Top Chef: Burned And Royally Screwed

What’s up, people? What a weird week this has been, huh? Nads said something about it being the end of the world, and sometimes it sure feels like that… hell, there’s a billboard along La Cienega Boulevard in L.A. from some zealot group that declares the actual date of destruction is May 21st of this year (the subtle subtext I get from their choice of hysterically blocky font and overuse of exclamation points to deliver their message is “FUCK THOSE PAGAN MAYAN ASSHOLES, WE’VE GOT THEM BEAT BY A YEEEEEEAR!!!!!!). Well, between the riots in Egypt, union-busting in Wisconsin, tsunami-ravaged Japan, the continued AIDS epidemic in Africa (yes, that’s still going on), wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the overall losingness of Charlie Sheen, we all need a safe place to go to spend an hour away from the chaos and disorder that increasingly invades the rest of our ordinary world…

welcome to Top Chef: The Inferno

Yes, after a mostly enjoyable season of fun challenges (ok, a few lame ones, too) and interesting chef interaction we have arrived at the Finals… and everything goes straight to fucking hell. I mean it, this episode is awful in more than a few ways, and I may have hidden it well in the semi-light-hearted PodGasm I did with Flipit right after it was over, but truthfully, I was extremely upset and angry, and I will do my best to keep this recap from becoming a fifteen-page rant, but it’s not going to be easy at all. Let’s get it started…

Ahhhh, fluffy clouds floating over cool blue-green oceans… I’m not sure why they are playing Hawaiian steel guitars over this scene, since we are in the Bahamas, but whatever. Here is LowFatSo, riding in a product-placed vehicle (that rhymes with Cloyota) and reminiscing on her journey to this point, which she prophetically describes as “fiery” and says it’s been an emotional rollercoaster for her…

ooh girl, you have no idea what kind of Cyclone ride is in store for y’all

She hopes to stay focused and believes that will win the competition for her (which brings on an instant sense of foreboding). Then she confirms my suspicions that the LowFatSo Clan might be slightly loaded as she admits the money’s really a secondary consideration to winning the title of Top Chef All Stars.

Then she meets up with BlazeHawk, who has finally realized how stupid his hair has looked for the last several years and gotten a new style…

which is still stupid, but less so

Plus, I think he’s trying to cash in on the cuddliness inspired by Kevin “DirtyBear” Gillespie’s fuzzy beard, so he’s growing a goatee…

sorry, but no one is gonna make a FaceBook tribute page to that thing

Yeah, he might as well shave (or wash) that thing off. In any case, Blazey’s remembering how the last time he was on a Caribbean island he was “left standing there while someone else won” and GOD I WILL BE SO GLAD WHEN I DON’T HAVE TO HEAR THIS WHINY BULLSHIT FROM HIS GIANT MOUTH EVER AGAIN. Unfortunately, we’re only 58 seconds into this episode, so I’m guessing sometime in the next 59:02 we’ll have to endure The Sad Tale Of Ultimate Injustice From Season Four™ several more times. Feel free to indulge your nausea, i know I’m keeping a wastebasket handy.

Next to show up is our beloved Beaker…

wackily wearing her favorite macramé planter

This is why we love her so much, everyone else looks at those things hanging from the ceiling and only sees a holder for spider plants, Beaker sees them as completely useless fashion accessories. Anyhow, she mentions that BlazeHawk’s next baby is almost due (I’m betting that the icy BlazeWife is an unending joy to be around at 8½ months) and he tells them that he’s having a girl and that her name is going to be “Embry Lotus”. Beaker and LowFatSo both go “Awwwww” at the same time…

as in “Awww, how sad that you want to sentence your own kid to years of bullying…”

I guess there are worse things than being named after a Chinese Restaurant. He could have chosen “Liquidia Nitrogena” or something. Anyhow, now we can add this to the list of Things That Are Super-Annoying About BlazeHawk™, because he’s saying the “scariest” thing would be if he didn’t win Top Chef All Stars and he missed the birth of his baby. “Talk about losing… a lot!”….

how about losing the self-entitled attitude… and the chin-pubes

Beaker lies to him and tells him she actually likes the new Dirty Sanchez he’s sporting, and he claims he’s not gonna shave it until he wins. Her awesome comeback to that is “I’m sorry you’re gonna go home with that long beard…” LOL Beaker’s reminiscing back to her own defeat in New Orleans and says she gave away her power when she felt like doing her food wasn’t enough. Cue the flashback of Daddy Tom telling her that she let Bunny Foo Foo fuck her shit up…

do. not. let. this. happen. again.

Instead of acting like the title of Top Chef is rightfully hers, she simply says she wants redemption. And this is why Beaker will always beat BlazeHawk for Fan Favorite… because she does not strut around being self-importantly convinced of her own awesomeness. Also, I bet she would never name her kid something that will get the shit beat out of them. She just isn’t a hateful person like that.

Speaking of hateful, it’s about to get nasty up in dis bitch, because here comes Sexist Pigshit lumbering over the hill, sweating and huffing. He’s still pretty puffed up from his daily bag of Chee-Tos the success of his “soulful dish” that he learned FROM HIS DEAD GRANDMOTHER (cue the flashback of him flogging that for all it’s worth) and claims that in the off time he’s been “training more” by “working around all the top kitchens in D.C.” Anywhere that they needed Greek-ish lamb and yogurt and cucumber dishes, I guess. He also alleges that he’s been working with “different pastries and different products” and feels he’s “a lot stronger now”…

the only thing stronger is his vile man-funk body odor

Also, it looks like he did so much working with pastries (if “working” = “eating”) that he added yet another chin. I’m impressed! It usually takes me about a year to add another one, I’m betting they’ve only had like three months. If you think I’m being harsh with him, just wait, he hasn’t had a chance to earn it yet, but trust me, he will.

