Top Chef Recap: The Bubble Bursts

¡Hola, amigos! Last week on Top Chef Texas, we found out that bad hair is alive and well, we discovered that people still cannot keep track of time (even when there is a giant DIGITAL clock staring them in the face), and, most importantly (if you believe his Twitter feed) we learned that Tyler StoneBalls’ hasty and unceremonious exit from the show was not due to his having hacked random pieces of pork into bits, but because he was deliberately and wrongfully edited to look like a clueless dickbag…

CGI must be getting really advanced

Yes, if only we had seen the other 90% of the footage that didn’t make it into the show, we would have realized what an unfair and slanted view we were given of this young man (who is so much more talented than you or I could ever hope to be, did you know he figured out how to print a Word document write a cookbook in 3½ weeks? All by himself??). My guess is that somewhere in the cut footage there is a scene of StoneBalls making even more outrageous claims to fame and skill. Or a scene of him crying and rocking back and forth. Either way, dickbirds of a feather flock together, because now he’s receiving supportive Twats from another blowhard…

he’s right you know, douchebuckets and assholes are pretty much self-justifying creatures

Hey, have you guys seen that Dominos commercial for their “Artisan Pizza” featuring FahBeeOh? The BF and I tried them one night. Complete crapfood. We complained to Dominos at several levels. We received a coupon for a free pizza. Kind of a pretty sincere “fuck you” from them, wouldn’t you say? It’s basically saying “Hey, we understand you didn’t like our food products, so please, have some more!” Fuckers. No wonder they hired the Italian Scallion to shill for them.

Ok, back on topic, we also saw last week that only 2 out of the 3 groups of chefs got to compete for 11 of the 16 blue chef coats available (I apologize, I initially mistook them for black coats because the kitties sat on the TV remote and messed up all the colors and now I can’t find the manual that explains how to change them back, and for some reason throwing the remote at the TV didn’t work, either). We also saw that four of the chefs were put “On The Bubble” which means they have to cook again. None of them were very happy about this…

and some of them would do anything to get out of it

KIDDING, I’m not trying to crown Jobless Grayson as the next Princess BeeJay or anything, I’m just saying girl, get you a job, and fast (before you have to do that for realsies). In any case, Jobless is in the Bubble Stew Room with Unsinkable Molly, Edward Lee and Janinebian, and she’s kinda complaining to us that it feels like she’s already been through three challenges (to be fair, she kinda has, what with the cooking challenge [#1] and then dealing with Stoneballs [#2] and his terrible butchery [#3]) but she insists she can handle it because she spent several years working for Jean-Georges’ restaurant, which was “hard as hell” but she got through it…

ugh, working with jerkweeds who have overgelled hair and colon-shaped soul patches would be hard as hell

Hey, did any of you recognize the lady on the right? That’s Miss Tamesha Warren from Season Seven (that Sucked)!…

you might remember her better like this

Anyhow, Jobless Grayson’s point is that she’s been through horrible things before, and she’ll get through them again. And if she gets on this show, she’ll have an entire month of horrible things to look forward to.

OK, enough of the past, let’s meet up with Group 3! First of all, when they arrive in the TC Kitchen they discover they are going to have yet another panel member added to their Judges’ Table, in the form of Hugh Acheson…

whose extra eyebrow-hair helps shield him from the hideous print Scar is wearing (note that Daddy Tom’s eyes are watering)

