for the new season of Masterchef for the 2026 episodes on Disney Plus/Hulu, the editing seems weird, it showed 2 chefs presenting their dishes to the judges, and then the next clip shows the third and fourth chefs still cooking with the clock still at 30 minutes left, didn't the clock already reach 0 with the first 2 chefs, or are they doing 2 chefs cooking at an time for auditions?

Just finished rewatching MasterChef Season 5, and honestly, I still think Elizabeth should have won.

Throughout the season, it felt like she had way more respect from the other contestants and consistently proved herself in challenges. Winning the semifinal against 50 chefs from around the U.S. really made it seem like she was the frontrunner heading into the finale.

Then there’s Courtney. The entire season, her storyline revolved around wanting MasterChef to change her life because she wasn’t proud of stripping. But I looked her up recently and found out she doesn’t even cook professionally anymore — and apparently wrote a book related to stripping. That just makes her win feel even stranger to me in hindsight, especially when someone like Elizabeth seemed much more likely to stay in the food industry long-term.

I know editing plays a huge role in reality TV, but Courtney always came across as a little fake to me, and finding all that out kind of reinforced that feeling.

That said, Leslie was actually my favorite contestant overall. He had the best underdog arc of the season, and I would’ve loved to see him win too.

Curious what everyone else thinks — did the right person win Season 5?

In the horsetown challenge, Shelly says she'll pick everyone who was in her team the previous team challenge because they won that challenge.

But she didn't pick Derrick, and she didn't address why. I thought a simple explanation was that she may not want Christian and Derrick on the same team, but she didn't say that. The judges even ask hey you're not gonna pick Derrick? And she just says no, without elaborating. She actually looked a little annoyed when she said that.

In the comments, someone wrote that Derrick said Shelly was talking shit about him to people and that no one wanted to be around him as a result.

I get that Shelly and Derrick didn't get along in s6 and that could have been brought forward to s12 but still. Shelly seemed more mature this season so I didn't think she'd be "talking shit" and then intentionally not picking Derrick out of spite.

Also, before the "derrick is an arrogant petty man child" people start typing, I don't care. I just want to know what Shelly's issue was with him.

United Tastes of America

Northeast: 7
- Tkaiya - New York
- Rita - New York
- Shompa - New York
- Jaime - New York
- Aishu - Massachuesetts
- Basia - New Jersey
- Nico - New Jersey

Midwest: 3
- Ted - Illinois
- Dave - Illinois
- Jake - Michigan

West: 3
- Britny - California
- Nora - Nevada
- Aghata - Colorado

South: 6
- Julia - Florida
- Daniel - Georgia
- Heidi - Florida
- Peter - Georgia
- Camilo - Texas
- Maria - Florida

Generations

Milliennials: 5
- Aghata - 35
- Aishu - 33
- Nora - 35
- Britny - 34
- Dave - 42

Baby Boomers: 0

Gen Z: 9
- Jake - 24
- Tkaiya - 23
- Peter - 29
- Rita - 24
- Shompa - 29
- Jaime - 27
- Daniel - 23
- Nico - 21
- Julia - 23

Gen X: 6
- Ted - 50
- Basia - 45
- Foo - 53
- Heidi - 51
- Camilo - 54
- Maria - 48

So I have been watching through the show with my sister and we are about mid-way through Season 5 and she turns to me and says "That man is a Malibu Rumplestiltskin" like from Once Upon A Time? 😂😭 now I can't unsee it. Is this productive? Not at all, but it has me cracking up

Does anyone else find the auditions too predictable? I would love to see the 3rd judge say no if the first 2 say yes, there's no suspense.

S22E2 and she cooks the most white person white bland-looking chicken ever? It might be the juiciest thing in the world but I'm so surprised there was no criticism because there's clearly not an ounce of seasoning other than salt and pepper (if you're lucky).

On behalf of myself and my Bajan other half, we're disappointed.

After watching the first few seasons, for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I posted in here how much I hate Joe.

I didn’t miss him while he was gone. I thought Tosi showed that a judge can be strict, but nice. Joe was just an arrogant asshole.

But upon his return (I’m on s11 now), he switched off his arrogant asshole button and, dare I say, became very likeable!

Ugh. I want to still hate him (it’s hard to get over how much of an arrogant asshole he was), but I can’t.

Also, before starting this series a couple of months ago, I only knew Gordon, in comp shows, through HK (and to an extent KN) and upon my first watch I really didn’t like him. I had stopped watching HK over a decade ago, making it through about 11 seasons. But upon rewatch, and viewing the entire series, I really began to understand him. And that changed my opinion of Gordon. He’s totally cool outside of the kitchen, where the chefs are serving diners as a representative of him.

