Nasty Delights

Top Chef - Season 1, Episode 3

Previously on Top Chef: The chefs competed in challenges having to do with presentation. Cynthia got some distressing news regarding her father's health. The first challenge was the fruit plate Quickfire, presided over by the Goddess of Everything Good and Pure. Despite some impressive efforts on several people's parts, Stephen's was judged the best, due to his use of the ancient art of Putting Things In A Different Container Than Usual. Later, in the Elimination Challenge, the chefs were asked to create a sexy dessert to serve at a fetish party. Several of the chefs couldn't touch "sexy" with a 10-inch dildo. Tiffani and Lee Anne had a spat about the "rules", which came to naught, as neither of their entries was judged that good or that bad. In the end, Miguel pulled out the win, as much for his personality as his food. You'll note that none of the other chefs object to the win on these terms. Keep that in mind for tonight. At the bottom of the heap were Cynthia and Andrea, and though Cynthia continues to be a whirling mass of chaos, Andrea's poor presentation skills got her a ticket back to the commune. Ten chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?

San Francisco. It's apparently always sunny and bright there. Except when I visit. Boo! At the IHOF, Brian interviews that while he's pleased to have been in the top three last week, he's sorry to see Andrea go. Because she's such a nice person or a talented chef? Heavens, no. It's because all that yoga has given her a slammin' body. Sigh. He's not going to be one of those people, is he? Like Eric and Jeremy over on The Amazing Race? I'm not sure I can take any more. One or two more like them, and the shows I watch will have more tools than Home Depot. Dave interviews (as diplomatically as he can) that he basically hates Brian's guts. Also, I should point out that in all of Brian's interviews tonight, he's wearing aggressively ugly clothes. There's a checked-pattern blazer that's so loud, I have to turn the TV down. That blazer looks almost exactly like the one I wore as Mr. MacAfee in my high school musical to look as tragically unhip as possible. Under that, he's wearing a mustard yellow T-shirt with a brick red collar line. His outfit is so ugly, it's distracting, and I'm forced to rewind several times to catch what he's saying. Candice blahs something about being the youngest competitor. Cynthia receives more bad news about her ailing father.

Quickfire Challenge. The chefs file in. A couple of them interview about the nasty smell pervading the kitchen, emanating from some covered dishes. KatieBot enters and introduces this week's guest judge, Laurent Manrique. That's totally going to be my porn name if I ever have occasion to need one. He's the chef/owner of a seafood restaurant, and is frankly adorable. KatieBot introduces the theme of the week, nasty delights (essentially, taking unappetizing ingredients and turning them into appetizing dishes), and tells the chefs to remove the lids. Octopus! Raw octopus. Now, I love octopus, as long as it's not rubbery. But raw octopus? Yeah, not tantalizing. A couple of chefs interview about how they haven't really worked with octopus before. The chefs have an hour to create a dish out of octopus to impress Laurent. So, a blatant ripoff of Iron Chef? Got it. Winner has immunity as always. KatieBot starts the clock.

Tiffani interviews that she's worked with octopus, and thus knows that the time constraint on this challenge is a particularly difficult one. I'll take her word for it. She's going to do something Mediterranean to "honor" the octopus' origins. Stephen has a smarmy interview (and seriously - still looking for a shortcut for that) in which he says he's going to incorporate alcohol as usual, though he calls them "spirits", because he's a snob. Several of the chefs appear to be making up their dishes as they go along. Miguel interviews that good chefs need to be able to think on their feet; to anticipate surprise. I suppose that's true, but they have these neat things nowadays called menus that really help guide the customers. Time's up.

