Seven

Top Chef - Season 2, Episode 9

Previously on Top Chef: Marcel bugged the crap out of Betty, because he's so annoying. Naturally, the previouslies omit the episode where Betty bugged the crap out of Marcel, because she's equally annoying. Not that this unfair disparity in editing will have anything to do with tonight's episode! The chefs were asked to cater a cocktail party, and Marcel bugged the crap out of Sam, because he's so annoying. Naturally, the previouslies omit the episode where Sam bugged the crap out of Marcel, because he's equally annoying. Not that this unfair disparity in editing will have anything to do with tonight's episode! The black team faltered, and Mia threw herself on the grenade for Elia. Seven bean-pickers remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?

Morning at the Cellblock. Elia is still not sure why Mia sacrificed herself so that she could continue competing, but she vows to give it her all. Meanwhile, in the men's room, some garbage bags are lovingly product-placed. Marcel makes himself some eggs, and Ilan asks him to take them off the stove so he can cook some eggs for himself. Actually, he doesn't really ask. He says "Ya wanna take those off, so I can make myself an egg?". Snotty. Marcel says he wants to keep his eggs on the stove so they'll be nice and warm for when his toast is done. Snotty. Ilan tells Marcel that he's selfish, and interviews that Marcel is quite full of himself. True. Of course, the kabillion times that Ilan has been equally self-satisfied are never mentioned, because that doesn't really fit nicely into this whole Marcel-as-villain arc they've got going. Grasped the theme of tonight's episode yet, and my problem with it? I knew you would. You're a smarty-pants. In other news, Michael had to have some emergency dental work done. His wisdom tooth has been pulled, so he's hopped up on medication and looks awful. He naturally feels pretty crappy, and hopes for a nice, short Quickfire that scores him immunity, so that he can completely phone in the Elimination Challenge and devote some time to recuperating. Everyone heads out.

Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma, Ted Allen, and Padma's ugly white boots. Cliff is pleased that Ted's going to be their Quickfire judge. Padma tells everyone that now that the field is narrowed down, the stakes are getting higher. From here on out, the winner of the Quickfire Challenge will no longer receive immunity. Padma never mentions any incentive the chefs now have for striving to do well, such as leniency in the Elimination Challenge, which I hope is the case. Michael looks unhappy, while Cliff interviews that he doesn't care, because there's never a reason to avoid trying to win the Quickfire. Padma tells everyone that the theme for this week's challenges is creativity, saying that cooking incorporates at least four of the five senses. She feels the need to outline which four, in case we were all sitting here wondering why heads of lettuce don't make any noise. Ted compares an empty plate to a blank canvas. Padma tells the chefs that for their Quickfire today, they'll be creating a dish based around a specific color. That's so cool! Each of the chefs will be drawing knives for their color. Let's get to it.

Ilan draws red. Michael draws orange. Elia draws white, which she's not happy about. Sam draws yellow, but thinks it's green. I'm not going to make too much fun of him, because they can look quite similar based on the shade and the room's lighting, but I will say that Padma's "That's yellow, Sam", accompanied by a huge eye roll was about the awesomest awesome to ever awesome an awesome. Cliff draws purple, which he can't really identify, because... Wait for it... Cliff is color blind. Oh, daaaaaamn. That reminds me of my friend Jill in college, who was (1) color blind, and (2) allergic to red food dye. Heh. Can you imagine? I tried to take her under my wing by making her special Jello shots for every party. Aaaaanyway, Cliff expects to do poorly in the challenge. Betty pulls green. Actual green. Marcel gets the last knife, which is brown. He interviews that brown isn't vibrant or beautiful, so he's in a tough position. Betty smarmerviews that she's thrilled that she got green and that Marcel got stuck with brown. Yep, green rocks. And I'm sure that Betty will knock this challenge out of the park, given what an easy color she drew. Padma says that they have thirty minutes to make their dish, and it must, of course, taste good, and not just be pretty. Ready? Go!