Lastly we see ChesTiffany rolling up, saying she is coming into this whole thing “feeling like an underdog“…

amen, Beaumont, Texas!

She knows she is amazingly lucky that the Judges decided to send all five of them to the Finale. No argument from me there. I also think that the formidable presence of her MamaLu at the Judges’ Table helped immensely…

you know I will beat your asses down with my big purse if y’all say anything bad ’bout my baby’s cooking

She insists that now she is buh-ringing it, with her sharpened knives and her sassy attitude. How about bring some non-mediocre food, too, K girl? And don’t threaten me with your purse-swangin’ mama, I grew up with one of those, and I have a black belt in Handbag Avoidance, too.

So anyway, the Five Finalists are at some ancient crumbly building that looks like some kind of war bunker, and it turns out to be “Historic Fort Charlotte”. When they enter the Fort’s walls they see the four most recent Top Chefs, arranged according to their A.Q.s or Asshat Quotients…

starting with Li’l Volt, who also (wisely) ditched the random spiky hair, but he still apparently smells catshit somwhere

followed by JerseyMoobs, still twiddling his own nipple

then Hoser, the King Of Potatoes (and Bold Flavors™!) looking suitably bitter (and dirty!)

and here’s Yoda, who controls The Force, yet still desperately needs some powder

OK, I’m just kidding about the order-based-on-asshat thing, cuz it’s really just three equally dickish guys and Yoda. In any case, as the Finalsts come upon the scene and see the Top Chefs they all light up with recognition…

except ChesTiffany, who’s more like “Did that dude with man-tits really win my season?”

I don’t blame her for still being in disbelief, I know we all are. Anyhow, they are greeted by Scar, Daddy Tom…

and that French guy nobody can understand!

Wait, what’s Le Rippert doing here? Wasn’t last season his chance to rarely show up as a “Guest Judge”??!? Where is Dis-Dain? I’m confused. Daddy Tom looks like he is, too. Oh well, let’s get to the QuickFire Challenge, which is for each of the Finalists to compete directly against the winner of their season by making a dish in 40 minutes with a protein hand-picked by Daddy himself. This news is not going over well with Sexist Pigshit…

who is clearly pissed now that he realizes he won’t be able to ride Li’l Volt’s coat-tails to an easy win

Hahaha. Although Pigshit incorrectly identifies Li’l Volt as the “guy who pretty much dominated our season”…

sorry SexPig, but this is who dominated your season

I don’t mean to nitpick, but Pigshit needs to keep it real, DirtyBear won four QuickFires and five Elimination Challenges compared to Li’l Volt’s two QFs and four ECs. DirtyBear still wins in my book. Plus he never stands there looking like someone just farted directly up his nose.

Also making sure to cement his own Asshole status? Is BlazeHawk, who upon seeing the hated Yoda just can’t help but spew: “During my season I knew I was the best one there, and now this is my chance to finally beat the winner of my season.” Yup, except she still beat you in the end, and winning one QuickFire against her won’t change that…

neither will making your mouth look like a pubescent vagina

What will happen if they beat their season’s Top Chef is that they win $10,000.00, which is great and all, but it won’t suddenly prove they are a better chef, like Blazey seems to think. If the Top Chef wins, they get the cash. Daddy Tom also mentions the “secret ingredient” that they must highlight in their dish (good to see TC ripping off Chopped for a change, since it’s usually the other way ’round) and Le Rippert says some le geebbereesh before Scar starts their time.

Season 4′s mystery box contains a giant rack of veal, which immediately annoys BlazeHawk as he complains he was expecting something “more Caribbean”. Gee, I wonder if someone did a lot of practicing on “Caribbean” food and is pissed that their prep didn’t pay off for this challenge? Meanwhile, Season 6 got handed a whole duck, which SexPig decides to let Li’l Volt butcher for him, which is a surprisingly smart move on his part. An even smarter move would have been for Li’l Volt to only butcher the parts he needed and hand half a dismembered duck back to Pigshit. Season 5 has a rack of lamb, and the very first thing out of Hoser’s mouth is proof that he’s been making the mistake of Googling himself, cuz he is waaaaaay bitter for a *snort* Top Chef (air quotes) winner: “What’s at stake here is to prove to everybody, to the haterz, that I did deserve to win…”

and that I’m just as unsexy with a beard as without

I spelled “haterz” that way on purpose because I could actually hear the ‘z’ in his voice. I don’t think Hoser is ever gonna convince us that anybody besides Stefan should have won Season 5. Oh, and a real Top Chef wouldn’t even have dignified the allegations with a response. ‘Nuff said. Finally, over at Season 7 (Sux) they have been tossed a softball in the form of pork, and ChesTiff believes she can hand JerseyMoobs his flabby ass in a bacon skillet. She’s already halfway there as we hear Moobsie already complaining that his back is killing him and that he’s “too old” for this. Yup, that’s our Season 7 Top Chef (air quotes) winner… a 31-year-old who can’t last 40 minutes cooking without bitching about how haaaaard it all is. Wah.