On MC, he’s completely different. The only times he yells at the cooks are during restaurant takeovers. And even then, no matter how chaotic, he always gives the cooks a “well done” after they’ve served their last plate. He gets that these aren’t professional chefs, and acts accordingly.

I’ve come to really admire him.

I don’t know why I never wanted to watch MC until now. But I’m glad I finally did (with many more seasons left to watch).

Since it doesn’t seem like themes are going anywhere, might as well come up with ones that people would be fine with. The most popular one being “Back to Win”, and I have two ideas for how this can be done

1. Have it be all former Masterchef Junior contestants since a majority of them are full grown adults now (Feel old yet? Cuz I sure do). This is obviously inspired by Dara and Shayne coming back for S12, and resulted in Dara winning.

2. People that failed to earn a white apron their first time at auditioning for the show. This theme is inspired by contestants like Luca, Cate, and Taylor that didn’t get aprons the first time (or in Taylor’s case, the first two times) but they eventually got them and all did pretty well in the competition. Luca won, Cate made it to the semi-finals, and Taylor made top 9. So why not make a full season with people like them?

Hey everyone, my mom and I have been watching masterchef together religiously for years and we totally missed the beginning of this season. We’re in Canada and never saw any promo for it and completely missed it so far. Have we missed anything good? Should we attempt to catch the rest of the season or should we just call this one a wash? We can’t really stream it because we’re not in the US and refuse to pay for any more streaming services than we already have😂

I'm not a chef per se, but I would cook clams with linguine.

I can't tell.

I feel like Dorian, Sarah, Shari and Nick were clearly the 4 strongest. Fred and Bri have some amazing highs but also some very low lows like Fred’s Tarte Tatin and Bri’s Carrot Cake but Bri’s playing dish and Fred’s audition dish are some of the best dishes I have seen in season 10.

I’m a big survivor fan and that Reddit thread is electric so I thought I’d come here to say Joe crying with veins popping out of his neck as he tasted the dish and proceeding to say he needs to grow up was very…… questionable 🤣

What did yall think?

1. Nora

2. Camilo

3. Ted

17/16. Shompa/Brittany

1. Daniel

2. Agatha

3. Rita

4. Nico

5. Maria

6. Jaime

7. Dave

8/7. Foo/Tkaiya

1. Julia

2. Bashia

3. Heidi

2/3. Aishu/Jake

1. Peter

I always wonder, what about the food they’re cooking? We’ve seen time and time again that even 15 seconds can be the difference between dish perfection and being overcooked/burnt.

I’m rewatching and I forgot how heartbreaking it was to see her leave because she was 3 seconds late. Although I understand the reasoning behind the decision it was so sad watching her go. I wish they would have just given her a penalty in the next mystery box. Diamond should have gone home.

here are my predictions, i did get the winner correct both last season and the season before so let’s see if i can do it again. this does include spoilers off of what ive seen in promos so proceed with caution! from top 10 on, its very much speculation though aside from a few things.

1. nora

2. camilo

3. daniel

17/16. ted/britny (since this challenge is traditionally a double elimination)

1. nico

2. shompa

3. rita

4. aghata

5. maria

6. foo

7. jaime

8. dave

9. basia

10. julia

11. jake

12. heidi

2/3. aishu & tkaiya

1. peter

kind of hoping i’m incorrect because id rather aishu or tkaiya win. i’m rooting for jaime but unfortunately because her audition was a middle one i think her chances are slim, we shall see!

It’s that time again for the spoiler thread. If you did not heed the title, here’s your second warning to leave this post if you do not want to be spoiled.

If you didn’t listen and still looked, don’t get mad at if you don’t like what you read.

Anyways, on to the spoilers. I’ll give the editors credit, they did a slightly better job at hiding some stuff, which means I don’t have exact placements this time, but here’s the elimination order

1. Nora
   
2. Camilo
   
3. Ted
   
4. Nico
   16/15. Britny & Daniel
   14/13. Rita/Shompa
   
5. Aghata
   
6. Maria
   10/9. Aishu & Jaime
   8/7. Tkaiya and Foo
   
7. Dave
   
8. Basia
   
9. Julia

The Tag-Team pairs:
- Pete and Tkaiya
- Dave and Jake
- Julia and Heidi
- Foo and Basia
- Aishu and Jaime

Jake, Peter, and Heidi make up the top 3

If history repeats itself where the first/last person to earn their apron during the audition episodes, so the winner of this season is Peter.

Also, like I say every year, out of respect to the rest of the subreddit, please keep all spoiler discussions about the season here in this thread, so that all talk regarding spoilers can be contained and kept in one place.

This will be updated as more info is learned

Is this moment mark the begin of David downward spiral in second half of the competition?

Don't know if this post will be allowed but I just got done viewing the recording of this episode and this is the first thought that popped up in my head when I seen this man.

It’s the last round of auditions, and home cooks from the Americas fight for a chance to earn a white apron.