Everyone goes into their usual panic. Ilan finds the challenge strange, saying he usually focuses on flavor before presentation. Marcel lets us in on the fact that you have to move quickly in a Quickfire. Gee, thanks. I've been spending the last eight episodes wondering why everyone's in such a hurry during these things. Betty spazzerviews that the greener her plate is, the better it's going to be. Cliff, having heard a long time ago that eggplant is purple, starts matching everything he makes to an one that he's set out on the counter. Smart! Michael opts for salmon, saying that although it's pink, it turns orange when it's cooked. Smart! He's also going to batter-fry some carrots. Padma comes in and gives them a five-minute warning. Betty is happy with her final product. Marcel decorates a bowl with coffee beans and grounds, but accidentally spills his (very liquid) dish all over it. Whoops! Now it just looks chunky and disgusting. He cleans it up the best he can with forty seconds to go. Time runs out and everyone steps back from their dishes.

Ted and Padma go down the line, starting with Ilan. He's made steak tartare with beef tenderloin and red taro chips, and topped it with grape tomatoes. It looks very pretty. Betty's up next, and sweet Jeebus. Her presentation can be summed thusly: throw a bunch of green shit on a plate. She's made a zucchini tamale. I think I also see asparagus, beans, spinach, green olives (or caperberries), and a sliced lime. Well, those are certainly green, but those flavors don't go together at all. Ted tells her there's a lot going on with her plate, and asks if this is something she's done before. She says no, and the music lets us know that Betty screwed up. Marcel has made steak and eggs (and a crispy crouton), which is piled into a sort of tower that rests in a bowl that rests in a larger bowl filled with coffee, coffee grounds, coffee beans, and coffee foam. The other chefs gleefully make fun of him (and not in interviews, but right there in the Kitchen). Betty derisively asks Michael why Marcel puts a foam on "every fucking thing he makes". A fair question, though it's a bit rich coming from someone who just screwed up the easiest color in the rainbow to cook with. Sam interviews that we're in the ninth episode, and Marcel has made nine foams. I don't much feel like researching back to see if that's true, but yeah. Marcel really likes his foam.

Elia has done a nice job with a difficult color. She's made a white Dover sole filet with a poached egg on top. Cliff tells Ted and Padma that he's color blind, and Padma asks how he adjusted for the challenge. He tells them about the trick with the eggplant (which looks black to him). Padma asks if any of the other chefs helped him out. Cliff says that Marcel offered, but he thinks he had a pretty good handle on things on his own. He presents his dish, which is red snapper with a grilled eggplant and blackberry compote. That sounds pretty good, and Cliff did a really nice job on creating a purple plate, given that he has no idea what it looks like. Ted seems to like everything. Sam has made a duo of muffins (lemon and corn) that surround an egg yolk and some sharp Cheddar. Paired with this is a crudo salad, with lemon and mustard. I thought I saw some banana slices in there too, but don't quote me on that. Ted really likes the interplay of sweet and savory flavors, and I have to say that his plate looks quite beautiful. Ted kids Michael about making all pureed food, given his tooth issue. Michael is in no mood to fake being amused. He presents his plate, which is sushi rice with salmon and his fried carrot chips. It looks like there may be some Mandarin oranges on there as well. Padma and Ted really like the carrot chips.

Padma asks Ted how he thinks everyone did. He says it was a pretty difficult challenge, but that the chefs responded in very interesting ways. The worst dish was Betty's, which puts her in the bottom of the Quickfire for the fourth episode in a row. Methinks you should take a break from hurling those stones at Marcel until you've repaired the gaping holes in your glass house, there, Betty. In addition to not tasting good, Ted tells her that her presentation was lacking, and that her plate looked like something she had raked up, "not to be unkind". "Well, you are," Betty snipes. Let's take a quick moment to guess how Betty (or Ilan or Sam) would react to Marcel saying the exact same thing. They'd rake him over the coals for being a douchebag. They'd get up on their high horses and lecture us on how ungrateful and selfish he is. I'll save the rest of my disgust for the rant that's coming up later, but suffice it to say that Betty doesn't agree with her loss. Speaking of Marcel, Ted didn't like his dish either, saying the moat of coffee made the plate look dirty and unappetizing. Ilan grins smugly, and I have an overwhelming desire to smack him across the face with a halibut. The grin is wiped off his face pretty damn quickly when he joins his mortal enemy in the bottom three. Ted feels the tartare was pretty good, but Ilan concentrated too hard on the color, and not enough on matching textures. Or whatever. He finds being in the bottom three of the Quickfire for the first time "disheartening".