On the much more likeable side of the fort we have Yoda, whose job is twice as hard as the male TeeCees, because she’s going up against both BlazeHawk and LowFatSo…

and is still way too shiny while doing it

She’s trying to keep a positive attitude, though, remaining focused on the fact that she also stands to win twice as much money as the other chefs. She also admits she is super-competitive and wants to win everything all the time, which normally I would find kinda annoying, but Yoda’s so sweet about it that her ambition isn’t bitter-tasting or nasty-smelling. And speaking of nasty-smelling…

perhaps the duck has gone over already?

Li’l Volt says he did not come there to lose to Sexist Pigshit. Then he claims to have a “somewhat perfect record” and says he’d like to keep that going. OK, a) the phrase “somewhat perfect” is an oxymoron, and b) what the fuck is he talking about? Is he referring to the fact that his skill and creativity are heavily responsible for helping JerseyMoobs win Season 7 (Still Sux)? Cuz, that’s still not a win for him directly. And he certainly did not win every single Challenge of Season 6, so I’m not clear on how he thinks he can get away with using those two words in relation to his “record”…

unless he’s referring to his “somewhat perfect record” of being a douche-sack

Li’l Volt’s pulling out all of the stops and attempting to use every single tool that has been provided, including a blowtorch, the smoke gun, solar power, etc. This is making SexPig even more nervous, which is delicious.

BlazeHawk’s still complaining that this isn’t turning out to be an easy task, and I don’t wanna hear him any more, so let’s check in with LowFatSo. She’s using one of the induction burners provided and it keeps malfunctioning and turning itself off on her, so the temperature keeps fluctuating and LowFatSo isn’t pleased about that fact that she’s basically “steaming veal in a pan”. Beaker happens to be having the same problem, and eventually she gives up and just uses one pot on the burner that is working…

and I’m starting to wonder if she used some other pot for something else

She makes a critical error when she decides to put her rice in with her stew, because there’s no way it’s going to cook in time, “I may have just shot myself in the foot.” Yeah, it’s too bad this cheap-ass show spent so much of it’s budget on wardrobe for Scar instead of, you know, working equipment for the chefs. I think Hoser’s about to be able give a big ugly pasty $10,000.00 middle finger to all his haterz. With that, time is up…

and guess who looks cool and confident and who looks like a bitch?

They start with Season 7 (Sucksucksuckitysuck) and JerseyMoobs’ pork dish is up first, and he’s gone with the shockingly original (and almost unheard of) preparation known as “barbecuing”…

if “barbecuing” meant “making it look like a meat scorpion buried in leaves

Jesus, what a snoozer of a dish. Then again, Tiff generally isn’t very imaginative either (remember popcorn and DOTS from last week?) so this may be a challenge for her. What’s her dish of the day?…

wait, isn’t that her chicken’n'dumps?

I notice Moobsie still hasn’t lost his simpering ass-kissy ways with the judges as he reminds them not to be scared of picking up his porkpions by the ribs and chowing down on them as well. Because we all know that Scar and Daddy Tom love food that they have to use a Wet-Nap for. They also love being told how to eat stuff. Therefore, I love that ChesTiffany unanimously beats JerseyMoobs…

yup, you suck

Tiff is even more excited realizing that this is the first time she’s won any kind of challenge this entire season, and this is giving her a buttload of confidence. I’m happy for her, but I feel like she should temper that confidence with the realization that she just beat JerseyMoobs… it’s not like she trounced Li’l Volt or Daddy Tom or Erique Le Rippert.

Next up is Season 5, Haterade Vs. Love-made, starting with Hoser’s dish…

airline food

Of course, he could have served the fried up soles of his shoes and still had a better shot than Beaker’s dish has…

maybe “jollof” is another word for “undercooked”

Sure enough, it’s a unanimous vote for Hoser to win this one, and Beaker doesn’t even try to dispute the decision or mention any mitigating circumstances…

such as being forced to cook with shitty burners that don’t fucking work

Honestly, I am so annoyed that this kind of thing is allowed to happen. I get it that it’s supposed to be a challenge, but how is it a fair challenge when you have malfunctioning equipment? If her rice had been cooked, perhaps it would have beaten the shit out of Hoser’s TV-dinner-looking piece of shit…

which is even more disgusting when you realize it’s a recreation of his head made out of meat

Now it’s time for Season 4 and the Yoda Double-Header, and I must say, her dish looks really…

um, oily?

Ugh, I dunno what she did to that shit, or if she meant for it to look that way, but whenever I look at that plate there’s a creepyscary voice in the back of my head that’s saying “brains?… braaaaaaains?!?!” over and over again. Let’s see if LowFatSo did any better…

uh oh, now the voice is saying “leather?… leaaaaaather?!?!“

Daddy Tom confirms that voice when he tells LowFatSo that he likes the flavors but the veal is really tough. On the other hand, he likes the texture of Yoda’s braineggs and the veal tastes good, but there’s too much going on, and he says he’s not really a fan of either dish. OUCH! Throwing salt in the wound he just made, he says if he was forced to choose, he’d go with LowFatSo’s. Le Rippert, though, says even zo he was confuse bai dee egg on topov ze veel een Yodah’s deesh, he found LowVatZo’s meat to be drai an hard, zo now eet eez a tai. Scar winds up being the tie-breaker and chooses Yoda, so oily beats dry I guess? LowFatSo congratulates her and at least Yoda knows what time it is because she admits it’s a crappy dish…

she’s more upset that BlazeHawk’s about to be validated

In fact, Blazey is feeling pretty confident after hearing the Judges rip on Yoda’s food, so he thinks he’s got a strong chance of winning…