Let's go down the line. Tiffani. She's made seasoned tomato succo with octopus frit (I can tell we're going to need a Pretentious Chef to English dictionary for this show - this one is fried octopus in tomato juice), and angel hair pasta that's been braised in red wine and topped with cold octopus. I have to say it looks really, really good. Tiffani is very polite and deferential to Laurent. Stephen has made a octopus tentacle duet. We never really hear how he's prepared the tentacles, because that would cut into yet another smarmy interview about how he thinks he's got the challenge in the bag. Lisa has made a simple braised octopus, flavored with orange juice. I should mention that every time a chef presents his/her dish, there are shots of other chefs looking dismissive. Either that or everyone's in some sort of unexplained intestinal pain. Cynthia has made octopus in tarragon with whiskey sauce. Interesting. She shares with us (and impresses Laurent at the same time) that she put a cork in the water as she cooked, which makes the octopus less rubbery. Write that down, aspiring chefs! Dave has made marinated/grilled Chinese five spice octopus cooked down in some white wine. Harold has poached the octopus in...acid? Is that what he said? Then he grilled it with some lentils. Looks good. Lee Anne has made citrus poached octopus on a bed of saffron and tomatoes. Mmm...saffron. She hasn't used much of the octopus, and Laurent asks her what she did with the rest. She says she'll deep fry it. Good stuff. Brian has just made a creamy stew and used the octopus as garnish, which doesn't really seem in the spirit of the challenge to me, but whatever. Candice has made sweet and spicy curry (which she pronounces cur-REE), and incorporated the octopus into it. Miguel has used red wine and citrus to braise the octopus. Laurent asks him why he used red as opposed to white, and Miguel says it's because red helps cut out a lot of the fishy flavor. Hey, I like fishy flavor! Why eat fish if you don't?

Laurent says he's impressed with a lot of the dishes the chefs have come up with, citing the difficulty of using octopus. He didn't like that Cynthia and Dave neglected to season everything, saying that the use of salt and pepper is extremely basic when using ingredients like these. Dave agrees in an interview, attributing the omission to him being flustered. Understandable that people are overthinking their dishes a bit. Tiffani, Lee Anne, Stephen, and Miguel impressed Laurent the most. These four have been at the top a lot in the past three weeks. They're the ones to watch. Ultimately, the winner is Tiffani. Judging solely on what sounds good to me, I'd have to agree. She's fairly graceless about it in an interview. So Tiffani will have immunity after the Elimination Challenge, which KatieBot now introduces.

It's important that we get the first words out of KatieBot's mouth (or the speaker installed there) verbatim: THIS. CHALLENGE. WILL. TEST. YOUR. ABILITY. TO. CATER. TO. YOUR. CLIENTS'. TASTES. Get that? That means if the client wants rack of lamb, that's what you make. If all they want is peanut butter and jelly, then you go make the best damn peanut butter and jelly of all time. The chefs will be divided into red and blue teams again. Each team must devise a meal around another visually unappealing ingredient: monkfish. The meal will be presented at 2 PM the following day to 40 very demanding clients - kids! Yes, the diners will all be between eight and twelve years old. Candice is nervous. Tiffani says she doesn't want to be judged by ten-year-olds, because they all know what they want already. Well, yes, I imagine some ten-year-olds have very restrictive diets. As do some adults. When I was ten, my parents made me try all sorts of different foods, and so I like a broad range of them now. I'm not getting where the magical crossing-over point Tiffani assigns to these kids is located, when it seems fairly obvious that kids' diets are no more alike than anyone else's.

The chefs draw knives for teams. Lisa is more confident in this challenge than the other ones, because she has an eight-year-old and a nine-year-old at home. She feels she knows what the kids will like. The blue team will be Brian, Lee Anne, Harold, Tiffani, and Dave. You'll note three of the five of them have won challenges previously. The red team will be Candice, Lisa, Stephen, Cynthia, and Miguel. There are two challenge winners on this team, and the other three have been judged the bottom of the barrel in previous weeks. Stephen has a smarmy interview in which he basically says that Candice sucks. The teams have thirty minutes to plan, and then two team members will go shopping for supplies. Lisa already has strong ideas about what to do, namely: finger food with dipping sauce. Can't go wrong with that. Stephen interviews that he doesn't like this challenge, because cooking for kids isn't all that difficult. I'll pause here so that anyone with children can have a good laugh. Done? OK. Over on the blue team, Brian comes up with a suggestion for mashed yams that nobody else is really wild about. He comes up with another idea for mac and cheese in a baked potato that is also shot down. He interviews that he felt left out of the team's decisions. While I'd argue that it's not like the team blew him off, but rather gave him reasoned responses to why such-and-such wouldn't work, it does look a bit like Dave is looking for an excuse to negate his ideas. Brian picks up on the same thing and makes it known that he at least tried to contribute.