Now, the good news. Sam's was the most visually appealing dish, and had a good combination of sweet and salty flavors. Cliff gave a lot of variety with a difficult color, and the fish was cooked well. Michael was clever to use pink fish that wound up being orange, and the carrot chips were great. Ted drags out the name of the winner for as long as he can. It's Michael, who finally scores his first win. And you know what? I'm really happy for him. I know! I've detested Michael from the beginning, but he did a legitimately great job on this, and I'm all for giving credit where it's due. Also, he's becoming exponentially less annoying than certain other contestants, so I can sort of start to feel myself actively hoping he does well. I know! He interviews that it feels great to beat the frontrunners of the competition (that'd be Sam and Cliff), and the other chefs seem to be pleased for him. Still, this win doesn't give him immunity, so he'll still have to work hard on the Elimination Challenge, which is coming up right about...

Now! Padma tells them how important an initial inspiration is to food. The Elimination Challenge will be to take an inspiration given to them, and use that to create their dish. The seven of them will create one seven-course dinner, inspired by the seven deadly sins. Sweet! I love the challenges this week. Cliff is equally thrilled. He interviews that it's a phenomenal idea, and lists them off. I'm not sure if we're supposed to notice that he says both "jealousy" and "envy", but leaves off "gluttony". He kids that he's probably broken all of them at one point or another, as have we all. The chefs will have three hours to prep in the Kitchen, and will then pack everything up to take over to a dinner party, given for Debi Mazar. Sorry, I don't watch Entourage, so I have no idea whether to be all "Yay, Debi Mazar!" or "Ew, Debi Mazar!". Ted will be subbing for Gail again at Judges' Table. Boo! I miss Gail. There will also be a guest judge named Roberto Somethingorother. The chefs will draw knives for their sins. Heh. That sounds like some punishment they'd mete out during the Spanish Inquisition. "Prepare to draw knives for your sins, heathen!". Michael draws lust. Sam gets anger. Elia gets pride. Ilan gets gluttony. Cliff draws greed. Betty gets sloth. And finally, Marcel pulls envy. He interviews that he's happy (well, he says "pretty stoked", but I refuse to use that phrasing), because there are a lot of culinary interpretations that can be done with envy. Padma tells Michael that as a reward for winning the Quickfire, he can switch sins with someone if he wants. He does want, and he trades his lust for Marcel's envy. That sentence certainly sounded dirtier than I meant it. Although Marcel was happy with envy, he now interviews that Michael was crazy to give away lust. Make up your mind, Marcel. Really, I think any of the seven sins would be a good basis for inspiration.

Commercials. Whatever Ruby Tuesday is paying their ad people, they need to double it, because those commercials actively make me want to drop everything and rush over there. Not that I ever do, but still. That crabcake and that steak look terrific.

Now that everyone is settled with their sin, it's time to choose courses. Ilan pipes up that he wants to do dessert, and Betty chimes in that she'd like to do a soup. Marcel asks for five minutes so that everyone can kind of decide what they want to make, and choose courses from there. OH MY GOD, WHAT AN ASSHOLE. Seriously, the other chefs react to this perfectly reasonable request as if Marcel has just suggested they present the judges with a punchbowl full of rat droppings. Betty says that if people already know what they want to do, why not say so? Just in case everyone wants to do something different, and the assigned courses could be decided really easily. OK, that's fair. Sam asks him if he wants to do dessert (which makes sense with lust), and Marcel takes a moment to think, because having two dessert courses would be iffy. Betty interviews that this is shitty of him, because everything's all about him. Oh, you mean like the way you just appropriated the soup course without caring what anyone else wanted to do? See later rant. Marcel finally decides that yes, he'd like to do a sixth-course dessert. Sam interviews that Marcel gets under his skin. He and Ilan retreat to a corner of the Kitchen to trash Marcel, because they're seventh-grade girls. See later rant. Marcel and Ilan realize that having two desserts sets up a kind of mini-throwdown between the two of them.