even though this dish is just as fug as the others

Seriously, all three of their dishes just looked like a big pile of messy brown cat food. Nevertheless, BlazeHawk wins unanimously, and he’s happy about the cash, but even happier about “the intimidation factor” that this creates. Whatever, let’s move on to Season 6 and Li’l Volt’s dish…

ahhh, so nice to see Random Citrus™ again

Finally, we get to see Sexist Pigshit’s attempt to thrash the So-Called-Dominator Of Season Six™…

have to admit, it’s prettier than most of the shit they’ve presented today

Even Li’l Volt calls it “nice” under his breath…. wait, what’s going on here, why is Li’l Volt looking so unsure of himself and skerd??!?!…

stop it, you’re supposed to be an arrogant jerkwad who has a “somewhat perfect” record, you can’t lose to SexPig!

Well, at least Scar is consistent in her dislike of Pigshit, because she immediately chooses Li’l Volt’s dish. Le Rippert, however, says while he thinks Li’l Volt’s was interesting and complex, he liked SexPig’s better. It comes down to Daddy Tom’s decision, and he says both dishes were great, but for him the deciding factor is who “handled the duck” better…

ugh, I guess I’m not totally surprised considering SexPig’s skill at choking the chicken

Yup, Sexist Pigshit actually beats Li’l Volt! I know, I’m shocked, too (and so is BlazeHawk, who is impressed that SexPig was able to pull off such an upset). Actually, Pigshit was surprised, too, but immediately takes his cocky to the next level as he blathers about how important it was to beat his “nemesis”. Calm down, tubbo, you beat Li’l Volt at one challenge, it’s not like you’re going to compete at Bocuse d’Or next week or anything…

based on what we’ve seen, this is yet another exaggeration on Pigshit’s part

Oh well, now that that’s over with, let’s find out about the Elimination Challenge. Daddy Tom says that on the following night they’ve all been invited to a dinner party by “Bahamian royalty” to welcome them to the island. Scar tells the chefs that they will be doing the cooking, which sounds like a pretty asinine way to “welcome” someone to your home, like saying “Thanks for coming over, now go scrub the toilets and then you can pick up my dry-cleaning.” But, it’s a challenge, right? The only thing I can think of that would be even more asinine than that…

is being straight-up lied to by these three

We’ll get to that in a bit. First, I must say that ChesTiffany’s reaction upon hearing this is pretty likeable, “I’m still gonna cook the same thing that I would cook for someone who is not royalty.” Of course, that could also be her way of saying “I don’t really know how to make high-end food.” In any case, to further hammer home the gravity of the situation, Le Rippert gushes how eet eez trooly an honair too bee eenclooded een soch a presteegious eeveneeng. Daddy Tom finishes bullshitting instructing the chefs by imploring them to make them proud. With all those dire warnings, the chefs are now free to go see their accommodations at the product-placement hotel that rhymes with The Stove At Flat Mantis…

sure beats staying at the place that rhymes with Ro-Tel Dicks

Naturally they have a gigantic suite of rooms, possibly their own turret, and ChesTiffany and Beaker decide to stay roommates, which Beaker doesn’t mind at all since Ronda and Juanita are constantly yammering at her, much like ChesTiffany keeps doing. Meanwhile BlazeHawk’s having a wet daydream that winning Top Chef would allow him to open up the restaurant of his dreams…

and you can bet liquid nitrogen would be a regular condiment

He’s also boasting that he’s the “hardest working person that showed up for this” and claims he’s cooked “every single piece of fish” that he believes swims within a HUNDRED MILES of the Bahamas, and does he really think saying all this entitled bullshit out loud makes him more deserving of the win than anyone else? Ugh, let’s move on.

Well, it’s the next day and they’ve got 2½ hours to prep their food for their “Bahamian royalty” (or as ChesTiffany keeps pronouncing it, “Bohemian royalty”). Sexist Pigshit believes people like that have travelled the world and “eaten everything” so he says “Honestly, you don’t wanna put up a plate of bullshit.” Gee, what a smart idea, QUICK, someone hand him the title now…

derrrrrrreatbullshitnotgoodforroyaltybuhbuhbuhbuhduhoyeeederrrrrrr

Putz. Anyhow, BlazeHawk is making some spiny lobster with pulled pork and pickled turnips. You know, I’ve noticed over the last several weeks that the whole “pickled” thing is another one of his incessant go-to’s. Not nearly as nauseatingly frequent as the liquid nitrogen, but close. In any case, he believes his dish fits royalty well because it’s got “a sense of refinement to it.” And stuff that’s pickled.

Meanwhile, Sexist Pigshit is trying to get his dear cuz LowFatSo to peel his lobsters for him. She should have agreed… and then just hacked them all to pieces. BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Well, her dish is a complex combination of lamb, bacon, brussels sprouts, bleu cheese and hazelnuts, and she believes it is fit to be served to “The King And Queen Of The Bahamas”.

It was at this point when she said those words that I started to be bothered by this feeling of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Does the Bahamas actually have a Royal Family?…

and are they as fabulous as the King And Queen of Zamunda?

Unfortunately I do not own an iPad, so I couldn’t heft it’s unwieldy bulk into my lap, mis-type several things onto it’s touch screen and eventually find out the answer from Wikipedia. I also had a pair of kittehs asleep on top of me and I didn’t want to disturb them by getting up to check my iMac. What? The kittehs need their sleep! They had only gotten in fourteen of their daily sixteen hours worth at that point! Anyhow, this thought continued to bug me for the next several minutes.

