Top Chef JD: A World of Pure Elimination

Hey hey gasmii!  Welcome back for another week of Top Chef.  Last week, Nelson went home, Jafar tried way too hard to come off as a dick, and Craig probably used up his last bit of luck.  I’ve got twenty bucks that says he goes home this week.

This week opens in the Top Chef abode with the chefs receiving a letter from Gail inviting them to a very special movie showing.  Everyone cheers and talks about how great it will be to have a day off from competing, because apparently no one has ever actually seen an episode of Top Chef before.

Stop cheering, it’s a trap!!!

Everyone gets to the theatre and they line up to buy snacks.  Matthew, who clearly has watched this show once or twice, tells us that bought snacks that he knew he could use to make a dessert because he’s sure they’re about to get hit with a Quickfire.  Good boy, Matthew.  Top Chef does not give its contestants days off.  Ever.

Ten points to Matthew for paying attention to what show he’s on

There are a bunch of people in the theatre already, and I feel like I should know who they are, but I don’t.  The chefs sit down and the movie starts, and hey, it’s Willy Wonka!  The chefs all start cheering and clapping, an then they totally talk through the whole movie.  Granted they’re talking about how much they like the movie, and in the case of Jafar just doing all the lines along with the movie, but that’s a bit rude.  Other people are there.  Shut up and watch the film.

And could someone turn the lights down in the auditorium please?

The movie ends and Gail comes out and all the chefs groan.  I know they’re groaning because Gail’s presence means Quickfire usually, but that’s still rude.  These are some rude chefs today.

Your boo’s bring a smile to my heart

Gail tells the chefs that they will be given the chance to make the world of Willy Wonka into a reality, and asks some very special guests to come help her explain.  Out of the crowd come four adults who, when standing next to each other like that, are suddenly obviously the kids from the movie.

Jafar gets all giddy like a school-girl to realize that Veruca Salt was sitting right next to him the whole time, and it’s really not doing much to help him with that villain image he’s trying so hard to cultivate.

The actors tell everyone about the original set of Willy Wonka (turns out the Wallpaper just tasted like wallpaper).  Gail tells them they’ll be transforming the TCJD dining room into the “Land of pure imagination” to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Willy Wonka’s original release.  No Quickfire, no teams, no captains.  Just straight to elimination, because they have to make an edible room for fuck’s sake.

One of you sitting here at the table will betray me

Chris suggests that they split into a creative team and a baking team, which would be absolutely brilliant if this were a team challenge.  The room will absolutely turn out better if they do things that way, and a whole lot more will get done.  The problem is that this is an individual challenge and when the judges ask what you made you can’t say, “Ideas” and expect to not get sent packing.

Ummm… I have an idea… Let’s not listen to Chris

The chefs are trying like mad to put together a cohesive set of desserts for a room.  Chris keeps shooting down ideas from everyone and Katzie makes a point to stand up for her idea, which is some sort of a carrot patch with carrot cake.  Chris thinks that they shouldn’t make it because it wasn’t in the movie but Katzie thinks that Chris should STFU.  I don’t like Katzie, but I agree with her.

The lesser of two ass-wipes

The next day they go to check out the landscape set-up by Bravo.  They have a totally decent pallette to work from, but it’s big and they have a whole lot of baking to get done if they want that thing to be an edible wonderland by the time the judges get there.

I hope those are Jack Bauer hours where no one ever pees or eats takes a nap

So it looks like Jafar, Chris, Matthew, and Megan have split off to form the creative team, but they are also making their own desserts.  Okay, that’s a bit smarter.  More work, but more excuses if you suck and need to defend your suckage to the judges.

All part of my evil plan to… uh… stir chocolate and have a lisp

The baking team is everyone else.  They’re making their own desserts first and then working together to get the big pieces done.  I guess there are all sorts of things like edible orbs and giant marshmallows in the plans, and those things aren’t really any one chef’s desserts, but a group effort.  So while the baking team is baking all those room pieces the creative team is supposed to be creating bases for desserts and stuff like edible cups and any other set pieces/dessert holders.  I’ve got a feeling one of these two teams of people is not gonna hold up their end of the bargain and the other team’s end products will suffer for it.