Back at the red team, Lisa is outlining more things that kids like, and Stephen interrupts to say that they shouldn't have any side dishes; just monkfish. For the whole meal? No. Lisa duhs that you don't need to be all sophisticated when cooking for kids. You just need to make it appealing, which is the entire point of the challenge. Stephen makes some more dumb suggestions before the rest of his team is like "Whatever, dude" and decides to ignore him. Yeah, I'd say a cook like Stephen, who appears to work entirely in smoke and mirrors to make food look more impressive than it really is, would be shot down in a second by kids. They're not impressed with fancy, foreign names. They don't care about your braising methods. Miguel suggests making a sort of corndog with the monkfish, and calling them Monkey Dogs. Now that is clever. Miguel is very smart about adhering to the challenge's parameters. In the blue team's huddle, Brian suggests making candied carrots, and everyone seems fine with that. They also come up with the idea to coat monkfish in cereal and fry it into nuggets. Smart. Cynthia tells the red team she has to take off for a minute, and goes outside to take a phone call from her cousin. The news isn't good. Her father is slipping away quickly, and her cousin is like "I don't want to tell you that you have to come home, but if you want to see him, now's the time." This is awful. She cries and says that she needs to go home; that she doesn't care about the competition anymore.

Commercials. Corn-fueled cars? Sure, if you say so.

Cynthia goes back inside and gathers all the chefs. She tells them about her father and that she'll be withdrawing from the competition. She hugs everyone. Lee Anne interviews about how talented and wonderful Cynthia is. I don't know when it happened, but I feel my allegiance sliding from Harold to Lee Anne. Dave is sorry to see her go. Candice cries, which the previews made look like was a result of a fight Candice had, so fuck you, editors. Fuck you up your insensitive asses. Everyone shouts encouragement and good-byes as she leaves, except Stephen of course, because his only emotion is self-satisfaction. The editing makes it look like he's anxious to get back to the monkfish challenge, even before the doors have closed behind Cynthia, but it looks like that's been patched together solely to make him look more hateful. You really don't need to do that, show. Just give him enough rope. The teams do eventually get back to the task at hand. Lisa and Candice volunteer to shop for the red team. Dave and Lee Anne volunteer for the blue team.

And here we are at the store. They have $150 and half an hour to shop for supplies. Miguel and Stephen call Candice to bug her about picking up wine. She points out that they can't really serve wine to kids. They say it's for the house. Lisa shuts that down in a second, telling Candice that they're wasting her time and to hang up. Awesome. I want to hang out with Lisa and have her deal with all the obnoxious people I encounter. I had a roommate in college who was perfect at this. Her name was Honey. No, really. And sweet as that sounds, she's the one we sicced on the utility companies when there was a problem, because she was vicious. Anyway. Candice interviews that Stephen sucks. Stephen interviews that the shoppers suck, because they're "taking so long". Half an hour is a long time for shopping? Shut up, Stephen. Lee Anne is pleased with the blue team's shopping expedition.

Everyone returns to the Kitchen. Candice presents some cookie cutters that they've picked up, suggesting that they make shapes for a little extra creativity. Stephen tells her that it's a childish idea. Hahahahaha! See? You don't need to edit Stephen creatively. He's derisive of a childish idea when cooking for ten-year-olds. Candice looks up with an expression of disbelief and says basically that. Hehehe. I almost pity him. Almost. Because she didn't fold instantly, Stephen goes on the attack. The fight is on! Stephen tells her that unlike her, he has standards - "obviously". She still doesn't back down. Stephen smarmily interviews that he's less than a year older than Candice but so much more mature. Candice throws the "obviously" back in his face to call Stephen a tool and a douchebag. I know that in my blurblet, I said that they both suck in this fight (and they sort of do, which we'll get to in a second). I also know that I've been very hard on Candice these past couple of weeks (which I do not retract). However? In that moment? CANDICE IS MY HERO. He tells her that she's going to fail. Harold interviews that Stephen picking on Candice was distasteful to him. I don't know, Harold, it looks like she's pretty able to stand up for herself, here. Stephen points to the logo on his chest and says "The competition is called Top Chef. Do you know how to read?". What's hilarious about this is that he traces the logo backwards, so it looks like he thinks the competition is really called Fehc Pot. Tragically, Candice doesn't note this. She just sarcastically mouths off to him some more. He blusters some more about not accepting mediocrity, and she tells him to get over himself. MY HERO. Miguel tries to break it up, addressing them as "yous two". Ha! Lisa also wants them to shut up and get to work. Candice interviews that she's never been talked to like that. "How dare Stephen try to downsize me," she complains. Whoops, there went that hero status. Downsize? The fuck? Lisa tells her to get back to concentrating on the challenge.