Time to shop. The chefs get $150, and thirty minutes to get everything. Elia stocks up on chicken. Ilan interviews that he was lucky to draw gluttony, because it's the easiest sin to describe with food. I'll buy that. I guess that means he'll have no excuse if he screws it up, huh? Michael plans to describe envy by combining imitation crab with real crabmeat. That is so clever! Where is this brilliant Michael coming from? Unfortunately, the store is out of crab, so Michael has to completely rework his idea on the spot. He spins a pretty far-fetched story about trout being envious of salmon, so he'll make a fish duo, but I certainly couldn't come up with anything better in his position. The chefs wrap up their food purchases, and head out. Now, it's time to go to the fixture store to buy serving platters and such. Betty interviews that creative serving is important if you want to stand out. Another $150, and another thirty minutes. Cliff says it's tough not to go overbudget. I can imagine. Betty interviews that her idea for sloth is to make a trio of slow-roasted soups. I think that's a great idea. She's going to serve them out of champagne glasses. As Ilan begins checking out, he tells the cashier he'll check and see how much money he has. Um, could it be $150? That's my guess! The cashier tells him not to worry; that she'll give him a discount. Sam interviews that it can be customary for restaurant supply stores to gives chefs 15-20% off their purchase. That seems a bit weird to me, because who else is buying serving dishes and flatware in bulk from a supply store? Whatever, it's their money.

Marcel observes all of this, which Sam notes to Ilan by saying that "Rat Boy" is listening in. See later rant. Marcel does, indeed, butt in by trying to verify with Cliff that the chefs aren't allowed to take discounts. Cliff doesn't care. Sam, putting that major in Passive-Aggressive Whining to good use yet again, complains about Marcel to Ilan right in front of his face, to make sure that he understands exactly how much Sam hates him. Speaking of passive-aggressive, Marcel snottily thanks the cashier (who's a completely different person from the one that helped Ilan) for "offering a discount", when the guy didn't. Now that was Grade A asshole behavior from Marcel. Two seconds ago, he was morally offended that Ilan got a discount, and now he's mad because he didn't get one. So there you go. Marcel is acting like a jackass, just as the other chefs have been saying he does. But. See later rant. This is the last straw to turn Sam from passive-aggressive into full-on aggressive. He begins screaming in Marcel's face about how much everyone hates him. I wish he had screamed in Marcel's face about treating the cashier like shit, but that doesn't directly affect Sam, so I guess it's beneath his notice. Cliff interviews that Marcel is a Napoleonic know-it-all (nice!), and that Sam just broke. Sam continues yelling in the same vein, and Marcel doesn't really have the wit or wherewithal to fight back, beyond a weak crack in an interview about how ironic it is that Sam drew wrath.

Kitchen. The three hours of prep time begins. Sam tries to pawn off his anger issues on his ethnic heritage. Nice try. Hey, look! They're going to tell us about some food that the chefs will be making! That seems a little weird on a show called Top Annoying People Who Fight All The Time, but I guess I'll allow it. Sam's going to use spicy food to symbolize wrath. Not bad. He's got the first course, and will be making Sicilian shrimp ceviche, with chili pepper popcorn on the side. Betty's soups are the second course. They include carrot, fennel, red pepper, beet, and white onion. Michael disdains her making soup, because she's already going to be on the Friday's menu with one. I guess he's saying she's becoming one-note, but you can't deny that soups are having a good track record this season. Cliff's greed course is the third one. He views greed as being overly bountiful, so he's making a bouillabaisse with clams, oysters, and scallops in a Thai curry broth.

Elia's got the fifth course (hey, what happened to the fourth?) with "prideful" roasted chicken and vegetables. She slathers the chicken with butter. Mmmmm. Marcel works on the lustful sixth course, which will be a cherry tart with cherry gelee and cherry foam, topped off with whipped cream and chocolate. OK, Betty may have been a bitch about it, but she had a point. Enough with the gelees and foams, already. Ilan's got the last course -- his gluttinous dessert -- and his comment here must be written verbatim: "Because gluttony is a sin so closely related to food, if I can't get this right, then I should go home right now." Indeed. He's making funnel cakes, and I swear I'm about the only person on Earth who despises those. If I'm at a carnival and catch a whiff of them, I can actually feel the gorge rise in my throat. Not many foods do that to me. He's going to use chocolate as well, but he still doesn't know quite what the final product will be.

Ptom stops by to check in, and we finally hear what Michael's making for the "third" course. This show has the worst titles ever. Spelling errors. Shitty grammar. Misidentification. Is this the third course or is Cliff's? Anyway, Michael's making trout and salmon with a basil aioli and asparagus. Ilan's going to make a rich chocolate cake to go with his funnel cakes. Ptom is typically unresponsive. The show tries to play up Marcel's use of chocolate as some sort of additional ammo in the little dessert war between him and Ilan, but as Marcel says, the chocolate in his dessert is really just an accent for the cherries. Elia hefts her chicken into the oven. Ptom leaves. Um, thanks for the input! Cooking chaos ensues. Ilan is now making some sort of brittle that looks really good.