My guess is this guy and Jafar will have something to do with it

Craig tells us he’s making giant gummy bears, only he’s making them out of something with a French name that I can’t make out.  That French thing is like a jelly candy, and while Craig says that will elevate it above being just a gummy bear, I fail to see how jelly candy is a step up from gummy candy.

Corn syrup plus giant bowl of sugar?  Hell yes, diabetes!

Chris is making a chocolate waterfall because he feels like it was the most important part of the factory in the movie.  He’s making it out of foam core covered in chocolate, and he says that it will also act as the serving rack for one of his desserts.  Chris is a smart smart boy.  Go big or go home.

Looks like a giant pile of poo from Jurassic Park at the moment though…

Sally is making an orange dirt thing to put in a wheelbarrow, and it’s an homage to this part of the movie where an Oompa Loompah was pushing a wheelbarrow full of orange sugar through the factory.  She’s making the “dirt” out of crumble and financier, which is a French word that I recognize from that super boring season of regular Top Chef.  One of the contestants made it for a school bake sale.  I don’t remember what the hell it is, but I at least recognize the damn word.

Could someone hand me the Motorola Sidekick so that I can totally phone it in this week?

Jafar is making some sort of chocolate crunch thing, and he tells us he’s in charge of tempering the chocolate.  He’s making tons for the waterfall, and Rebecca is concerned about how much work the whole creative team is doing for Chris’ piece when they have a whole lot of work they promised to get done for the whole team.  I’m worried about that too, but more because it looks like Chris is smart enough to convince his competitors to abandon their own projects to help him with his.

Note to Jafar:  This is how reality show villainy is done

Carlos is making edible wallpaper.  He says he’s doing it because the actors from the movie told them that the original wallpaper tasted like wallpaper.  I really hope that he has some brilliant method for making wallpaper that can be cut and served on individual plates because I’m pretty sure that this is a health hazard:

Willy Wonka and the Hepatitis Factory of The Lost Ark

Craig’s giant gummy bears are not doing well and they’re looking very Salvador Dali-esque.  Sally tries to help him out by telling him what to add and how to get them to set, but she tells us that she’s super stressed because she wants to look out for him and help him out, but he’s taking up all of her time.

It’s not total failure.  It’s just surrealist.

Oh hey look who came to visit.  It’s Johnny, and he’s looking greasy as ever.  He finds Jafar and asks how much chocolate they’ve gone through already, and Jafar tells him 250 pounds.  Well, Jafar tells him 150 kilos, but Johnny is nice enough to Americanize that measurement for the viewing public.  Johnny tells us that the chefs have complete creative freedom for this challenge, and they’re damn lucky.

I’d love to have complete creative freedom in how I stifle the creativity of others

Rebecca tells Johnny she’s making chocolate cake inside golden eggs, with a salted caramel sauce on the side, which is the same recipe as a cupcake she makes at home called a Veruca Salt.  Melissa is making giant edible flowers.  Megan is spending all her time helping Chris and when Johnny asks what she’s doing of her own she tells him some sort of bourban and chocolate bites.  Not brilliant.  Johnny tells the cameras that he thinks bourban is too adult for a Willy Wonka theme, but I think she could make that part work by citing the, “Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker” quote in her creation.

Also: Stop Helping Chris!!!!

Before leaving Johnny announces that this week two chefs will be getting sent home, and that causes a bit of panic in the kitchen.

You mean we can’t just suck less than Craig and make it through?

Amanda realizes that Chris will not have time to make the chocolate cups he promised her, so she’s making them herself.  It’s kind of a cool process to watch, actually.  She takes frozen balloons, dips them in chocolate, lets them set for a moment, and then pops the balloons.

I think this is neat as hell, but I also think string theory is interesting so I’m not a good judge

Chris is still stressing about the waterfall getting done, and Katzie tells us that it’s every man for himself and that if the creative team was responsible for any part of your dessert then you had better be able to make it yourself.  Now who could have possibly seen this coming?