Night falls, and then dawn breaks at the IHOF. Lisa interviews that Candice is still upset about the fight. She rightly points out that if they lose the challenge because of this, Lisa herself is the one who's going to look bad, given what an expert in children's cuisine she's claimed to be. Stephen aims for condescending, but lands closer to dumbass in an interview, saying that "If you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, you should probably remove yourself." Yes, and as I always say: "The moss-accumulating abilities of a rock in motion are tenuous at best." I love how he thinks he's a genius, yet can't handle the simplest of metaphors. Brian tells us that someone's getting eliminated today. Really? Shocker. At the Kitchen, we hear the plans of each team. The blue team will serve monkfish nuggets, cheesy tater tots, strawberry applesauce, and maple carrots. The red team will serve monkfish corn dogs, potato chips, fruit skewers, and yogurt dipping sauce. So, pretty similar menus. KatieBot enters. She says that the red team is one person down, so she's brought someone along to fill the void. Lee Anne think it might be Tom. Um, no. Something tells me that might make the judging difficult. Lisa just prays it won't be Ken. Hahaha! I hear you, sister. Nope. It's Andrea, who's been put back in the competition. Fair enough. They have to fill a certain episode number, after all, so it's either this or have a non-elimination round, which would be boring. She interviews that everyone was happy to see her except Stephen. Well, sure. The only person Stephen likes resides in the bathroom mirror.

Everyone's got two hours to finish up. Andrea gets right to work. Lisa is thrilled. Brian begins to make his maple glazed carrots while he interviews that the Boys and Girls Club (where the lunch will be held) means a lot to him. He was involved heavily with them in his childhood. Well, sure. He's a black man on TV. Of course he has an absent father! Fucking "reality" shows. Now, a very telling scene. Tiffani tries the carrots, and is not pleased. Harold asks her how they are, and she says they're nasty. Harold shrugs it off, saying that hey, who cares if they suck? They're just serving them to kids. Tiffani agrees. Yeah. It'd be pretty hypocritical of me to pretend I'm all gung-ho about children, but at the very least, I don't patronize them. Shitty food is shitty food, and it's not like they're not going to realize that food tastes bad just because they're young. For all the talk later about food vs. entertainment, this little exchange, right here, is really what's fundamentally wrong with the blue team. Harold interviews that he didn't tell Brian that his carrots sucked.

Tom checks in. Candice tells him the red team is making a honey/yogurt vanilla dip. Tom sort of bitchily asks if kids like yogurt. Um, why wouldn't they? Besides, she just said they're making it with honey. I'm sure that'll help it along. He tries one of the Monkey Dogs, and doesn't really give any feedback on it. He asks if the red team has a captain, and everyone indicates Lisa, due to her mad phat mothering skillz. That puts her in a dangerous position, game-wise, but she seems confident. Harold and Lee Anne tell Tom the blue team is going to bake their nuggets instead of frying them. Harold interviews that he really looks up to Tom. OK, then. Dave is wearing a Japanese-looking bandana on his head. Whatever. Tom also asks the blue team if they have a leader. I can almost swear that in background, we can hear a female voice say "Dave", but in the foreground, they tell Tom that there is no leader - that all decisions are made by consensus. Tiffani gives him the strawberry applesauce to try, and he non-sequiturs into the fact that the red team is using food coloring. Tiffani tells him that food coloring is unnecessary. Tom leaves. People cook. Miguel yells at his food to fry faster. Hee. More frantic cooking. Stephen delusionally takes credit for other people's ideas. Time's up.

Commercials. I'm still loving that Hanes dodgeball players commercial. What can I say? I'm an easy mark.