After welcoming and introductions (Hughnibrow says how nice it is to be “on the other side” from the judging, which the chefs all laugh way too hard at) we come to find out Scar has another stalker in this bunch. His name is Chaz Brown (I’m pretty sure this Chaz actually has a penis) and he declares Padma Lakshmi to be the most beautiful woman on the planet He also claims that he had her picture in his locker when he was in middle school. OK, I’m finding that a little hard to swallow, because Chaz is 29 now, so he would have been in 8th grade about fifteen years ago, was Scar even appearing in anything (besides her Italian TV gigs) back then? Hell, she didn’t even do Mariah Carey’s Glitter until 2001, I’m thinking the only way Chazzy Brown could have possibly had her picture up in his middle school locker would be if he flunked 8th grade…

about six or seven times

So Daddy Tom wants to hear about the pedigrees of Group 3… we have chefs de cuisine, sous chefs, executive chefs, private chefs, James Beard-nominations, private chefs, and then Chazzy Brown says he was nominated by his mom as one of her two favorite sons. Polite laughter. Wouldn’t it kinda suck if he has six brothers? In any case, we meet yet another Chicagoan, Miss Beverly Kim, who says she is impressed by all these talented people, but she’s not about to waste this opportunity by getting skerd, “I’ve got a son and a husband that, right now, I’m supporting, I am the one bringing home the bacon…”

and I kinda resent them for it

I agree with her, babies are so lazy and selfish. I would like to spend my days laying on my back and playing with my own toes. If I could reach them. Anyhow, let’s find out about Group 3′s challenge. Scar gestures to a table laden with ten ingrediences, and says each chef will have to pick one. Sounds simple enough… except there is a stainless steel cloche on each of the trays next to the food, and Scar says they can’t look under it until she tells them to, or “it’ll ruin the surprise!” Local Texan chef Paul Qui guesses it doesn’t matter what they pick, he thinks the big surprise will be that they have to switch ingrediences with someone…

suspicious, y’all

They get three minutes to choose amongst themselves, and right away Chazzy Brown sees a big bowl of rice labeled “risotto”. Since his wife is Italian, he’s totally familiar with making risotto. No, really, he wants to do it… apparently he hasn’t watched the show before, or he’d realize that “risotto” is actually another word for “black hammer” because it sends people home a lot. He better not fuck it up, or he’s likely to find himself marched back into the kitchen for a humiliating risotto cooking class in front of everyone.

Meanwhile, Bacon-Bringer Beverly has agreed to cook “ockstopus” which makes everybody laugh, and I realize that she totally reminds me of Edna over on this season’s Survivor. NO, not because they’re both Asian! Ok, well, partly, but the main similarity I see is a very milquetoast-y kind of wishy-washy lack of personality that is, in a word, boring.

Two of the other chefs decide to play rock-paper-scissors for who gets to cook the mushrooms (balding bearish chef Andrew Curren wins with a scissors that cuts paper!) and with that they all grab their trays and head back to the prep tables where Scar instructs them to look under the cloche. The “surprise” she was talking about?…

temporal doom (I might have fudged the last one a little)

Yup, they each have a different amount of time to cook their ingrediences. BaldBear Andrew who just won his mushrooms? Now only has 20 minutes with which to cook them…

and BaldBear is going to waste 10 of them on a poorly timed bout of diarrhea

The little girl chef (Ashley Villaluz) who lost the Ro-Sham-Bow for the ‘shrooms? Her timer says 60 minutes. But she has ox tails, which take at least 70 or 80 years to cook down to being properly tender. Also pooping rice-bricks is Chazzy Brown, because he now only has 40 minutes to cook his black hammer risotto. I wonder if you can microwave risotto? We’re about to find out, because their times have just started.

Daddy Tom and Hughnibrow are walking unhurriedly around the kitchen watching the chefs cook…

not being creepy at all

He stops by Paul Qui’s station (he’s the one who thought they’d be switching ingredients, I’m betting a lot of those chefs wish that had been the twist) and Paul’s all but gibbering with terror over having only 20 minutes, but he manages to tell Hughnibrow that he’s making grilled trout with salad. Paul tells us that he was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s show because he owns three street food trailers…

one of which he is apparently living in

KIDDING! I’m sure that just because it has a flattened-to-disintegration tire and looks like it was painted by a crazy homeless cat lady it doesn’t mean the food isn’t still top notch, right? Paul’s fellow Austin chef, BaldBear Andrew Current, is bitching to Daddy Tom about having to spend 15 of his 20 minutes cleaning his chanterelle mushrooms. Hey, at least he knows how to butcher them…

and at least they’re not ox tails

Poor Ashley, she knows that she’s going to have to go with a pressure cooker to get her ox tails done in time, but it would appear from the way she’s fumbling with the lid that she’s never used one before. She’s not sure if she’s locked it down properly. I guess she’ll find out when it explodes and sends boiling ox tail flesh everywhere.