Not this guy cause he certainly didn’t plan it like that

Katzie is getting to work on her edible carrot patch, and we just found out she’s also making an edible beehive.  Jafar bitches about how messy she is, but I doubt she cares.  Craig is feeling good because he has several properly set gummy bears thanks to Sally.

Cute, but you’re still going home

Melissa is pissed because no one finished her stems like the creative team said they would.  Megan steps up to help her because she says that’s part of her job, and that’s great of her, but she’s gonna get herself sent home if she keeps being a team player when they aren’t playing as a team.

Don’t get sent home, please!  There aren’t many other likable people here.

Chris is freaking out about his waterfall not working, and it looks like most of the creative team is focused on that while Megan runs around trying to get her dessert finished and all the other creative stuff done.

Melissa does everything

Matthew does his own dessert cause he’s not an idiot

And Chris finally gets the fountain working

And just like that time is called and in walk the judges along with the actors from the movie.  Everyone looks pretty stoked on the overall look of everything, and I must admit that as a whole the room looks pretty killer.  This is where the artist in me and my inner fat kid get to meet up and have a joygasm, so here are a lot of pictures cause it’s so damn cool.

Johnny and Gail both look awed and thrilled, and it’s gotta be a challenge to make both of their faces look like this:

Judging tonight we have the usuals along with Youbear and a guy named Ron Ben-Israel who makes awesome fucking wedding cakes.

Oooh!  I hope those aren’t real flowers.

The cast of Willy Wonka is there to taste and give opinions, but they’re not actual official guest judges.

It’s time for tasting, and in come a massive herd of small children, which frightens Megan because she made a dessert with booze in it.  Heck yeah, drunk kids!!!

Drunk kids with very very brave parents

The judges start on the waterfall, which has edible chocolate cups to fill with the chocolate milk coming out of it.  It looks delicious, although Gail mentions that she wishes the stream were a bit softer because everyone is getting splashed when they fill their cups.  Chris says his waterfall took a lot of work and he thinks he’ll be in the top.

Am I missing something here, Gasmii?  Did the fact that the actual fountain was made out of chocolate really have any bearing whatsoever on this dessert?  Like, at all?  Couldn’t he have just made a nice looking base that did the same thing (spew chocolate milk into chocolate cups) and saved everyone about 15 hours worth of manpower?  No one is eating or even touching the fountain part.  I’m not so sure anyone even realizes it’s chocolate.  Chris is so racking up the douche points this week.

Amanda has made raspberry fizzy chocolates and chocolate tulips.  The judges and actors all look like they approve very much.

While I don’t understand the whole decorating with splooge motif, the judges say these actually fizz and that’s just awesome

Chocolate plus blueberry is not a combo I like, but they’re cute

Up next is Craig. Johnny grabs one of his gummy bears, and while he says giant gummies is a tough technique and he did the gummy part well, the flavor wasn’t good and it’s not very pretty.

Looks like everyone else agrees that it’s pretty meh.  The little kids say it’s not very good either.

Adorable polite child burn!

Rebecca made moon pies and chocolate eggs.  They love the presentation, but the marshmallow in the moon pies is a bit tough.

Parents: Bring your kids down to the Bravo studios where we will pump them full of sugar, bourbon, and coffee.  You’re welcome.

They love the eggs full of cake, but Veruca Salt points out that she wanted a golden egg and these are not golden.  I’m still trying to figure out how the hell she got the cake into the egg shells (or made such realistic egg shells around the cake), but she probably should have painted them gold if she wanted to be in the top three.

Golden eggs not actually golden…

But they’re full of friggin cake

Matthew’s profiteroles are going over brilliantly.  They look very Dr Seuss-y the way he set them up, so I fully approve.

