He doesn’t. #ratingsfail. Meanwhile Cleo and Peter and Sun get the first camera time which is an ominous sign as they’re all feeling ominous about the skills challenge ahead. Ominous music overlaid with a motorcade of black death-row cars plays and the trembling batch of sacrificial lambs is delivered unto MC HQ. Chop-chop. George is reading off cue cards that have REALLY BIG words on them and some small words that ADD UP to an AWESOME script. But a life-saving metaphor shows the CARDS can't STOP him from ad-libbing probably because he is a little bit maybe still hoping Hayden might take his shirt off. He doesn't. He's just happy to be there. The challenge of their lifetimes is desserts. As in, life is uncertain, eat it first. Or make it. Or die. G and M throw down their demands. You must make Sponge. Using butter, eggs, sugar and (!) a recipe. You must also make custard and toffee and ganache. And you must do so with-OUT sacred cookbook text. And you shalt NOT make ANY more than ONE element at A-TIME or so help you GHOST-OF-ADAM-LIAW.

So it begins. Lightness of touch is CRUCIAL, George's mouth-words explode on Matt's cravat, which looks on, unamused. Fold the mixture together with ELEGANCE! With that in mind, we turn to Peter, a 50-year-old account manager who is putting so much effort into his eggy-weggies. His mix master has failed him, so he's yanked the bastard eggs out and whacked 'em in a bowl where he's going to MANUALLY whisk those sons of chickens into the elegant peaks he KNOWS they're capable of. We cut to commercial with an anti-food-porn-close-up of an unfertilised albumen disaster. Back from ad-break with a non-ad-ad for a schmanzy tropical hotel resort paradise escape starring the Red Team, and those eggs still suck. A cutaway shot to Hayden reminds us how calm and tanned and blonde he is. He could've probably resuscitated Peter's eggs if he wanted to, or maybe even have got them pregnant. Cut to Sun, 32, credit analyst, who at this point could probably benefit from some baby making because she's toying dangerously with the idea of adding more cornflour to her custard and – OMG NO! Now she did and it's TOO CORNFLOURY – double no! She may as well go drown herself in Peter's soggy egg bowl of impossible dreams and end it now because she KNEW better. She. Damn. Well. Knew. Better.

Forty minutes to go. Billy the Asian Wonder Man is kicking the dessert ass out of everyone except for a couple of no-one-cares-who-folks who are, like him, already making toffee. Hayden's mouth is moving and noises are coming out but the only thing that registers is that he's talking about how he would watch his mother make toffee as a nipper like so many sun-kissed kids in the Iron Man ads. You can almost hear his bro-mate Georgie giggling off camera. Hayden's shirt stays on. Georgie pouts, though will soon have a chance for some bromancery when Hayden decides to go maverick and blend his toffee in the blender. Y'know. Like a protein shake dude! High fives. Meanwhile Matt is calling Kumar, 62-year-old design teacher, animal names. 'You’re not fazed Kumar? No? Hm? Not fazed? Not even just a little bit worried, Kumar, that everyone else is done with the custard? Hm? No? YOU ARE A TORTOISE!'

(Director yells cut) Thirty mins to go. Desperate Dani, 25, publicist, in moment of panic, sticks her head in the oven ostensibly to check on her sponge (Don’t do it Dani! You’re so young and your hair so asymmetrical! Don't end it now!). Sun looks on no doubt envying Dani's devil-may-care gumption. Cleo, Andrew and Billy continue to carve it up as Sun's whole entire world falls apart. She's making her Grenache. And she just ruined the damn thing. Wait – is it Grenache or Ganache? Her life is practically over.

BUT IN A DRAMATIC PLOT DEVELOPMENT CLEO IS CAUGHT BEING A DIRTY CHEATING-CHEATER! Cut to break. When George confronts Crafty Cleo she's like, pfft, what-ever. Of course, Cleo is not as screwed as Sun – pronounced Soon for all you silly-billy latecomers to the show. She collects her last box and she’s almost in tears. AND THEN the shocking discovery that her sponge ain't cooked. "I just want to call this dish sad and forlorn because that's how I feel" she says. Diddums. She is actually crying now.

Cut to commercial. We've completed the elimination skills race. Hayden calls himself an idiot with self-effacing charm. Bro-mate Georgie licks his tasting spoon and tries to convey how much not-an-idiot he thinks Hayden through his limpid brown eyes. Take off your shirt - LOOK PETER'S EGGS have transubstantiated into a crap looking mound of crap. And it tastes….? Like crappy crap. Anyhoo, Asian dessert MASTER Billy gets four million-billion stars from Matt for his spongey dessert roll genius dish. Sun-soon-so-royally-screwed-credit-analyst is crying the tears of a thousand ticking biological clocks as the judges approach BUT she gets love-love-love from the boys who love-love her maverick-mavericky approach to caramel toffee making. She had used a power tool! AWESOME MERCH OPP!

And then they talk and the bottom losers including a catatonic Sun are lined up for the firing squad AND! CLEO IS OUT! EVERYONE CRIES! THE RED TEAM IS SHOCKED! THIS TRULY IS THE WORST THING ON THE PLANET RIGHT NOW – Or at least until tomorrow. *Astronauts do not condone the use of paper towels.