Holy crap, I thought there was a relative of Daddy Tom’s in the competition!…

and that she was misspelling and mispronouncing the family name

Kim Ca-Lee-Chee-Oh suffers from Sous-chef Inferiority Syndrome (or S.I.S.) and insists she is force to be reckoned with because she has a “fresh mind”. Oh Kim, I love your super-funky-dope-fresh mind, it’s your super-straight-limp-n-lifeless hair that concerns me.

Bald guys from Europe tend to do pretty well on this show, don’t they?…

especially when they’re full of vowels

Laurent seems like he’s a nice enough guy, but there’s something about him that skeeves me out a little…

maybe because he tries to steal kisses from Daddy Tom

I sorta understand the temptation, but now is not the time or place, Pepe Le Pew. Let’s go back and chat with Beverly Kim again, it’s fun to watch her yanking apart her mucousy-looking ockstopus and reminiscing about how it reminds her of Korean dishes her mother used to cook for her back in the day. Other things it may remind her of?…

lots and lots of squiggly hair

She mentions that the restaurant she works in now serves octopus, but it comes to them pre-cooked. I’m not sure if this means that she’s not so good at working with the raw product, or if it means you shouldn’t order octopus dishes at her restaurant cuz they were cooked two weeks ago.

Hughnibrow and Daddy Tom are still wandering about, which is downright terrorizing Florida chef Lindsay Autry, so when she sees Tom heading her way, she books for the pantry so she can avoid him…

other things that scare Lindsay: kittens, doorbells and hair products

We’re down to the final minute for the 20 minute group (consisting of BaldBear Andrew, his Austin bro Paul Qui and the Fresh Princess, Kim Ca-Lee-Chee-Oh) and none of them seem very confident in their food, especially since BaldBear is basically hucking the food at his plate. Time for commercial!…

can you make an iPhone that costs less than the GNP of Venezuela?

look, it’s R. Kelly’s new video!

Time to see what the 20-Minuters have been able to defrost cook, starting with Fresh Princess Kim Ca-Lee-Chee-Oh…

superfunkyfresh salad with a clump of baby sheep

BaldBear Andrew goes next, and he was right…

that plate got hit by a brown butter bomb

Last to present is Paul Qui, and his plate is making me wonder…

what’s the difference between “grilled” and “blackened”?

They start with Paul Qui, and Daddy Tom says it was his favorite dish of the three, it was well seasoned, well-grilled (ah, so that’s what he did, it was not blackened) and Hughnibrow agrees, it was a really precise dish, go get your chef coat, Paul! Unfortunately for the Fresh Princess, Scar says Kim’s lamb was greasy, and Daddy Tom says it was overcooked, he can’t get past that, she gets to bypass The Bubble and head straight home…

but… our names are so similar

This leaves BaldBear Andrew standing alone, stammering that he’s nervous and wasn’t happy with the dish he put forth. Daddy Tom says some of the mushrooms were gritty, but he did roast them nicely, so he’s voting for Bubble. Scar says she thought there was a lot of good flavor but his deep-fried spinach was kinda greasy, so she’s going to Bubble his butt as well. Seeya later BaldBear!