Twenty minutes left. Marcel shoves a refrigerator door closed, and asks the other chefs to make sure that they've closed it after using it, because he's noticed it hanging open a lot. OH MY GOD, WHAT AN ASSHOLE. Again, we have a perfectly reasonable request met with a completely unreasonable response. Ilan interviews that Marcel's lack of "people skills" drives him to say things he wouldn't normally (read: "Marcel acting like a dick makes me act like a dick, but it's OK when I do it.") So Ilan's reaction to what I'll remind you was a mild request to keep the refrigerator door shut is to chide Marcel about using cherries in his dessert, because they supposedly lower one's sex drive. Oooh, good one, Ilan! Even if this little food factoid were true (and it very well may be), who cares? The chefs are working with symbolism! It's not like Marcel is trying to get the dinner guests all horned up. What, does he expect Sam to serve his course by yelling in all of the guests' faces? Tool. Marcel doesn't rise to the bait, so Ilan pushes further by surmising that Marcel has never had sex. See later rant. Marcel asks him what the fuck his problem is, and Ilan's all "oooooooh!" because he can't come up with the actual response, which is "I'm a childish asshole." Case in point: Marcel scoops some sugar out of a container, and Ilan points out that Marcel could have taken sugar from a different one. One that isn't so close to Ilan. I... It's... I... I mean... That is literally something a nine-year-old would say, and I can't believe that this show... No, I'll save it. See later rant. Time runs out.

Commercials. I'd like to see the raw data that supports this claim of one cleaning product picking up more dust than another. Actually, I'd just like to meet the people in charge of testing it.

The chefs, loaded down with their food, walk up to a very beautiful house. They put all their stuff down in the kitchen, and Marcel asks Sam if he needs help with serving his food. Cliff agrees that everyone should pitch in on serving everything. Night falls. Padma and Ted come in, with Padma wearing a "sinful" red dress. She looks good. Debi Mazar kiddingly tells one of the other guests to shut the fuck up about something, so that whole air of "classy dinner party" is pretty much shattered now. Ptom and guest judge Whosit Somethingorother wander in. There are some celebrities among the guests like some guitarist guy and the woman who plays Charmaine Bucco on The Sopranos. You know she's a good actress because she convincingly played someone who would willingly be married to Artie Bucco. Ugh. The chefs are nervous. Sam gets ready to bring out the first course, and Marcel offers to serve wine for him. Sam accepts. Marcel interviews that he likes to think of himself as a team player, and while I'm disgusted with the way the other chefs treat him, that's really not the case. He thinks that everyone's capable of acting like professional adults. He's about to be sorely disappointed. And right on cue, Betty "jokes" that the other six chefs should leave Marcel hanging on his course. See later rant.

Sam introduces his course. After he leaves, the guests dig in, and everyone seems to love his food. Meanwhile, Betty's using squeeze bottles to squirt her soups into the champagne glasses. It's not going well. The backsplash makes the glasses look messy, and she and Cliff do their best to get them cleaned up. Sam disapproves of Betty's course in an interview. Did I miss something? That's not a rhetorical question. Why are these people so anti-soup all of a sudden? The soups are served, and Betty introduces them, neatly playing off the lack of serving utensils on her sin. Well done. The soups look very pretty, but once the guests start eating, the news is not good. The judges have a real problem with the texture. No kidding. Check out the way the soups cling disgustingly to the glass every time someone sets one down. In the kitchen, Michael is asking Sam to present his course, since Michael still looks all deformed mutant from the tooth extraction. Sam obliges, but once he gets out into the dining room, Ptom and Debi pretty much insist Michael show himself. He reluctantly emerges. Debi looks like she's regretting that insistence now. Hehehe. Michael apologizes for his face, and spins his yarn about the trout envying the salmon. The fish is topped with a lemon-thyme beurre blanc (that's a seasoned butter sauce, which I totally knew, and did not just look up), and is served with asparagus and three kinds of mushrooms. The guests begin eating, and are in rapture. Ptom is blown away that this came out of Michael, saying that he should get a tooth pulled every day. Hahaha! I do believe that's the first time Ptom has ever cracked me up.

Commercials. I feel like the talking-dog-spills-secret-bean-recipe joke is officially played out now.