I speak for the trees

Jafar’s chocolate crunchy balls are called delicious but too big.  (((that’s what she said)))

Maybe if he hadn’t spent the whole day making chocolate for his boyfriend’s stupid fountain he could have made something cooler

Sally says she’s worried, and the judges don’t say much about the taste of her wheelbarrow full of dirt, but they are confused by how they’re supposed to eat it.

Really?  That neither looks nor sounds good.

Over at Melissa’s garden, her green donuts get criticized for being both ugly and not very tasty. Veruca expresses a desire to spit her donut out.

I must have missed the part of Willy Wonka where they served the snot coated donuts…

Looks like her whoopie-pie flowers might have saved her though, as the judges all seem to like them very much.

The petals are made out of white chocolate too, which begs the question, why put out the Hulk-snot donuts at all?

Katzie’s carrot patch is flippin’ awesome.  The judges all think so too, and say that it tastes awesome too.

Dude, you can “pick” the carrots…

Which are chocolate covered carrot cake

And friggin awesome!

Her beehive goes over well too, and is super pretty.

Even though the spun sugar looks like fiberglass insulation…

It actually dispenses honey

Her whole area is making me grin like damn fool.  I think Katzie is in the top this week, and even though I think she might be sort of a catty bitch, I give her mad props for basically telling Chris to suck it.

Carlos made some pb and J macaroons, and his wallpaper has peel-off circles to protect from the whole wall-licking thing.

Mmmm… fake vomit

Cake guy judge licks the wall anyway.

Dude… Just… Just no.

Youbear says they’re the best macaroons he’s ever had, and despite the grossness by cake dude everyone likes the wallpaper too.

Megan’s bourbon candies go over well for the judges, but this kid doesn’t like it:

And puts the one she just took a bite out of back on the bush.  This is why edible wonderlands don’t exist in the real world.

Megan also made a lavender orange cake thingy and the judges bitch that they can’t taste the lavender at all.

This is what you get for being a team player.

That’s it for the tasting and the chefs head off to await their fate. Back in the stew room Jafar is still trying to be a dick, but I only really see him saying crazy mean shit in the confessional.  Otherwise he just makes this face:

You can’t be a villain via pure passive aggression, dude.  You can be an asshat (clearly) but villainy requires actual real aggression mixed in with the passive kind.  Keep trying, douche-kabob.

Study this man and take notes

In this week’s, “We’re back! Psyche! Commercial!” moment, one-arm realizes that Oompa-Loompahs have a lot in common with Snookie, and seems to think this is an original thought of some sort.  Bitch, the internet has been making that joke since Jersey Shore season 1 episode 1.

She is starting to grow on me though… I love unbridled dweebiness.

In other news, the last likable person ever to compete on Project Runway is getting his own show on Bravo.  I hope he makes lots of dresses out of hair.  I love him.

Please come and eat this season’s contestants.

Back to the stew room, Katzie is talking about how Johnny doesn’t always like things that she thinks taste good and we see Jafar say, “I wish you’d just shut the fuck up” but he says it all mumbly and under his breath, further cementing his position as passive aggressive douche-canoe.

Hey now, just cause the other mean girls do it that doesn’t mean you need bulemia to be a bitch

Gail comes in and asks to see: Sally, Katzie, Melissa, Craig (shocker), Carlos, Matt, and Megan.  Looks like a top three and a bottom four, which makes sense since there are two chefs getting cut tonight.

Nothing like getting axed in the middle of a fucking candy wonderland

Matthew gets called out first and told he’s a favorite and that his flavors were strong and clean and nice.  Katzie is also a favorite, and she’s commended for her creativity and the interactivity of her pieces.  Carlos is the last of the top, and the shnozzberries tasted like shnozzberries, while the pb&j tasted like Heaven.  Good job to these three, time for the loosahs!

Craig gets called out next and he says he’s not surprised to be there and jokes about his gummy bears being edible-ish.  The judges giggle but Youbear tells him it’s not funny to suck (or something to that effect).