Hey, it turns out Beaker has worked in the Bahamas before, so she’s hoping that gives her an advantage. She’s making pork medallions with great big apple chips. Ahhhh, like pork chops and applesauce! However, she’s having difficulty getting beyond the fact that she got totally fucked (by faulty fucking equipment) in the QuickFire and lost $10,000.00 to Mr. Potato-Hose-Head. I would be bereft with grief as well.

LowFatSo notices that Beaker is not her usual chipper upbeat self and asks how she’s doing. Beaker (after she finally shushes Ronda and Juanita, who have been fighting over whether or not to levitate all of her old apple cores straight at Sexist Pigshit’s head) is honest and says she’s psyching herself out, believing she does better when she’s being underestimated because she is afraid of failing if she actually has confidence in herself. “All the people that have tried something and been underestimated… it’s for them… if you ask me ‘do you think you can win doing what you do?’… and if I can’t, I may as well leave now.”…

besides, I got a trip around the world to take and $15,000 to blow

This is starting to feel even more uncomfortable, because they’re not even close to serving yet and she’s already getting weepy and defeated. Not helping my mood is having to hear Sexist Pigshit chime in. Did you think he still held his newfound “cousin” LowFatSo (or any woman for that matter) in high esteem? Hell no! Listen to this: “Carla, Tiffany and Antonia played it safe just to get here… and I think they’re playing it safe right now and it makes me a little upset.” Yes, this is coming from the fuckwit fatass who has been hiding in the fucking mediocre middle-ground of safety for EIGHT out of the last TWELVE challenges, talking about how mad it makes him to see those three in the finals. OK, ChesTiff, I can understand, because she’s been in the bottom half the time, but Beaker’s won three Eliminations, and LowFatSo’s won two, so SexPig should really shut his yap. But he’s SexPig, so he’s going to continue: “For them it’s an honor to be here… for me it’s not an honor to be here, for me it’s an honor to win, and I’m gonna fight ’til I get there!”….

apparently he’s also gonna add some extra flavoring to his food

Yeah, for everybody who thought that the weepy story of Dead Grandma Food Love™ was a sign of the new kinder, gentler, more sensitive Sexist Pigshit, think again. This asshole is just as big of a chauvinistic hypocritical prick as ever. I have to hand it to him, though, because his strategy was pretty smart. He let other people take the risks, and they went home for it while he worked at remaining dead-middle. To hear him now making the same accusations against other people is so incredibly annoying that I’m having a hard time hanging on to what little adult behavior I have left…

don’t make me draw dicks on your face again, shitbreath, cuz I will totally do it

Oh well, I gotta let it go and move on… night has fallen, and a giant SUV pulls up with motorcycle cop escorts to take them to the kitchen they’ll be cooking in for tonight’s celebration. SexPig says normally when he gets a police escort it’s because he’s on his way to jail. I think he’s just trying to sound like a bad-ass, and it’s not working in conjunction with his ever-expanding dough-boy bod. In any case, everybody else ignores him during the ride and Beaker wonders aloud if they’re about to walk into “this Mack Daddy amazing kitchen?”…

well, that’d be wiggedy-wiggedy-wiggedy-wack

As they draw closer they realize that they’re not in some ritzy neighborhood or by a fine hotel, they’re driving through a cluster of local restaurants. When they finally arrive at their destination it’s starting to sink in that perhaps they’ve been had…

perhaps Daddy Tom and Scar meant Drag King And Queen of the Bahamas?

They get out of the SUV and are immediately enveloped by this bejeweled and bedazzled crowd of revelers, and SexPig even starts dancing with one of them! Sort of…

which is far nicer than anything *I* will ever call him

There’s a heavyset gentleman with a giant crown dressed all in yellow (looking kinda like Black Big Bird) and Daddy Tom suddenly appears at his side and introduces him to the chefs as “Bahamian Royalty”. His name is Vola, and he’s the “King Of Junkanoo”…

welcome. you are all fucked.

He explains that Junkanoo is a festival that celebrates life in the Bahamas. At this point my BF walked in the room and I asked him if there even was a King or Queen of the Bahamas, and he just looked at me and said “Yeah… it’s a British Territory, so it’d be Queen Elizabeth II… and I doubt they could get her to appear on Top Chef…” and then he walked out while laughing at me. That fucker.

So ANYhow, the chefs are realizing that they’re not really cooking for high-end royalty, but a bunch of regular party people, which is very exciting to ChesTiffany (because her dish was prolly already low-end, but of course that’s not how she sees it) and not so exciting to some others…

such as LowFatSo

With that, their final hour of Prep starts, and you know how Beaker was fantasizing that they might have a “Mack Daddy amazing kitchen” to work in?…

not

even

close

Seriously, it’s a total shithole, with only the microwave, flat-top grill and deep fryers to use for heating their food. And once again, I wanna say THANKS, show! Haven’t these people been subjected to enough bullshit cooking conditions up through this point of the season? This is supposed to be the FINALS, couldn’t they just be allowed to COOK their FOOD, without shitty equipment or lame semantic fake-outs??!? You guys know I love this show, but I am so irritated right now, and it’s about to get worse…

These deep fryers appear to be pretty beat to shit (and none-too-clean) and after LowFatSo drops her plantains into one of them, she notices the oil in the one next to hers is starting to smoke, and she begins to call out that maybe they need to let somebody know about it, because that is not normal…

and she ain’t about to endure skin grafts in order to be Top Chef

Beaker bravely opens the lower casing on the smoking fryer (which is filthy inside) and tries to turn down the temperature, but it’s too late, and suddenly…

it gays out all over the place

A quick-thinking BlazeHawk tries to smother the flamey-flames by placing a large baking sheet over the merrily burning oil, but it’s not really enough to cut off the supply of oxygen, there’s too big of a gap between the sheet and the edge of the fryer bin. Now the alarms are going off and the chefs are being ordered out of the kitchen. Blazey says even before they left everyone was making sure to cover their food with towels and such. The fire department has been called, things are getting way smoky, and LowFatSo wonders if there’s even going to be a kitchen left for them to cook in.