Oh, so Cliff is the fourth course after all. He's nervous about the challenge, but presents his bouillabaisse confidently. Debi asks him what's greedy about it, and he responds that the overwhelming amount of seafood it contains makes it "quite succulent". I'm surprised we don't hear the word "succulent" more often on this show. Once he's gone, Ted complains that the broth is his favorite part, and Cliff seems to have skimped on that (and has made it a bit too thick for Ted's tastes). Ilan and Sam are jabbering in the kitchen, and Elia needles them into helping her take her food out. She introduces her roasted chicken. She tells the guests that it's what she'll be serving, that is. She doesn't literally introduce the chicken, although that would have been sweet. She increases the "pride" of the dish by carving it herself at the table. It's a hit. It's tender, delicious, and seems to impress everyone. Marcel puts the finishing touches on his dessert. He asks Betty to take a bowl of cherries out to the guests, and Betty starts to do so. A male voice tells Marcel to hold up. I've since read that this was a member of the production, who I guess wanted Marcel to wait so that the cameras could get a clear shot of the food being served. I have no idea why Betty didn't hear this as well as Marcel, since she's standing right next to him, but she says she's going to take the cherries out. "No, don't go!" Marcel yelps. And I can't believe I even have to say this, but it could not be any more clear that it was a moment of worried panic. It was the exact same tone of voice you'd use to say "Don't touch that!" if someone's about to pick up a searing hot pan, or "Hey, watch it!" if someone's about to bump into you while you're carrying a tray stacked full of dishes.

So naturally, this is just more fodder for Betty to hate Marcel, since he just "snapped" so "rudely" at her. By this point, these people are just being deliberately obtuse. Either that or they're complete morons. I don't really know which scenario is worse. Marcel goes into the dining room to pre-serve some wine, and while he's gone, Ilan (natch) can't wait to jump on the Marcel-yelled-at-Betty bandwagon, and concocts a plot to abandon helping Marcel serve his dessert. Elia tries to stem the tide of these childish fuckwads, but nothing doing. When Marcel comes back to the kitchen and finds everyone on the patio outside, he asks them for help. Ilan asks him if he's going to apologize to Betty, and she chimes in with "Never snap at me again!", WHICH HE DIDN'T, and which she has done to him about a gazillion million times. Rather than saying "Huh? What the hell are you talking about?", Marcel apologizes, so Betty is placated. Hahahaha! Just kidding, of course. No, Betty takes the apology forced out of someone who didn't owe her one, and throws it back in Marcel's face: "Yeah, I really believe you." See later rant.

Marcel presents his food to the guests. Charmaine Bucco tells him he would have scored more points if he had fed the cherries to her, so Marcel does. Then he takes a spoonful of chocolate sauce and drizzles it pornographically onto her outstretched tongue. Hehe. The chefs in the kitchen are watching this and freaking out. Ilan hopes that the guests are saying bad things about him, so I take back what I said about him being a seventh-grade girl. He's actually more of a third-grade girl. Indeed, the dessert is not well-received. Padma is just as sick of the foams as everyone else is, and Debi says that the dish wasn't very lustful. Well, she actually says that Marcel needs to fuck more. Ilan makes his final preparations. It looks like he's reheated his funnel cakes, and they're now too crunchy. Sam advises him against serving them. Elia suggests putting honey or syrup on them to soften them up. He goes with it. They're served alongside the chocolate cake topped with brittle. After he introduces his dish, he repeats his line about cherries lowering one's libido to try and turn the guests against Marcel. No, really. I take back what I said about him being a third-grade girl. He's actually more of a fetus still in utero.

Rant time! I'm settled in. I've eaten, put my pajama pants on for the evening, and have a nice glass of milk by my side. Let's hit this shit. WHAT THE FUCKETY FUCK FUCK FUCK!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Not to ask an obvious question, but what the hell is the problem with these people? OK, fine. Marcel is obnoxious. He can be annoying and condescending and arrogant and snippy and deluded and rude and so on and so forth. I'm not disputing that at all. BUT. The way these other chefs react to him is nothing short of disgraceful. Marcel is a twit. Fine. Tell me which of the following things he has done:

