After last season of MasterChef, I got to meet up with fellow Massachusetts resident and season two contestant Christian Collins to talk about the show, his bad-guy reputation on the show and more. This season I thought I’d see if he’d like to chime in on season three’s goings-on. As it turns out, he’s totally game.
I spoke with Collins for a bit after Tuesday night’s episode, and here’s what he had to say:
Thoughts on the third-season bad guy, Ryan: “I think it’s all funny, and I think it’s interesting how they’re talking during the in-between time — they didn’t do that last year. You’re going to get some of those off-camera comments to keep it interesting.”
“I almost think they picked Ryan to win the challenge just to keep it interesting, because they knew he was going to start throwing people under the bus left and right. It was a good time to pick him as a winner to kinda delegate that challenge to everyone.”
“Compared to me, who got labeled the bad guy last year, Ryan is busting out the ‘douchebags’ and making enemies real quick. I was never on a personal level like that with anyone. Even off-set, I’m thinking these people are really not being nice to each other or hanging out together. Last season it was: what happens in the MasterChef kitchen stays in the MasterChef kitchen — we’d hang out afterwards and have fun and get along, even though we weren’t exactly best friends.”
“I kinda hated Ryan at first. But then I saw how he played his game, and I like the way he’s playing his game … but I don’t see me and him getting along very well at all, as far as competition goes. But I appreciated his villainous strategy.”
On the food choices so far: “One thing I thought’s hilarious is I’ve noticed that the ‘trios’ have started breaking out again. Y’know, you’ve got the Trio of Crab and the Offal Trio. Like in season two, Adrian had that Trio of Meatballs, and then this one made a trio of this and that. It was always an ongoing joke off-set. ‘Oh, nice TRIO today.’ It can always bite you in the ass because say you make one great thing on the plate and something else that’s lacking. You could get your ass chewed out for that.”
“And what’s with the ‘$60 crab’ comment? Where are they getting $60 crab from?!”
His choice of the top three so far: “In no particular order: Felix, Christine and David.”
“Christine amazes me. I was at first thinking it wasn’t fair either to the others or to her, but she’s just amazing. I was talking to [season two’s] Ben Starr, and we were saying can you imagine doing what we did blindfolded? I would’ve gone home!”
“David has shown himself through and through. He’s definitely one of the strongest contenders. I’d say we’ll see him at least in, say, the top six.”
His choice of the bottom: “I had Helene at the bottom before the end of the episode, so I had to make a new pick, and that’s Frank. When they showed him making pasta yet again. … Yeah, he seems like a one-trick pony so far.”
I’ll be checking in with Christian again in a few more episodes, so check back again for more later! Meanwhile, you can check out his catering business if you’re in his area of New England.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Jun 21, 2012 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
HA! Yeah, I was wondering about that $60 crab too!