The chefs reconvene in the dining area of another restaurant a few doors down, and I dunno if it’s a delayed reaction to the stress of being exposed to a possibly life-threatening situation, but BlazeHawk is suddenly on the offensive and demanding to know from LowFatSo (in a very accusatory tone) “What did you do?!” God, BlazeHawk, shut up for a minute and I’ll tell you what she didn’t do…

she didn’t force you to put all that flammable product in your hair

LowFatSo looks like she’s about ready to lose it, and admits she’s in the middle of trying to change her dish. Everyone is against that idea, telling her she should stick with what she originally planned to do, but she doesn’t want to hear it and snappishly tells them not to mess with her any more because she’s in a bad head space. I don’t blame her, i know I would have been a little shaken after standing next to a rickety deep fryer where 30 gallons of oil just burst into flames.

Naturally BlazeHawk is all over this, and proves once again that he’s more than a little intimidated by LowFatSo, because he’s actually glad that he’s getting to her, he’s doing that intentionally! “Antonia’s strength is well-executed food, so if I can mess with her head she might make a mistake…”

much like my insistence on returning to this hairstyle

He continues by justifying his lame-ass head-games: “I think she’s a threat and this is a competition… at some point I’m gonna want her to bomb.” Well, so much for competing strictly based on talent and skill. I guess Blazey’s not as confident as he thought (with all his hours and hours of cooking every single creature that walks, flies or swims within a hundred miles of the Bahamas) especially if he’s suddenly okay with using mindfucking in order to win. That’s the mark of a true Top Chef, right? I’m having a hard time figuring out whether he’s more hateful than Sexist Pigshit at this point.

Meanwhile, the firefighters have arrived at the Twin Brothers Steak House…

and are quite busily jizzing out the fire

Afterwards, Daddy Tom comes around to inspect things. He says the fire is out, but because the fire containment system was activated, the chefs’ food is now all contaminated with chemicals, which no one would find tasty, except maybe BlazeHawk. Daddy goes to deliver this bad news to the chefs, and they are understandably upset…

and this is how they look when they find out they’re going to do it all over again… tonight

Yes, here’s one more way that they fucked with these people tonight…. instead of just calling it a day and letting them restart the following day, they now have to go back to the other prep kitchen and start all over again with the prep work, and then they will return to Twin Brothers (after the burnt kitchen has been scrubbed down) and finish their dishes. SUCH. BULLSHIT. Gail Simmons made some lame-ass excuse in her blog about why they forced them to cook the same night instead of letting them do it the next day, something about how it “didn’t seem fair that they would have had so much time to sit and think about it”, but that’s total crap… I think the Magical Elves were just pissed off because their stupid “King Of Junkanoo” fake-out was ruined and they wanted to keep the chefs off-balance.

Besides, Daddy Tom lets them know that they are allowed to change their dishes this second time around, which makes LowFatSo very happy…

and now ChesTiffany’s the one watching her advantage swirl down the toilet

Also, since they’re going back to the gorgeous five-star kitchens at The Stove At Flat-Mantis, why couldn’t they just be allowed to actually cook the food and serve it there as well? Surely the King Of Junkanoo can afford cab fare to the hotel?…

provided BlazeHawk doesn’t burn it down as well

Beaker is very frustrated now, she felt like she was poised to deliver an excellent dish, “And now we’ll never know.” Taking advantage of the chance to change dishes, BlazeHawk has decided to make cannelloni of pickled turnips with braised lamb, while LowFatSo is now going with her version of shrimp and grits. Sexist Pigshit is just adding more sweat to his food this time around so it will be extra-funky.

Back at the Twin Brothers’ ShitKitch, they’ve upgraded the deep fryers…

to an even lower-tech version

This? Is ridiculous. Also ridiculous is that Beaker, instead of doing her pork medallions, has decided to cook the entire whole tenderloin in one of those tiny fryers… “Here I am again doing a technique that I would never do, but I think it will cook more evenly… I’m crossing my fingers!”…

while Ronda and Juanita are waving buh-bye

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK, Beaker, what is wrong with you??!??!? Didn’t you go get that tattoo like Ronda and Juanita suggested after last time in New Orleans when you lost? You know, the one that said “SPIRIT GUIDES ROCK” “SOUS-VIDE SUCKS”??!?! Too late now, just look at how well her pork turned out…

like a small cylinder of attempted murder

Now she’s stuck throwing the pieces onto the flat-top grill in a desperate attempt to have them actually cook and not single-handedly wipe out the Junkanoo celebration of the Bahamas with an epidemic of roundworm.

