Oh dear.
I feel like I should just stop here and open the floor to your toxic comments, but I have to come to terms with my crushing disappointment just like everyone else—or at least the 91% text-voting majority that felt Lisa should have gone home tonight. I’m searching for precedent for such a consistent underperformer making the finale of any reality competition show, and the best I can come up with is Wendy Pepper, the villain from Season One of Project Runway. Granted, Lisa isn’t quite as underhanded and diabolical as Wendy, who seemed to think she was on a contestant on Survivor. But in other ways, they’re very similar, from their gray-cloud temperament to their uncanny ability to keep failing upward, despite being in the bottom two or three virtually every week.
In any case, Antonia’s elimination raises a question: Should one’s overall accomplishments be a factor in elimination? Clearly, based on tonight’s dismissal, the judges were holding strong to the rule that the only thing that matters is what the contestants produce on a given week. But surely their impression of the chefs from the whole of the competition is a little tough to shake, isn’t it? Had Richard or Stephanie, the presumptive frontrunners, hit them with a plate of al dente beans tonight instead of Antonia, would they have gotten the boot? In general, I like the idea that the chefs have to bring their best work every week or risk getting the boot, but I also wonder that if the results are really close—as they were tonight, with the losers delivering “B+” dishes—then maybe they should give the nod to the more accomplished one overall. Or perhaps the judges were deliberately understating the sucktitude of Antonia’s plate ‘o slop for the sake of suspense.
So getting back to the beginning, we’ve left Chicago for Puerto Rico, which I guess means that Top Chef made it through the Windy City without encountering the likes of Charlie Trotter or Hot Doug. Their loss, I suppose, though it’s not like the latter needs another half-block added onto its immense lines for duck-fat fries. The first Quickfire takes advantage of some humble regional favorites: The fritter and the plantain, which the chefs have been asked to combine in a duo. Everyone’s dishes look good, even Lisa’s, who’s scaring me already with her uncharacteristic competence. The guest judge, supposed Puerto Rican culinary genius Wilo Benet, gives the nod to Stephanie, who enjoys her first Quickfire win for some delicious-looking tostones with seared tuna and pork and shrimp fritters with brown butter, lime, and basil.
The Elimination Challenge is a pretty brilliant one, I think: Everyone gets a whole pig and has to use different parts of the animal to make multiple dishes. There’s something so pure about having a pig just laid out on each of their slabs, a nice reminder that when we’re eating bacon, ham, and pork chops, they actually come from the same wonderful, magical animal. (Sorry, obligatory Simpsons reference there.) So the chefs have to know how to butcher the pig properly—Antonia shares a rather gruesome tip on one aspect of it—and work with the rawest of raw materials. And while it’s a little limiting to have pork be the central component of nearly every dish at the party, I like the focus of it, too.