(a) Made fun of another chef's food -- not in interview, but right there in the same room with the object of his derision.
(b) Rejoiced over another chef performing poorly in a challenge -- not in interview, but right there in the same room with the object of his derision.
(c) Snotted off to the judges.
(d) Gleefully engineered fights between other chefs.
(e) Blamed a cooking mistake he made on someone who had nothing to do with why a dish failed.
(f) Threatened physical violence against another chef.
(g) Belittled an aspect of another chef's personal life.
(h) Called another chef juvenile names.
(i) Threw a loud, public tantrum.
(j) Responded to something normal that another chef has done (for example: grating cheese, scooping sugar, thinking about what course they'd like to serve, giving a general warning about a refigerator door, making sure their course isn't served early, etc.) with vitriol and spite.
(k) Brewed up a petty revenge scheme against another chef.
(l) Demanded a bogus apology, and sneered at it when given.
(m) Badmouthed another chef to judges and dinner guests (when not at Judges' Table).

Know the answer? NONE OF THEM. Know who has done these things? Betty. Ilan. Sam. Frank. Why, what a coincidence! It's the very people who hate Marcel, and never tire of telling us why he sucks so hard! Imagine that! The reason that I'm so angry is not because they dislike Marcel. Disliking Marcel is completely understandable. It's that I don't get why nothing is ever made of the fact that they act just as awful, and in many cases, much MORE awful than he ever does. Every episode, the editors give us scene after scene of how much Marcel gets on someone else's nerves. Why no scenes and/or interviews highlighting Sam's passive-aggressive shit-starting? Why not a spool of Ilan's Greatest Hits of Self-Satisfied Hissyfits? Why not a constant stream of Betty's irritating squeals, or the numerous times she's tried to disavow responsibility for something that was clearly her fault? The way this show tries to shoehorn Marcel into being the season's villain is brutally unfair, since everyone left save Elia has been a gratuitous asshole at least once. These jerkoffs have one hell of a nerve acting self-righteous about Marcel's "people skills", when theirs are exponentially worse. Fucking hypocrites. God bless Lee Anne, who continues her streak of being awesome by recognizing this.

Phew. So. I'm extremely pleased to see the dinner guests hate Ilan's dessert. Charmaine Bucco says that everything's too wet. The funnel cakes that were too crispy in the kitchen are now too soggy. Debi found everything too rich. The chefs emerge as a group so that the guests can applaud and thank them for their efforts. Padma compliments the chefs and ominously tells them about the upcoming Judges' Table in the same breath.

Commercials. Mary Lou Retton is still cute as a button. How does she do that?

Judges' Table. Whosit Somethingorother thought the challenge was fairly difficult. Ptom is very impressed, overall. Padma asks about the weakest dishes, and Whosit mentions both desserts and the soups. So the exact same bottom three as in the Quickfire. Interesting. Whosit feels that Michael embodied his sin the best. Ted wanted to inhale that fish, and found it even more sophisticated than Elia's chicken, which was also delightful. Ptom thinks she may not have been prideful enough in serving her food. Well, not everyone is as well-practiced at being a loser with inflated self-esteem as some of these other contestants, Ptom. Sam's flavors were clean and Padma loved the popcorn. She goes back to the Kitchen and summons him, Michael, and Elia to the table. Please call the losers out first one of these weeks. The top three are congratulated for being the best of the week. Sam's popcorn was sophisticated. Elia made a soulful, tender chicken. Michael's fish was delicious and the vegetables were perfectly cooked. Whosit is given the honor of announcing the week's winner, and Michael pulls off the rare double-win. And I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but yaaaaaaaay! He's suitably jazzed. Padma asks him to send in Marcel, Betty and Ilan. The chefs in the Kitchen applaud Michael's win, and Michael tells them who the judges want to chew out this week. Marcel worriedly runs his hands through his hair.

The losers come in to the Judges' Table. Padma tells them that they were the three least favorite dishes. Well, according to Ilan's earlier statement about how he should immediately go home if he fouled up such an easy sin, I guess that means he's automatically eliminated. Good night, everyone! Oh, crap. It looks like the judges never got that memo. Ilan is asked why he thinks he's there, and he correctly pegs the funnel cakes. He says they were perfect at first, but when he reheated them, they became too crispy. "Too crispy?" Ptom says, and Ilan snottily tells him to "hold on". Then he does what I knew he'd do, and tells the judges that Elia's idea to dunk them in syrup turned out to be very bad. I guess they edited out the scene where Elia held a jagged shard of glass to his throat and forced him to serve goopy dough. He dares the judges not to like the other things he served (the cake and the brittle), and they are only too willing to oblige. Ted did like the brittle, saying it provided a much-needed contrast with the rest of his soggy mess. Ilan says that he tried to take risks, especially since he's not a pastry chef. The fact that the only limitation he had was his sin inspiration, and that he could have made literally any dish he wanted is never brought up. Ptom asks him why he felt it was necessary to slam Marcel's dish. Marcel seems a bit surprised that this happened, I guess because he assumed that Ilan would be able to act like an adult for five minutes. Padma asks Ilan why he did that, rather than focusing on his own work. Ilan says that he was just "poking fun", which is transparently false, since you can't really poke fun at someone who's not present.