Speaking of stupid-ass Junkynoob, King Voila is back hanging out having beer with Daddy Tom when Scar, Gail Simmons and Erique Le Rippert show up. After a toast they are all seated at a booth that looks very much like the ones you might find at your neighborhood Chili’s…

don’t be glaring at us, Daddy, you’re the ones who insisted that the food be served at this jank-ass place

As the final seconds tick off the clock, Beaker says she’s feeling like she got all the pork cooked and that her dish has come together as best it can. She’s also the first one to be served…

smart move, covering the raw spot with apple sauce

At first Gail exclaims at how beautiful the dish looks, but King Volare half-complains that it’s too sweet, and Le Rippert says eet eez vayree cloze to a deezairt. Then Gail gets deeper into her pork medallion and discovers it’s raw in the middle…

and Gail does not at all appreciate Beaker’s attempt to give her explosive diarrhea

It’s LowFatSo’s “low-end” dish that comes out next…

and it looks like a deep-fried drag queen that shit itself

Scar says it looks interesting, but after they’ve had a chance to eat some of it, Le Rippert says zee shreemp eez ovairkoooked, and Gail has discovered a mushy slab of some kind of meat buried under the mess of grits that has no distinct flavor or texture. King Viola says it would be better if it were conch and grits instead of shrimp. Daddy Tom finishes murdering the dish when he looks at the pickled-veggie drag-wig on top of it all and says “Howard Johnson’s called and they want their garnish back.”…

that little boy on the right has to eat it or else he won’t be allowed to go pee play in the pool after lunch

Owie. But looking at it, I see what he means, that just looks like tacky coleslaw that got upended onto the plate. Speaking of tacky, here comes SexPig’s plate…

and is that spit-foam, or phlegm?

I love that he left a very phallic (yet tiny) erection bone in the presentation. And yes, upon seeing the close-up of the dish, that is a spit-foam, so yay, SexPig finally learned how to gank stuff from TurkeyHair. Le Rippert is not impressed, saying something about zee iodine een zee deesh eez makeet vayrey unplayzant too heez palate. Scar, on the other hand, says she loves the sauce, and Daddy Tom is praising it for having “surprises” (such as being edible). Gail says the white meat was a tad dry, but the dark meat was downright delicious…

and she’s completely oblivious to the fact that she is gazing lustfully at King Vulva while she says this

Someone wants to be the Queen Of Junkanoo! But she’ll have to wait to make chocolate-vanilla swirlylove with him, because it’s time for BlazeHawk’s dish…

which is also drowned in loogies

Naturally, Blazey’s “cannelloni” isn’t made with pasta, but instead is wrapped in turnip, because he’s the King Of Making Food Look Like Something But Be Made Out Of Something Else Such As That Time He Made Banana Scallops That Weren’t Really Scallops Because They Were Made Out Of Bananas. King Valet says “It is amazing what you can do with food!”…

something tells me that an Edible Arrangements Bouquet would completely blow him away

He goes on to gush that he loves how Blazey cooked the lamb, he can taste the mustard. Rippert agrees that eet eez vayrey delicayte, nod pungaynt, bud zee tairneep-skeen uzed een mekeeng zee cannellonee eez leetel beet ondairkoooked. Daddy Tom disagrees, the turnippelloni was his favorite part of the dish, and he goes on and on about how awesome it is that BlazeHawk presented it in such a clever way, and blah blah blah, I guess he forgot all about the fact that he’s seen these banana scallops before.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen Blazey’s standing there loudly lamenting that his food is shit and totally disgusting and doing everything but rending his clothes and beating his breast like his world is coming to an end…

seriously, this is the level of drama he’s going for

ChesTiffany is gamely trying to make him feel better, but he’s insisting he feels like his food just didn’t come together, and does anybody else buy this self-deprecating act from him? After every single one of his private interviews is all about how awesome and amazing and better than everyone else he is (even when he loses)? Please, TIff, let him wallow in faux-despair if he wants, it’s your turn to present your dish…

and I would have advised against using the word “dirty” anywhere in the description

Daddy sounds bored just describing it. Le Rippert sayz zee meet eez vayrey tayndair, and King Violet says it has a nice spice to it. Gail says while she enjoyed it, ChesTiffany didn’t show them anything exciting, she didn’t push any boundaries, and Daddy Tom agrees that it’s a pretty simple dish.

Overall, Daddy Tom seems pretty meh about tonight’s resulting food. Le Rippert thinks perhaps the misdirection of the whole “royalty” thing threw everybody off, while Scar wonders if the fire affected their choices as well. Nobody mentions the shitty cooking equipment. And speaking of shitty, Sexist Pigshit’s telling us that BlazeHawk is everyone’s favorite to take this challenge, but he’s still super-confident in his dish, “When I win then he’s gonna be hurt!”…

and then he favors us with his best panty-melting grin

Over in Loser Ladies Land™ LowFatSo really is down about her dish, cuz she’s now wishing she hadn’t changed it up from what she’d originally thought of doing, and admits that all she can hope for is that someone else fucked up worse than her. This is gonna be a fun Judges’ Table. For the already-eliminated chefs who wish they were still in it.

Tonight’s vignette is basically BlazeHawk talking about various kinds of nuts and what kind of musical genre they would represent. I never once thought I could listen to a man talk about nuts and become drowsy, but…

now I have this imprinted on my forehead

Scar appears in their HotelStew Room and calls them all in to Judges’ Table, and when they arrive she tells them that the meal as a whole “missed the mark”. Let’s keep that in mind, shall we?

