With just seven dwarf-chefs remaining, Top Chef delivers an episode that has nothing to do with Texas, giving the chefs the freedom and inspiration to cook their asses off in this awesome episode.
QUICKFIRE
The chefs head back to San Antonio for the last few episodes before the finale. The charmingly accented Eric Ripert meets them in the kitchen to present a challenge that's destined to make little use of his palate. The challenge purports to be about "quick thinking," but the setup's slightly more confused. A rickety conveyor belt on a small loop dips into the kitchen, and runs for the duration of the 30-minute challenge. Chefs must choose three ingredients from the belt to be included in their dish, with the promise that the quality of the ingredients will increase as time goes on. With all of their scientific backgrounds, the chefs imagine the challenge to be structured like this:
They abandon the conveyor belt at the beginning of the challenge, setting up plates with ingredients from the pantry, expecting that when they return to the conveyor belt, the ingredients will have drastically changed. (They believe the optimal time to choose their ingredients would be at the intersection of those lines.) Really, though, the challenge is structured more like this,
with those spikes being the brief appearance of lobster. Poor Chris Jones. The conveyor belt's so short that by the time he sees his wished-for ingredient, it disappears, and the man behind the curtain yanks it from the belt. Twice. I like to imagine that it's Padma and Ripert behind the curtain, just messing with him because they can, and because he keeps calling them bastards.
Aside from the helter-skelter nature of this challenge and the lobster antics, which lend the challenge some interest, the rest of it's really muddled. The bad ingredients are really bad, and we've already seen the chefs work with saltines and corn chips this season. It's a slight upgrade since they have to mix those clunkers with better ingredients, but it leads to a roomful of food no one really wants to eat. The chefs are clearly embarrassed to be serving this stuff to Eric Ripert, and Ripert clearly wishes he were doing something else. Lindsay takes the win with a last-minute bouillabaisse, but knows her dish wasn't nearly as good as Beverly's. Bev was disqualified for running out of time and failing to plate her curried Rice Krispies. She could have had immunity. I wonder if that will come back to haunt her.
ELIMINATION CHALLENGE
Praise be! My Top Chef-related prayers have been answered, and tonight's elimination round put forward one of the finest challenges I've seen on this show. I've been complaining this season about how the narrow, team-focused challenges haven't allowed us to get to know the chefs' styles. Tonight's episode put me squarely in my place; it felt like a different show—or season—altogether. Promised a visit from the queen (Chris J: Queen of England? Queen Latifah?), the chefs freak out when Charlize Theron appears in the kitchen. Sarah so much so that she appears to be crying. She's there to publicize her new movie, in which she plays Evil Queen to an innocent Snow White. She challenges the chefs to prepare "a gothic feast fit for a queen," that's "wickedly beautiful." It should be indulgent, take risks, and should wipe out the competition.