Everyone arrives at the Boys and Girls Club. Dave hopes they can make monkfish appeal to children. Tiffani wants to show the kids that food can just be food. It doesn't have to be bright pink or whatever to be appealing. Well, she's right on substance, but do you really want to test that theory in the middle of a challenge? I like food to be food, too, but if I were a kid, and you told me your food makes me spit bright green? I'd be enraptured. The teams set up. The red team is still sort of sniping at each other. Stephen tries to get them to concentrate by telling them to shut up. Yeah, that'll work. Even Miguel (who seems to be the only contestant who can stand Stephen generally) interviews that Stephen's attitude sucks. Lee Anne interviews that the blue team worked much more cohesively. Just then, Stephen knocks a tray of food onto the floor. Does he take responsibility? Does he apologize? Does he rethink all of those interviews about how superior he is to everyone else? Come on. Are you new here? His team members don't make a big deal out of it, which surprises me.

KatieBot welcomes everyone. Tiffani has a little star sticker on her face, because she's so darn kid-friendly! The entire challenge is explained again, because we're stupid. The kids come screaming in. And I do mean screaming. It's my experience that kids don't really do that unless expressly told to, so there you go. It has its desired effect. The chefs look terrified. KatieBot tries to charm the kids. It goes about as well as you'd think. DOES. ANYBODY. LIKE. PIZZA? WHAT. ABOUT. HAMBURGERS? WHAT. ABOUT. FISH? Of course, pizza and hamburgers get raves. Fish? Not so much. A terrific groan goes up. The chefs look like they're searching for the nearest window to jump out of. KatieBot asks the kids if they'd like to see what a monkfish looks like. Tom brings it in, and it's unveiled in all its hideous glory. Hehehehe. The kids freak out. One little girl looks particularly stricken, and it's awesome. Tiffani interviews that she wasn't thrilled to see that, because kids are really impressionable. Lunch is served. We hear the menus all over again. Got it, thanks.

Everyone starts eating, and the kids are really getting into the food. So much for being impressionable doofs, huh, Tiffani? She gleefully points out the kids being unimpressed by Stephen's blather, and I am totally with her on that one. He gives them the french name for potato chip. They're pretty much "thanks, you can go now". We hear again how much the challenge means to Brian, because of his history with the club. Really, show. I do have ears, and the semblance of a memory. The chefs check in with the kids to see how they like everything. Things are going fine for both teams. Miguel interviews that kids need to be entertained as part of the whole enjoyable eating experience. He leads them in a chant of "Red! Red! Red!". Candice and Lisa join in. Meanwhile, Brian is trying to win them over to the blue team while Tiffani and Harold stand back and ignore them. He is overpowered by Miguel's fans. Harold tells Tiffani (and Stephen, who's on the opposing team) that it sucks that someone's going to be sent home because of these "shenanigans". Shenanigans? Thanks, grandpa. I see what he's saying, but I really doubt that a kid that truly preferred the blue team's food would switch their vote, just because they enjoy screaming "Red!" so much. Tiffani interviews that trying to get the kids to vote for them through "the monkfish interpretive dance" (OK, got to give her a "heh" on that one) was patronizing, and overall disrespectful to kids.

The judges come in and talk to the kids. Laurent looks delighted to be interacting with them. I have decided to make him mine. A lot of the kids like both of the teams' food, and have trouble telling the judges which they prefer. One girl disdains the carrots because they're soft. I haven't mentioned my hatred for carrots (especially mushy cooked ones, which literally make me want to throw up), but yeah. Maple syrup or not, they look nasty. The judges take a vote. The red team gets 23 votes, and the blue team gets 14. Looks like we have some abstainers. The red team celebrates. Well, everyone except Stephen celebrates. Lisa is particularly happy, for obvious reasons. Stephen interviews that he doesn't care about winning, because had they lost, it would have been someone else to go. Putting aside his naked self-importance, I wonder if that's true or not. Lisa would certainly be in a precarious position, but it's not like Stephen really contributed much to this challenge.

