she seems to have killed the flavor of the beef due to her extremely strong and sweet barbecue sauce.

In the end, Olivia gets sent home. Only Hetal, Derrick, Claudia, Tommy, Stephen, Katrina and Nick are left in the competition. Next week, the top seven cooks are left to battle it out to become America’s next “MasterChef.”

“MasterChef” airs every Wednesday at 8:00 pm EDT on FOX.