The next group to run out of time is the 40-Minuters, which includes some guy named Jonathan, who is another “private chef” a la StoneBalls…

only with stupider hair

This group also has the Creepy French Guy Laurent, Chazzy Brown and some chick named Berenice…

aaaand I got nothin’

Having zero face-time at this point does not bode well for Miss Berenice’s chances of making it. Meanwhile, Chazzy Brown is stirring and stirring his risotto and begging it to cook (somehow I don’t think that really works, unless you’re Harry Potter). Ashley Ox Tails is cooking next to him and offers to help him plate, saying she has a little extra time, he’s down to one minute. Chazzy declines, dumps his risotto onto a tray (hey, it spread out nicely the way it’s supposed to!) and runs back just in time to…

award himself a FAIL field goal

As the other chefs present their dishes, Daddy Tom asks what happened: “I made an ass out of myself,” says Chazzy, and he goes on to say he thought he had 4 minutes left, the risotto was already cooked, he lost track of time, blah blah blah…

do these clocks need bigger numerals?

With that, Scar makes Chazzy’s wettest dreams come true by speaking to him. Unfortunately she’s telling him to GTFO because they have nothing to judge him on…

then I’m taking your picture out of my locker when I get home, so nyeaah

Oh well, let’s see what Berenice (who?) cooked for them…

zzzzzzzzzz

Seriously, there is no way this lady is getting through, I just saw her 30 seconds ago and I couldn’t tell you what she looked like. Creepy Cueball Frenchy Laurent’s dish is next…

sorry for the crappy picture but he likes to make gray food

I’m not sure what that black oil spill is on the plate, I think Laurent said it was pomegranate and molasses. Blurgh. Last in line is Jonathan Baltazar and his silly haircut…

and his messy-ass plate of veggie hatred

They start with Jonathan, Daddy Tom says the main part of the dish (the Brussels Sprouts) weren’t cooked or seasoned, so it’s a flat-out NO from him. Scar asks what Hughnibrow thinks…

he thinks it smells like failure

Poor pretty Private Chef Jonathan just can’t seem to believe that he used all that hair gel for nothing. In fact, he kinda stomps off pissily with a tersely insincere “Thank you.” tossed in the judges’ direction. None of them look too upset, so whatever. Next in the cross-hairs is Creepy CueBall Laurent. Hughnibrow says there were “a gazillion things” on the plate and it didn’t make any sense, but he’s going to put him on the Bubble. Daddy Tom says he thinks Laurent has more experience than just about any of the chefs there, and he’s sure he can cook, but based on this dish it’s a firm NO from him. Which means Scar gets to be the tie-breaker, and she chooses… Bubble! I suspect that’s our last Bubble chef.

As for Berenice (??) Hughnibrow says her dish was one-dimensional and uninspired, so he votes for Booting, not Bubbling. Daddy Tom says he knows her pedigree and all that, but based on the dish she presented, it’s also a big fat NO, so I guess i was right. I’m glad I didn’t waste a nickname on her.

Finally we have our group of 60-Minuters, which includes the easily-frightened Lindsay Autry, Ashley Ox Tails and Beverly Kim, who shows us the note in her pocket that says “I CAN I MUST I WILL”…

do what? suck? burn things? freak out? stab somebody? BE SPECIFIC

Is this part of that “Secret” shit that Oprah is always blathering on about? Cuz I think somebody neglected to mention that Oprah’s little “secret” is having $83,945,172,854,283,512.94 in the bank, and that’s the key to how all her dreams come true. In any case, this is exactly why Beverly reminds me so much of Edna over on Survivor, it’s this super-perky rah-rah attitude of hers. Except Edna’s note would say “I COULD I SHOULD I MIGHT”.

Speaking of secrets, looks like poor Ashley Ox Tails hasn’t figured out the ones that surround opening up a pressure cooker after you’ve had it heating up for almost an hour…

if she’s not careful she will be learning the secrets of the Burn Unit

She’s frantically asking Beverly if she knows how to open up one of these things, but Bev plays dumb. Lindsay’s advice to her is to dump the whole pan in the sink and run cold water over it. I asked my BF about how these work, and he says you have to vent all the steam first, so I suspect what Ashley was doing with trying to open the lid while it was still hissing was extremely dangerous. In any case, once she finally gets it open, Ashley discovers the ox tails are not nearly as tender as she wants them, so she tries cutting them into smaller pieces. Strangely, karma has come to visit Beverly Kim, because her octopus turned out the same way (tough) and she’s trying to fix it in the same way (dismemberment).