Here's where we start getting into the sticky area. Harold interviews that the kids didn't really give a crap what they ate; it was just that they were more entertained by Miguel than they were by the blue team. Think Harold would think the same thing about Brian had the blue team won? I doubt it. I think that if they'd won, it'd naturally be because they had superior food, but he can't accept that the red team may have beaten them in that area, so it must be because the kids are so fickle. I admit that it's just the impulse I have, but if true, Harold's a pretty shitty excuse for a chef. It gets worse. Tiffani interviews that they were cooking for kids who don't have a palate; all they know is greasy, salty, sugary foods. Remember two minutes ago when she accused the other team of patronizing kids? Of painting them all with a broad generalization that she felt was unfair to them? Clearly she doesn't. As with Harold, naturally she couldn't have been the one to do anything wrong. Kids are all the same; uncultured brats who eat at McDonald's. I remember being peeved when seeing this on first viewing, and now I'm actually exceedingly angry about it. How dare that bitch try to pawn off her loss on the very client she was supposed to be trying to please? Guess the star sticker didn't do it. Asshole.

Commercials. Flights to London are $199? From what airport? Dublin?

Judges' table. No fancy dining room this week. Everyone's still at the Boys and Girls Club. BLUE. TEAM. YOU. LOST. TODAY. ONE. OF. YOU. WILL. BE. GOING. HOME. Tom asks where they went wrong. Tiffani and Harold immediately spring into the argument that the kids were influenced by things beyond the food. At this point, I can see where they're coming from. Badly dubbed voice of Tom saying that the fish was fine on both teams, so it really comes down to side dishes. Do they think we can't hear that this has been put in after the fact? I like this show, but I've about had it with the constant insults to the audience's intelligence. Harold claims that their food was more nutritious than the red team's. Tom responds that they offered a fried potato. Harold counters that they offered a vegetable. KatieBot counters that the red team offered fruit. Point? Judges.

Tiffani, unable to leave well enough alone, says that the challenge didn't test any skills of a professional chef. Gail tells her the challenge was about pleasing the customer, which is part of being a chef. And which I'll point out was clearly outlined at the beginning of the challenge. Tiffani says that the palate of a ten-year-old isn't sophisticated. Firstly, ten-year-olds' palates are as sophisticated as the food that's served to them, which Tiffani is not in a position to know. Secondly, even assuming she's right, so the fuck what? Again. Challenge = please customer. Customer = children. If she feels so strongly that kids have no ability to discern good food from bad, why didn't she make more of an effort to please them through other methods, such as shape and color? Oh, but she's already interviewed that those things are unnecessary. That kids should be able to enjoy food for what it is and dressing it up in pageantry of any kind is "patronizing". In other words, Tiffani's argument shifts to whatever best suits her at the time, and she's full to the brim with steaming bullshit. She tells the judges that she's never going to compromise her oh-so-lofty principles to appeal to a bunch of kids. Wow, are people really this disrespectful?

Remember when I pointed out how polite Tiffani was to Laurent in the Quickfire Challenge? Know why? Because Laurent is established. Laurent has power and influence over her. Giving respect to people who can screw you over is really, really easy. Giving respect to people who can't do a damn thing for you is part of what defines you as a person, and in that regard? Tiffani is a pretty poor excuse for a human being. Laurent compares the kids to a demanding customer. Tiffani doesn't budge. May I ask why she's so anxious to work in a restaurant? If she's so unyielding as to not change anything about her cooking to please anyone, why doesn't she just sit at home in her own kitchen? She turns it back on Tom, asking him if he's always caved to customer demand. He says he almost never turns them down. She harps on the "almost", and grins, convinced she's won the argument. I grin too, because what she just won was a ticket home. Not this week, and probably not for several weeks more. Still, with this one little moralizing snit, Tiffani became a Reality Show Villain. And you know what Reality Show Villains don't do? Win. It brings me great satisfaction to know that in her haste to appear so righteous, she's screwed herself royally. Tom tells her it's a good thing she has immunity. That wipes the grin off her fucking face pretty quickly. Tom goes on. "There is one thing that we do in the restaurant business, and that is make people happy. And I don't care how you do that. That's what you do." Exactly. That's what I'm saying about being a cook versus being someone who cooks.

