Let's be honest. The best content this week has been on Last Chance Kitchen, both in the lead-up/overlap for the start of the episode, and what ended up happening after the episode. Before we get to that, some stray thoughts from the Main Episode this week:
- It's always fun to be reminded that Brother's parents were both exotic dancers.
- Of the six cocktails the chefs worked with this episode, two are favorites of mine (Old Fashioned & Whiskey Sour), one is "meh" (Gin Rickey), and three I've never heard of before (Last Word, Southside Fizz & 12-Mile Limit).
- Great flex by Tom not ordering one of the six when they got to the Elimination Challenge. He got a Manhattan instead.
- This might be the only situation that Graham's stupid glasses actually fit the aesthetic of the situation.
- Eric shucking 150-200 oysters in 40 minutes is insane.
- Padma, woman of the people, shimmying with the locals.
- One of the most savage critiques in recent memory: "Like something you'd find at a PTA meeting."
- My 2nd favorite running joke of this season (after everyone being terrified of Kelsey) is everyone feeling bad that Eddie seems stressed all the time.
- I can't remember Tom cackling as hard as he did when Eddie stated that his eyebrows don't properly convey his emotions.
Now, on to the aftermath: If you only watched the main episode, you saw that Brother managed to get himself eliminated not only immediately after making it back into the main competition, but for basically the same reason he was eliminated from the show the last time -- not adhering to the concept of the challenge. You may have noticed that in his "packing up knives" interview package, he was speaking like he was done-done, even though Tom did say that he'd be going back to LCK (again).
Lo and behold, Brother voluntarily tapped out. Interestingly, Bravo kept his confessional conversation unedited, with the producers questions. I don't remember Top Chef breaking the 4th wall like that before. This created an interesting challenge in LCK where the five eliminated Season 16 chefs (Carrie and Jim conspicuously absent) all competed for one spot back into "active" LCK duty. Without going into details (I recommend going back and watching), one chef we thought was gone has second (or is it third?) life. Pablo beat out Nini, Kevin, Natalie, and the woman who was eliminated first whose name I can't remember (she did call someone a "tiny penis" in the episode though, making that her most worthwhile contribution to the show). I anticipate some more "normal" episodes from here on out until we get closer to crunch time.
Scoring Update:
- Updated scores can be found here as always.
- The chefs on Brother's mini-Restaurant Wars team all got helper points (+2) for aiding him in advancing to the main competition.
- All Pablo owners rejoice! After leaving with a super disappointing -11, Pablo is now again eligible for positive points.
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