Ashley Ox Tails is the first to present her food, which she’s couching as a Filipino dish called “Kare-Kare” (pronounced “KUH-ree-kuh-RAY”)…

maybe it should have just been called “kray-kray”

She’s followed by poor little frightened Lindsay…

which looks lovely when it is surrounded by a pool of urine-colored fat

Or maybe that’s just butter, I dunno. Anyhow, finally, we have Chef #29, Beverly Kim, who can/must/will be the last to present her food…

this possibly/maybe/might be good

They start off critiquing Lindsay’s dish, and after Daddy Tom says “Ummmm….” followed by a very pregnant pause (during which Lindsay looks ready to bolt for the door) he says he loved it…

sadly, this news comes too late to keep Lindsay from dropping a dootie-bubble

He goes on to say it is perfectly seasoned, deceptively simple yet complex, she can have a coat! Hughnibrow agrees, and Lindsay becomes Lucky #13 to join the cast! Sadly, things are not so bright for little Ashley Ox Tails, as Daddy Tom laments their undercookedness and says he doesn’t think she should move on, except maybe out the exit door. Scar wants to Bubble her ass, so it’s up to Hughnibrow…. who thinks Ashley just needs more time to mature in her cooking skills, so he’s voting buh-bye. Poor Ash keeps grinning as she walks out the door, but I can see her teeth grinding, so I’m guessing there is a crying fit about to be had.

And the Beverly Kim Cheese stands alone. Scar wants to know if she was familiar with cooking octupus, and Beverly admits she wasn’t. Daddy Tom says it was crazy-risky of her to take that on, but it worked, it totally tasted like Korean comfort food (with tentacles) so he and Hughnibrow say they would like to see more of her craziness…

don’t worry, you will

So the scant three chefs who got coats from Group 3 make their way over to the Top Chef Dorm where they meet up with the others (who are all busily getting hammered) and someone asks if they know anything about the Bubble Chefs…

yes, that it sucks to be one

Yeah, so while the rest of the chefs are all happily getting blitzed and planning ways to sabotage and ostracize each other, Eddie Lee, Unsinkable Molly, Jobless Grayson, Janine(bian), BaldBear Andrew and Creepy French Laurent are sitting in the Bubble Stew Room making small talk and trying to psyche each other out. Eddie asks Unsinkable Molly where she cooks, and when she reveals her Allure-Of-The-Sea gig, he openly giggles “Oh, a cruise ship!”…

yes, Edward, a cruise ship… where we know how to easily get rid of a corpse

Curiously, Unsinkable Molly isn’t the only one starting to feel stabby, Edward himself claims if they leave him in the room long enough he will kill the other five chefs in order to get a remaining jacket, “That’s how bad I want it!”…

enough to risk becoming Bubba’s Bitch™ while you’re at it, Eddie?

If people only understood that prison isn’t nearly as much fun as all those romantic comedies make it out to be, they wouldn’t say such stupid things! Anyhow, here comes Scar to ask them to come back into the kitchen, it’s time to find out what they have to do to snag one of the last two chef coats! First, they’ve got to impress Em La Gassy, Scar, Daddy Tom and Hughnibrow. Second, they have 45 minutes and can use any ingrediences they wish to make whatever kind of dish they want. Third…

don’t fuck it up

Unsinkable Molly’s decided to cook shrimp, while BaldBear Andrew’s going with mussels. Jobless Grayson is also cooking shrimp, but she’s wrapping hers in bacon (with just a twist of desperation), while Janinebian is cooking scallops and clams and Creepy French Laurent is making scallops two ways. Eddie Lee is looking around and realizing that everyone is making seafood, and he decides he wants to stand out from this crowd of mediocrities, so he’s going to cook up a quacker instead. My god, Eddie has really bad self-esteem, telling us that outside of Kentucky he’s a nobody, and he wants to prove to the judges that you don’t have to be some hot-shot New York City chef in order to “do stuff like this”…