On to Marcel. Ted thinks his dish was the most beautifully presented of the evening, and enjoyed the freshness of the cherries. Marcel thanks him. Ted's problem was that Marcel's dish didn't embody his sin enough. Ilan is, of course, incapable of suppressing a smug smile at this. Marcel doesn't really give an actual answer to this; he just says something about "delving into the sweet world". Padma brings up the issue of the foams, and the fact that they've seen so many from him. Betty is, of course, incapable of suppressing a smug smile at this. Keep smiling, ass. We'll see how happy you are in about five minutes. Padma thinks the foam in Marcel's dish actually hindered it, instead of making it better. Whosit agrees. And now for Betty. Ptom asks her if she tasted everythng, which she did. Ptom tells her about his problem with the texture, and asks her if she intended the soups to be rough and chunky. She says no, and that she strained her ingredients. Ptom is also confused by some of her flavor combinations, such as beet and red pepper. Betty takes these critcisms gracefully.

Padma asks Betty and Ilan who they'd choose to eliminate. Do we even need to go through the motions here? I'm not bothering to revisit their comments, except they do, at least, come up with a food-related reason to send Marcel home. They felt his gelee was flavorless. Marcel argues that the one of the ingredients in the gelee was made from 100% fruit juice (was it Juicy Juice?), so it had plenty of flavor. He tells the judges that the issues the others have with him are personal, which is not what the contest is about. He says he's not here to make friends, and this is probably the first time I've ever heard that phrase used properly. Marcel horribly overuses the word "like" throughout this little speech, which takes away a lot of its impact. He's asked who he would send home, and he chooses Ilan's watery dessert as the dealbreaker. Ilan looks murderously over at him, almost in surprise, which doesn't make any sense, but whatever. Delving into Ilan's psyche is not how I'm going to spend my evening. Padma dismisses the chefs. Once they're back in the Kitchen, the bickering starts, and it's pretty gentle at first. The usual insults are lobbed back and forth, but Ilan loses his temper and starts screaming in Marcel's face, just as Sam did back at the fixture store. I'm not going over this again. See earlier rant. Elia crinkles her face in disgust. I love you, Elia.

Deliberations. Ilan's funnel cakes were the worst thing of the evening. The words "limp", "flaccid" and "unappetizing" are used. Padma disagrees with Betty and Ilan's charge of Marcel's gelee being flavorless. The judges effortlessly peg their attitudes as one of personality conflict, rather than food. However, Marcel did drop the ball as far as conveying the idea of lust. Betty's soups were way too chunky, and avoiding that is a basic skill. Plus, her flavor profiles were disturbing. The judges make a decision.

Commercials. I know I've asked this before, but who does this rich, bitchy housewives show appeal to?

Elimination. The bottom three are reminded that their dishes were the least impressive of the evening, in case they forgot in the past few minutes. Ptom makes a clunky sin joke. Same criticisms of all the food, and Ptom says that the decision tonight was a tough one. But they made it. And it is... Betty. Good riddance. She hugs Ilan and thanks the judges for the experience. Padma says that they've loved having her, and wishes her success in the future. Betty ignores Marcel, because it's not like she's a grown-up or anything. In fact, she uses her final interview... You know, the one to talk about what you've learned and what you're going to do now, and such? Yeah, she uses it to complain about how she should have lasted longer than Marcel. Sigh. Betty seems like the type to sit at home and obsessively Google her name, so if she ever stumbles across this lonely blog, I'd like her to know that I think she's probably a lovely person in day-to-day life. She's probably a competent chef, and probably knows her way around running a business. That said, based on the way she behaved on this show, I'd sooner hire Jeffrey Dahmer to cater one of my parties.

Overall Grade: C