"There are two girl groups and there's definitely some competition. We don't want Jane and Emma to do well," Katie sneers.

Nikki is no better...

"There's not enough room for all of us, I have to be the prettiest thing at the table," she snarls.

Is it sneaky editing, or do these girls really rate themselves that highly?

Anyway, Emma clearly has other things on her mind. The simmering-but-one-sided sexual tension she has with Steve continues as the loud lass finally takes him home to her Melbourne share house... along with the rest of the My Kitchen Rules cast.

No, it isn't the start of some blue movie. Perfectionist (read: germaphobe) Jane and easy going Emma are taking their turn in the kitchen for the secret round and plan to keep it simple, stupid.

Jane's a corporate lawyer and Emma works in advertising, but none of that really matters, of course, because their "real passion is food".

They'd really like to cast aside those years of gruelling study, shove those humungous uni fees where the sun don't shine and open a small cafe in Melbourne. And for some reason they can't do that without appearing on a reality television show.

"We both have our strengths. I'm the dessert queen and Emma is a whiz with the savoury," Jane says.

Tonight's contenders debate how much parmesan they'll need for the entree in front of a stack of Savoy cracker boxes, which look strangely like Jatz cracker boxes. What sorcery is this? Do Victorians call Jatz something different or is it just Western Australia missing out? (I'm not kidding, someone please tell me!)

Jane and Emma head to the greengrocer looking for figs and hit their first stumbling block.

"No, figs are out of season now, darling," the creepy greengrocer says.

Pressed for time, the ladies choose not to school the guy in Totes Inappropes Language 101 and end up driving half an hour away to grab a tray of funky fruit.

Perhaps seeking the answer to the Jatz/Savoy debate, a black swan (WA's state emblem, for our eastern states cousins) menaces Jane and Emma en route, but leaves none the wiser.

Because Emma has so much chill, she nails the reverse park in the driveway and immediately wields the nail gun to put decorations into place for their garden party-themed instant restaurant Wisteria. She's my kinda gal.

Jane, who has no chill, wastes precious moments rearranging cutlery and even has to ask Emma to open a jar for her.

After their dismal African-themed effort, Lynn and Tony obviously hope the Victorians fail.

"This is lovely, how colonial," Lynn says when they all arrive.

But it doesn't matter what she thinks because Emma is making puppy dog eyes and giving lingering hugs to cooking rival Steve.

"I feel like I'm intruding on a romantic dinner for Emma and Steve," one guest quips.

More than one team picks up on the unintentional Desperate Housewives reference in the restaurant name, though some are classier about it than others.

"I can definitely see how they are very nice and proper like housewives, Emma a little bit more of the desperate," Nikki says.

Back in the kitchen, the ladies are way behind. The arancini balls they moulded are too big and Jane is struggling to melt cheese for parmesan crisps. I mean really, melting cheese is cooking now?

Judge Colin says the entree overall was too big, the first time I've heard a bloke complain about there being too much food. Other than that, he reckons it's OK.

Salmon is on the menu for mains, but the crispy skin is sticking to the pan and there's a drama with the vinaigrette. The first batch is too sweet, the second batch was too sour, so Emma mixes them together and saves the day.

To the tune of Land of Hope and Glory, Steve gets philosophical about cooking with fish.

"If we're going to serve a fish, we're going to buy a whole one and fillet it ourselves," he says.

"It's telling me who they are as cooks. It's telling me whether they wanted to [fillet it] or didn't want to."

You could've just asked, Stevo.

It turns out it's cooked alright, but placing the asparagus salad on top of the crispy skin made the whole thing soggy.

Now, it's dessert queen Jane's time to shine. She's worried about folding the warm figs through too soon, but borrowed Emma's mindset and decides she'll be right.

Meanwhile, ditzy Nikki regales the table with some more fun facts that should definitely be preceded with a giant sign reading CITATION NEEDED.

"99 per cent of people, when they have their first sip of alcohol, coffee and something else, they don't like it," she says.

Colin comes to bother the ladies in the kitchen and nitpicks everything.

"I don't get your time management at the moment. Why don't you cut it, get it in the freezer and start working on time management," he says.

Well, maybe they could if you stop being such a nosy parker.

Colin has a weird obsession with ice cream sandwiches, something to do with his mum. It's a story he repeats as dessert is served up.

"Your dish tonight, unfortunately it didn't do it for me," he says.

"You needed the ice cream to be creamy, hard and set, but it had crystallised."

So the dessert queen is defeated and her savoury sister squashed – but were their consistently meh dishes enough to keep them from wooden spoon territory?

From the other contestants, 26 out of 50. Judge Colin gave the entree a four, six for main and five for dessert.

The total of 56 is enough to keep them from the bottom of the leaderboard... for now.