You bring shame upon the Top Chef kitchen.  Ten points from Hufflepuff!  (you all know Craig would be in Hufflepuff)

 

Melissa is next, and in true Melissa fashion she rolls over on the creative team for not having her cactus base ready, but Johnny tells her the donuts tasted really really bad.  Youbear says she should have just served the flowers and scratched the donuts.

Sally gets scolded for not getting all that much done and for not having a method for eating her dessert.  As much as I like Sally I have to agree.  I mean, Katzie made a beehive and a carrot patch, both of which were super intricate and pretty and delicious.  Sally made some muffin looking things and dumped them on the ground.  What the hell, Sally?

Megan gets yelled at for giving booze to kids, but first of all, she didn’t know there would be kids at judging, and second, drunk kids are funny.

See?  Funny!

Carlos does the opposite of what Melissa just did and asks if he can interject on Megan’s behalf.  He tells the judges that the room looked as nice as it did because of Megan and that she did a lot more than just her desserts.  Katzie says she wouldn’t have gotten her beehive done without Megan, Sally says she made her wheelbarrow base, and Carlos finishes off by saying she had a hand in most of the successful dishes.  Johnny says she should have prioritized so her desserts would get done, and Megan cries and says the vision and the making everyone happy in a dessert wonderland meant so much to her that she had to get it done even if it meant sacrificing a bit on her own entries.

#whitegirlproblems

The chefs are all sent back to the stew room and Chris asks what happened.  They say they don’t know anything yet and Chris gets all uptight about how the judges should have told them to send back some more chefs.  Melissa looks at him like he’s a moron and says, “That was the top and the bottom.”  Yeah Chris, duh.  Maybe if you weren’t so certain you were gonna win that would have been as bloody obvious to you as it was to everyone else.  Ass.

Yeah, so can I go down and collect my prize now, please?

Chris keeps digging to ask if the judges specifically said that there was a top three.  Like, he’s not getting it at all.  Chocolate waterfall not making the judges splooge in their pants is short circuiting his cocky little brain.  What a moron.

Amanda scores some points by pointing out that Chris can’t deal with the fact that his waterfall might not have been the best thing out there and that someone else might have had better ideas.

This is the face I make when I’m trying to make someone’s head explode with my mind

The judges discuss:  The top three are super close and tough to call, Craig is out of his league, Melissa’s donuts are worse than anything else they tasted all day, but her flowers were good.  It looks like a decision has been reached.

Back in the stew room Sally says that she thinks it’s her that’s going home.  She’s not being a drama queen about it though, just getting a little teary eyed and preparing for the worst.  Proving that Sally is generally really likable, Jafar leans over and tells her to think positively.  Dude, even Jafar likes her, and he even likes her out loud when the cameras are rolling.

Judgment time!!!!  Who’s going home besides Craig???  Oh yeah, winner first.  And the winner is… Katzie!  I’ve gotta say, I don’t like her and I didn’t taste her food, but her carrot patch and her beehive were so cool looking.  I think she deserved it.  The top three head back and announce the news and it’s clear that Chris does not share my opinion.

Are you sure the judges don’t want to see me?

Back at judging, Craig gets sent packing with very little suspense or fanfare.  The other chef going home is… Melissa!  I didn’t hate her or anything, but I like Sally a lot, and I do think Megan busted her ass and did a killer job on the whole Wonka room.  I’m cool with her getting cut, even though Sally probably deserved the axe more than she did.

Accidentally dirty looking screenshot here.  I swear they didn’t make at any point this week.

Craig and Melissa pack up their tools and walk each other out, and that brings another week of Top Chef JD to a close.

How does everyone feel about this week’s cuts?  How about the winners?  Did anyone find Chris’ pathetic inability to accept that he didn’t win as hilarious as I did?  Cause that was awesome.  I’m still rooting for Matthew, and I’m hoping that Sally starts doing better now that she won’t have to babysit Craig.  Rebecca, Megan, and Amanda are all growing on me.  Katzie impressed me, but I still think she’s kind of horrible at being a person.  Chris out-douched everyone this week despite Jafar trying like hell to be a bigger ass-hat.

Till next week… Stay classy kids.