Gail switches subjects and asks about the carrots. The kids didn't like them, and neither did the judges. Brian owns up to being in charge of the carrots, but says that's the way he always does them. Gail asks Harold if he tasted the carrots. He says he did, and agrees that they were overcooked, but left the matter in Brian's hands. No, what you'll actually remember he did was hate the carrots, but not give a second's worry to the matter because after all, they were just giving them to a bunch of moronic kids. They also didn't like Tiffani's applesauce. She continues not to care what a bunch of kids think, because she's a self-righteous idiot. Laurent asks who made the decisions in the team. I think he was told to ask that question, since Tom brought it up earlier. Shifty. They say there was no leader. Laurent is all "c'mon, there had to be one." Um, no there didn't. Brian says that Dave was sort of an unofficial leader. Dave disagrees with that. Lee Anne sticks to the argument that everything was a group choice. Laurent asks who should be let go. Lee Anne will not be bullied into being a jerk. She says they'll sink or swim as a team. Seriously, I like Lee Anne so much. Watch, next week she'll pull some shit that makes me hate her guts.

The judges don't want to hear all this harmony, and badger them into giving up a name. Dave wimpily gives up Brian, saying he felt like Brian thought he was always outside the team. Er, OK. Don't really see how that leads to the decision to send him packing, but whatever. Brian says that he was the only one playing up the blue team's food to the kids. True. Dave tries to argue it, saying he talked to kids, but that's not what Brian means. Brian was the only one who tried to make the kids enthusiastic about the food. He says again that Dave was the silent leader of the blue team, and as such, should be the one to go. Tiffani chooses Brian, for the whole carrots issue. Lee Anne sticks to her guns and refuses to single anyone out. LOVE. Harold chooses himself, saying he has to take responsibility for when things don't work out. I'd love to be all "aw, isn't that noble", but his obvious disdain for the children is still lingering in my mind. They're dismissed.

Deliberations. Gail says that they didn't have a leader, but needed one. Tom agrees that when he was in the Kitchen, they all told him there was no leader. There's a flashback, and I can still hear that faint "Dave" in the background, so who knows? Tom is disgusted with Brian for trying to push phantom leader status off onto Dave. He also points out that the kids picked out exactly what was wrong with the carrots, so Tiffani has a hell of a nerve saying that kids don't know what they're talking about. Ooh, she is so toast. I love it. The judges think Harold was just trying to make himself look good by choosing himself. Cripes, they just said that people needed to take responsibility for their actions. Harold did so, and now they attack him for it? Shut up, judges. Dave is in the loser group for the second week running. Laurent remembers that he didn't like Dave's Quickfire entry, either. They bring the blue team back in. The red team wishes them luck.

Commercials. If traffic cones come to life and start to chase me, I think I'll have more important problems than what kind of car I drive.

Dave is reminded about his failure to use salt in the Quickfire. Brian is taken to task for selling Dave out as a fake leader and for the carrots. Harold took the "high road" too late. Tiffani needs to show more respect for her clients. There is a whole lot of badly dubbed judge blather through the whole thing. Lee Anne is not admonished for a single thing. And the loser is - Brian. PLEASE. PACK. YOUR. KNIVES. AND. GO. He goes back and says good-bye. Lisa is sorry to see him go. Yeah, it's a shame that he got eliminated for a challenge he felt so strongly connected to. Lee Anne didn't want to see any of the blue team go. She says she'd rather have sent Stephen home. She rolls her eyes. LOVE. Dave's basically "whatever" about the whole thing. Tiffani's interview must be quoted verbatim. "Brian put himself in a position to make excuses as opposed to just stepping up and accepting responsibility for bad food." Read that again. Yeah. Brian becomes the third eliminated contestant to say that he wouldn't change anything about how he's competed. Sure, examining your work for weaknesses and seeking opportunities for improvement is for wusses. He gave "250%". Tally mark! He wraps up with "don't get it twisted". Did Ebony get a sex change? Good-bye, Brian. Have someone else pick out your outfits from now on.

Next week on Top Chef: Everyone's getting twenty bucks to get ingredients from one particular store. There's some sort of catch involved. Candice is frustrated. Stephen gets taken to task for something. Tom wants to get rid of two contestants, and just might, pretending he's doing it in a fit of pique. Yeah, I'm sure that if two contestants were going, it wouldn't have been planned out to the exact second. Shut up, Tom.

The episode's postscript is "In Memory of Joseph B. Sestito". Cynthia's father. Rest in peace.

Overall Grade: B-