grating cheese: making inroads into Middle America

Of course I know what he meant here, it’s just really sad that he seems to think he’s a great big fat zero just because he’s not cooking for celebrities (in air-quotes) like Tyler StoneBalls. I, for one, blame his parents. Eddie’s, not Tyler’s. Although I think Tyler’s folks have some stuff to answer for as well. But definitely Eddie’s. Also, I think I’d like to blame Korea, too. I’m not saying which one, though, I don’t want somebody whose name rhymes with Dim Song-Bill to shoot a poorly-constructed nuclear warhead at my bedroom.

Where was I again? OH YEAH, another commercial break…

using Nexxus products will make you look like you’re wearing a drag wig

you are either totally fucked

or you can take this pill that causes bloody stomach explosions

Meanwhile, back at the Chef Lair, the Moto Bros (Penis-Hair and LimpHawk) are trying to choose a bed…

sadly, these aren’t really big enough to have sex on, only masturbate

They wind up in another room choosing bunk beds, which is exciting to LimpHawk because it reminds him of being in college, which he thinks is awesome…

why is it the bedwetter always calls the top bunk!?!?

Back in the Top Chef Kitchen, frantic cooking everywhere, and Edward Lee is telling us how smoothly everything is going for him. Which means it’s time to open bottles with sharp knives, thereby cutting himself…

because twisting off the cap would have just taken too damned long

OK, truthfully, I don’t really know what’s going on here, the editing is really wonky, maybe he was using the knife to try to cut through a factory seal on that bottle and accidentally cut the neck off? Except here’s how they play it out it on the show:

scene one: Eddie cuts the top off the bottle

scene two: Eddie says he’s cut and runs away, bottle is now intact (!!!)

What the hell did he cut himself on, then? Was it the jagged neck of the bottle that got him, or was it something ordinary, like he was cutting a cucumber and his knife slipped, and that wasn’t considered scary enough so they edited this part together to make it look like it was the bottle? I hate it when they pull shit like this! I mean, if the Magical Elves could CGI Tyler StoneBalls into looking like a complete buttwad, then how come they couldn’t CGI a broken neck onto a bottle to keep their story continuity??!?…

look, even I can do this

Oh well, the point is, he got cut really bad, so he ran back, put a glove on, and continued to work (after making sure to yell out that he didn’t get any blood on the cutting board). Eventually the medical staff come to try and clean him up a little as he continues to work…

hope that’s not his sexytime hand

Everyone else seems to be moving right along with their dishes, they’re all happy to have a second chance. Especially Jobless Grayson, who says after last time where (some giant asshat) butchered her meat for her, this time she has everything under control…

except her hair

Not quite in as much control is Unsinkable Molly, who tells us in the last minute she’s not really thinking about her shrimp much, and by the time she thinks to check on them, she suspects they might be sorta overcooked….

so much for elevating the status of cruise ship chefs

And there ain’t a damned thing she can do about it, cuz the timer beeps and we have to let the Bubblepalooza commence, starting with Edward Lee…

what? for all we know (like Prego) it’s in there!

Next in line is Unsinkable Molly Brandt and her Titanic-esque shrimp dish…

as in, rubbery or not, it’s still gonna sink

Janinebian’s dish is inspired by her recently failed relationship…

and I bet it all tastes bitter

Without a pompous douchetwat to hold her back, Jobless Grayson really let loose this time…

thank god you don’t have to butcher shrimp much

Not to be outdone by Janinebian’s scallops, Creepy French Laurent did a double scallop preparation…

if by saying “two ways” he meant “unappetizing” and “cat-food-like”

Lastly, we get to see BaldBear Andrew’s shot at redemption…

he was proud of this for not being a “messy plate”?

Is it just me, or did almost all of these dishes look like they just came out of a Fancy Feast can? Maybe it’s because there were so many disc-shaped piles of food, or maybe it’s because I have both Chunky and Chica meowing at me and trying to make love to my calf muscles.

