Previously on Top Chef: Micah won the first quickfire challenge, Tre won the first elimination challenge, Brian chose to cook two — count ‘em — two kinds of snakes and completely grossed me out, Howie forgot the frog legs, and Clay couldn’t cook his way out of a paper bag (what?).
Credits, credits, credits — have you noticed that the product placement is a little more ham-handed than it normally is? The contestants are basically forced to simulate sex with pieces of Gladware in an effort to prove how awesome it is.
It’s the morning after the elimination and everyone is struggling. Brian’s still smarting from being in the bottom four, as is Howie. Howie says he’s going to win this time and prove himself to everyone (foreshadowing: no, he isn’t). By comparison to Micah, though, everyone else seems to have the energy and sunny disposition of a coked-up Hannah Storm. We see the girls lure her out of bed and then, when she gets to the kitchen, flip both birds to the world. Mornin’ sunshine.
Meanwhile, we watch Sandee go through her morning mohawk-forming ritual. It’s strange, you know, to see people with badass haircuts go about the mundane maintenance of their ‘dos. She’s got to blow dry it, gel it, spike it — it’s a lot of work. It makes you appreciate the work that Hot Topic employees go through to make their inner pain visible. After all, black lipstick doesn’t just apply itself.
Cut to the Competition Kitchen where there’s a giant produce stand that must have taken a coterie of interns all day to arrange. The stand is filled with limes, lemons, oranges and every other form of citrus you could possibly imagine (Brian says it’s “gorgeous” — which strikes me as a weird adjective, but whatever turns you on). Next to it, stands Padma and a dad-ish looking guy named Norman Van Aken, who it would seem is the czar of Florida citrus.
Padma (this scene’s fashion choice: a dainty white top with one of those big honking belts that all the LA types wear) announces that the quickfire challenge will involve making a citrus dish. That’s it. You have 15 minutes — go.
The exciting music starts and the chefs start running around. Micah says she has no ideas and that she had more direction when she was dealing with geoduck and monkfish liver. I can totally understand this, since I’m pretty convinced that the imposition of limits is a great way to fuel creativity.
Hung (oy!) talks about he and Tre are the ones to beat. I mean, it’s probably true at this point, but I suppose he’s that requisite competitive reality trash talker that casting directors find infinitely appealing. Hung says he’s definitely going to win and everyone else has a “slummy” dish.
One thing I find funny about this quickfire challenge is that despite all product placement there is a little segment of Sandee and Hung complaining about how all of the GE-furnished equipment sucks.
Anyway, on to judging the dishes. Padma and Norman make the rounds. Sandee made an orange marmalade-encrusted something or other, but also made a mojito with a gigantic tropical plant growing out of it. C.J. freaks out about stray seed making it into his dish, and admits (when asked) that it wasn’t a choice and that the seed just got away.
Sara Nguyen finally makes her way onto the scene this episode and made a shrimp dish for the challenge. Whereas last episode her only reason for existing was to say “And then we went to the hotel. It was great!”, this week she is presented as a basketcase — freaking out at every opportunity and convinced that nothing will go right. And in the quickfire nothing does go right, as she craps herself under the pressure and can barely explain her creation.
Joey (who, in case you forgot, is from New York) impresses Norman with a watermelon -flavored shooter alongside his dish. Cut to a clip of a Machiavellian raise of the eyebrow by Hung. Remember that for later.
Despite that, Hung wins the quickfire, to which he responds that he never expected anything less. And I impale myself on the nearest implement on which one could impale oneself. I guarantee you that Hung is going to get nothing but worse, being weirdly proud of his smugness. On the reunion show he’ll try to play it off with the old “I didn’t come here to make friends, I came here to win” chestnut.
That said, he can cook. Which, I suppose, is what this show is about.
Joey’s pissed that he wasn’t in the top three. You know — New York pissed. Micah, Sara N. and Sandee are in the bottom three.
There’s really no segue or downtime after the winner is announced until we find out about the elimination challenge. This week’s challenge is to make an upscale barbecue — simple as that. The whole thing makes me feel inferior at my own cookouts in recent weeks, as I think I’m hot shit because I put cilantro, grated onion and Worcestershire in my burgers. And then grill them in my overgrown backyard that is a stray hubcap away from being the ultimate white trash haven.
