Top Chef: Just Desserts: Season 2, Episode 1
Well, we're back for a new season of pastry, and at first glance, it appears the producers have learned a valuable lesson about casting. That is, that it perhaps isn't the wisest idea to recruit your contestant pool from the Cuckoo's Nest Ward over at the local asylum. The new group of fourteen chefs naturally has its fair share of obnoxious people you'd cheerfully push into a kiddie pool full of alpaca droppings, but at least everybody appears to have all their marbles. Oh, and Johnny has dropped a bunch of weight.
In the first Quickfire, the chefs are immediately thrown into pairs, the better to bring their personality disorders to the surface right away. The pairs are tasked with making a modern soda fountain treat. Orlando/Megan and Craig/Lina sink to the bottom, more for unoriginal ideas than for bad food, which is a promising sign as far as talent goes. The Carlos/Rebecca and Amanda/Nelson teams take the top two spots, with Amanda and Nelson winning the challenge and its attendant immunity.
For the Elimination Challenge, the chefs are thrown into teams yet again. Evil. This time, the teams are given famous fairy tales, and are told to create a showpiece and two plated desserts that represent each story. Nerves fray almost immediately. Restraining one's ego to work with other people with input and opinions is, like, so hard and stuff!
Matthew/Amanda/Carlos/Chris do great sugar work for "Little Red Riding Hood" and Rebecca/Sally/Orlando/Nelson make a lovely architectural showpiece for "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", so these two teams go to Winners' Circle, with the former team winning the challenge. Once they're done not getting anything for their win, Katzie/Craig/Megan and Melissa/Vanarin/Lina trudge out to Losers' Table. Huh, it's almost as if the teams with four people were able to get more and better work done with an extra pair of hands! Weird!
That's not to say that these two teams don't deserve to be at Losers' Table, because ugh. The showpiece that Katzie and Megan put together for "Jack and the Beanstalk" has a bunch of flaws and cracks, and Craig mostly just runs around being useless. Melissa/Vanarin/Lina have "Hansel and Gretel", which has a dessert inspiration WRITTEN INTO THE STORY that Lina chooses to ignore in favor of making a giant, ugly cake house, then lies about at Judges' Table. It doesn't work, she gets booted, and all is right with the world.
Overall Grade: B+
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