In any case, it’s time for the Moment Of Joy/Pain. They begin with Janinebian’s Ode To Breaking Up, and Hughnibrow says he just wishes her watermelon garnish could have been more of a part of the entire meal instead of being “so ostracized”…

dude, I wished for that too

She points out that she had watermelon in the main part of the dish as well, which should count as tying the two together. La Gassy says he grew up in New England and thinks the dish reminds him of home, he can taste every one of the ingrediences, it was a simple but well-executed dish.

Poor Unsinkable Molly, the first thing out of Daddy Tom’s mouth is that her shrimp are way overcooked…

but that’s the way people like them in the Lido Deck Café

Daddy goes on to say the cooking skills are there, but this major element just isn’t right. Hughnibrow says it came this close to being magnificent, but it needed some of the flavors to be married and a bigger push overall. For Eddie Lee, La Gassy says he loved the flavors of his dish, and the presentation was fantastic, but Hughnibrow thinks the duck was a smidge overdone. Eddie looks like he’s ready to give Hughnibrow two separate eyebrows by splitting his skull in half with his bare hands.

Daddy Tom wants to know from Jobless Grayson why she went with the combination of shrimp and figs. She babbles that she wrapped the shrimp in bacon because she likes the way those two things taste together, which is interesting, but not what Daddy Tom asked her. Try again Jobless…

ummmmmm, cuz it was Tyler StoneBalls’ idea?

After some more pressing her about what her intentions were between the shrimp, bacon and figs, he says she had a really nice dish. La Gassy says he loved how she “protected the shrimp with the bacon”, which is awesome, it’s just too bad that bacon didn’t do a better job of “protecting” its original pig owner. Moving along to BaldBear Andrew, La Gassy likes the smoked paprika he used with his mussels, but the charred corn panna cotta was confusing to him, and Daddy Tom agrees, saying he wishes BaldBear had just stopped at the bowl of mussels, it’s a great dish by itself.

Lastly, for Creepy French Laurent, they pull no punches, Daddy Tom says the scallop tartare is not appetizing or appealing with its gloppy grayness. La Gassy says the seared scallop was perfectly cooked, but he agrees with Daddy Tom, gray tartare is jamais bon…

très bien, alors je mangerai votre foie avec quelques haricots de fava et un chianti gentil

Well, it’s decision time, so they send everybody back to the Stew Room, where they all start telling Janinebian that she is obviously going to get one of the two remaining chef coats. Janinebian is buying it completely…

who, li’l ole me? Pshaw, t’weren’t nothin’ much, folks

Poor think she doesn’t realize that they are all trying to jinx the shit out of her. With that, they are called back, and right away Unsinkable Molly gets torpedoed, followed closely by Creepy French Laurent (everyone breathes a sigh of relief). On the plus side, Eddie Lee gets awarded a chef coat!…

now promise us you won’t bleed on it

After dragging it out a few more minutes, Scar finally puts BaldBear out of his misery…

don’t be a crybearby

Now it’s down to just Jobless Grayson and Janinebian. Which means it’s time for commercials…

man, I got all excited for a moment thinking “Being Bobby Brown” was coming back!

hey, here’s Casey (Bunny Foo Foo from Season 3 & All-Stars) doing what she does best

Anybody else remember when Casey said on her website that she was “done with T.C.” after that P.R. debacle where she helped Carla “Beaker” Hall lose Season 5? No? That’s ok, apparently she doesn’t either. So we finally come back, and the last chef coat goes to… Jobless Grayson!!…

suck it, Tyler

Poor Janinebian, she came so close! She just didn’t want to be “the last one next to the person that got the jacket” but that’s exactly what happened…

(((****RECORD SCRATCH****)))