They start with Beaker, and Scar says she liked the crispiness of her apple chips, but they were too sweet. Then Gail mentions her piece of pork was “quite pink in the center”. Daddy Tom jumps all over that and says she’s being kind, it was raw, which causes SexPig to make a face…

i bet he farted

Christ, what a dickbag. In any case, Daddy’s asking why she didn’t use the “reset” caused by the fire to rethink the dish. Um, how about asking why they couldn’t cook in a real kitchen with a real stove and real ovens, instead of that EZ-Bake™ bullshit they were saddled with? Beaker says that theirs must have been the only bad batch, she insists the others were fine, and she apologizes for giving them bad food. Le Rippert speaks up to say his porkpiece was actually cooked perfectly, so it wasn’t a total bomb.

Next, LowFatSo tells them her original dish was going to be lamb with fennel and butter, but when she got to the ShitKitch she changed everything around and is not proud of her choices at all. Le Rippert repeats how overcooked and dry her shrimp were, and Gail brings up the beige “mystery meat” that was hiding under the grits. It turns out that was pork shoulder, and Daddy Tom says it’s presence made the entire dish downright “odd”.

As for ChesTiffany, she doesn’t think there was anything really wrong with her dish, she thought the flavors were just fine and “rustic”. Le Rippert busts her for not doing something more complex than a Popeye’s side dish, and he says it needed a sauce because it was too dry. Gail agrees and says there wasn’t enough of the tomato-ginger jam. She finally admits that maybe she “lost focus a little bit”…

*snort* just a little?

SexPig says he liked his dish, and starts talking about how much he enjoyed it, and how different it was and I see his lips moving, but all I’m hearing is “pbbbllflflffllllblbllt!” noises. Daddy Tom praises him on the flavors working well together and says the sauce was the star of the dish. Gail mostly agrees, but she felt the breast meat on her chicken was dry. Le Rippert says there were a lot of components but they all made sense. What doesn’t make sense is that nobody is talking about the SPIT FOAM. I’m getting a really nasty feeling in my big fat tummy…

Lastly, Scar asks BlazeHawk what he thinks of his dish, and his melodramatic response is “Honestly, I hate everything I do…”…

that makes several thousand of us

Looking at ChesTiffany’s face, I don’t think she buys this crap from him any more. Anyhow, naturally Daddy just kind of ignores his pity-party and says both lambs were nicely cooked and the seasonings were right on, but he thought it could have used another element. Gail likes his turnippelloni, and gushes about what a clever way it was to contain the braised lamb, and she loved the mustard, too. Le Rippert disagrees, saying the turnippelloni was too soft, but he appreciates Blazey’s mastery of different techniques. Blaze admits he needs to get better on his vegetable cookery (wait, what? he’s the King of Pickling!) and simpers that if he makes it through tonight’s Elimination he’ll be even better…

nothing but death could keep me from it

So the person who had the most harmonious, delicious and well-executed dish was…

fuck!fuck!fuck!fuck!fuck!fuck!fuck!fuck!fuck!fuck!fuck!

UGH, what an awful thing to have happen, and naturally SexPig says he’s stoked and believe that his beating BlazeHawk will “change his mental game”, i.e., Blazey’s starting to crack under the pressure of all sorts of little things going on. Ahh, so I guess Blazey’s not the only one hoping to win based on headgames and fucking with someone else’s state of mind. These guys are a true pair of tools. Whatever happened to it being all about who made the best food? Oh well, congratulations Pigshit, you beat everybody in the meal that as a whole “missed the mark”. Also, he gets zilch, no cash, no trip, no car, so there’s that at least.

But now that means he’s safe and we have to put up with his smug ass for another week. BlazeHawk is also safe so that’s a double shitburger. This means that one of our Ladychefs is going home… is it going to be Beaker’s undercooked meat and too-sweet combo, or LowFatSo’s watery grits, mushy mystery-meat and desiccated shrimp, or will they send ChesTiffany’s boring and completely forgettable side dish packing?

And the chef leaving us tonight is…

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OMG, no no no no no oh no no no no shit no no no no no no no fucking no no no no way no no no no no no hell to the no no no no no no goddamnit no no no no no no Jesus save us no no no no no no no Ronda Juanita no no no no no aaagh no no no no no no Christ no no no no no need kitteh love need kitteh love need kitteh love…

cuddle in case of emergency

Fuck, I am so bummed! Beaker’s not going to get to win after all. She’s very gracious and thanks them all and tells us that the Judges made the right decision…

*snif* but we didn’t want it to beeeeeeee *sob*

She’s disappointed that she didn’t go home after making a great dish that she was proud of, but she definitely feels like this second time around on Top Chef has proven she’s a better chef than before, and she’s enjoyed all the friendships and personal growth, and God, this is so sad, I need more kitteh love…

‘cept Chunky ain’t having it

Well. There we are. No more Beaker on Top Chef. And Sexist Pigshit is still in it, and could still possibly win. What did you guys think of this fucked up episode? Do you think maybe LowFatSo or ChesTiffany should have gone home instead of Beaker? Do you think this challenge was a fair one, or total bullshit? Should they have had to do everything in the same night, or do you think there should have been a night off to let them all recuperate? And do you believe it’s wrong at this stage of the competition to keep throwing unnecessary curveballs at the chefs, instead of just letting them cook their best food? Let’s all share our grief and pain together, K?

Thanks for joining me once again, and let’s all pray to Lady Madonna that SexPig finally gets slaughtered in this next episode.

love, J-Mo