Cody Karey, the 24-year-old Fort St. James home cook starring on MasterChef Canada, has won his way through to the next round.
The young culinary magician made it into the final six during Sunday's episode.
More than living to cook another day for the trio of celebrity MasterChef judges - Alvin Leung, Claudio Aprile and Michael Bonacini - he also won a lot of on-screen esteem.
Throughout the competition, starting from the initial 16 aspirants, his fellow competitor Line Pelletier (45, a francophone, ex-military computer specialist from New Brunswick) has been frequently critical of him. For that reason, when one of the competitors (Sabrina Poirier) was given the chance to make the pairings for a special tag-team challenge on Sunday night, Karey and Pelletier were made a duo to purposefully maximize their friction.
"I put salt in the sugar bowl," Poirier said gleefully.
It started out that way. The three pairs had to compete for the best three-tier trays of afternoon tea snacks, copying the three tiers they were shown in the model tray at the start of the challenge.
Pelletier said at the starting gun "he's really slow and he's really arrogant" of her reluctant teammate.
Karey did not retort in kind, however, during the comments the TV editors chose to show the audience.
"Cody and Line have shown they are both very strong home cooks," said judge Leung during the colour commentary.
"They also have very strong personalities and they tend to clash," added judge Aprile.
"There is no love lost between Cody and myself," Pelletier told the audience as they rushed through the multi-tasks of the tea tray challenge. "There is an age difference; there is a cultural difference; there is different cooking style. Sabrina wants us to fall flat on our faces."
The two spoke sharply to each other at times, but the lines of respect were not transgressed during the one-hour replication challenge. In fact, their dialogue began to take on an air of alliance.
The competition was intense, the teams had a fierce challenge to each replicate a tiered tray of tea-time refreshments, and during the events Pelletier severely injured her knee, re-aggravating an old military injury for which she has so far received 11 surgeries and two knee replacements.
Yet she soldiered on through the assignment and Karey continued to cheer her on, gave her a constant stream of cooking suggestions and personal affirmation, and they produced the best results of the night despite the painful physical setback.
It even finished with a sweeping bear-hug between the two when the final second struck.
"Cody, do you think the accident affected Line's performance at all?," asked judge Bonacini, loading the question with opportunity for Karey to express dismay or disapproval of his longtime critic.
"There is no way I could have possibly asked more from my partner," he replied.
"Wow," Bonacini said.
Then the judges sampled the array of wares. It was three levels of compliments - unanimous approval from the judges.
"What I've learned about Cody is that I'd misjudged him from the start. I think we saw the real Cody come out today.
For their good graces under pressure, the judges awarded them ample appreciation and declared them the two captains of the next upcoming team challenge as they each move into the top six.
The next episode is Sunday on CTV at 7 p.m.