Or did it? Because guess what, ‘Gasmii? None of us could have foreseen…

oh, fuck me with a hidden immunity idol

Yes, apparently, not only is Janinebian back in the competition, but BaldBear Andrew has been called to compete a third time. How did this happen? Well, first of all, the two of them re-met in the Stew Room…

where they are both thinking of nothing but alcohol

Suddenly Daddy Tom himself appears from around the corner. After they restrain themselves from leaping up and tearing his limbs off, he says he knows they really cooked their hearts out and are probably feeling mighty shitty right now… but it isn’t over just yet…

then Janinebian keels over and dies

So they trudge back into the Top Chef Kitchen™ again and, as I feared, this is going to be a new feature of the show. Every eliminated chef will have a chance to get back into the competition thanks to Ripping Off Survivor Last Chance Kitchen™! These two are going to compete against each other, and whoever wins will get to compete against the next eliminated cheftestant. There will be a battle every week until there is one chef left, and they will get to compete in the Finale for the $125,000.00. Just so we’re all clear, this isn’t really getting them back into the regular competition, there is no escape from Redemption Island Last Chance Kitchen™… they have to beat every single other chef in order to compete in the Finale.

So what is their Sudden Death Last Chance Kitchen™ challenge?: make a delicious pizza in 30 minutes. BaldBear Andrew goes to the seafood fridge to look for the ingrediences he wants for his pizza (he called it something like “bocarrones”, whatever that is, help me if you can) but when he gets there…

the cupboard is bear

In the end he decides to do a mediterranean pizza with salsa verde, anchovies and grilled calamari, while Janinebian goes with fig, arugula and parmesan cheese, seasoned with black garlic. At the very end she decides to drizzle some honey and truffle balsamic vinaigrette over it. Meanwhile, BaldBear Andrew staunchly refuses to put any cheese on his pizza. The both of them admit that it’s been a helluva long time since they’ve even had any pizza…

trust me, avoid this shit

So here’s BaldBear Andrew’s tentacle-laden pie…

isn’t that all the stuff people almost never want on their pizza?

Daddy wants to know why he went cheeseless here, and BaldBear’s big response is “Uhhhhm… well… you know…” When he finally kickstarts his speech center, Andrew says he did that because people automatically assume pizza is going to be red and covered in cheese…

maybe that’s because it actually tastes good?

I’m kidding, you know you can’t really read Daddy Tom when he’s eating things cuz he’s always making weird faces and stuff. He moves on to Janinebian next…

now bring us a figgy pizza

He seems to enjoy hers as well, and when he’s finished Daddy Tom says they are not making his job any easier. He says BaldBear Andrew could have used a little drizzle of olive oil at the end, and that Janinebian could have skipped the honey… and the winner is…

our cheeseless BaldBear!

Sadly, this means Janinebian is right back where she started from…

I’m a loser, babaaay, so why dont’cha kill meeee

She came so close! She just didn’t want to be “the last one next to the person that got the jacket” but that’s exactly what happened. For real this time. No, there’s no Last Last Last Chance Kitchen. Thank gawd.

Back over at the Chef’s Lair, Eddie Lee and Jobless Grayson arrive and are welcomed by the other Top Fourteen, and Jobless tells us she doesn’t want any of them thinking that she and Eddie are the underdogs because they had to cook a second time. Suddenly (and without warning) the sheer weight of her massive 90′s hair causes her to go all Finger Waggin’ Whitney Houston™ on us as she sasses…

we just got more experience, mkaaay?

Shucks, now I love you even more, Jobless, because you speak Black Girl/Gay Guy-ese! Anyhow, so now we have our Top Sixteen (and a half) and this season on Top Chef, here is all you need to know…

guys with uninjured sexytime hands make a serious comeback

And there you have it! What did you think of this episode? Do you think they picked the best of the best chefs? Was there anyone booted that you wish had stayed? Are you happy about this Redemption Island twist they’ve added? And what about that brutal length-of-time twist during the challenge? I want to say thanks again for all the comments and the extra information you guys always have, it truly makes it all worthwhile. See you in a couple of days for the next episode!

love, J-Mo