TCFL 19 Houston // Draft Analysis & Episode 2 Recap

Hello TCFL! After some delay exacerbated by a few frantic late entries, we are officially official. This season of TCFL clocks in at 32 entries. Here are the payouts for the year:

1st Place: $200.00* & ownership of the TCFL Cutting Board Trophy for one year

2nd Place: $50.00

3rd Place: $30.00

Mr./Ms. Irrelevant (Last Place): $10.00

Midseason Bonus: The leading team overall after Restaurant Wars will win $15.00

Tiebreaker 1: Team with most Chefs left after RW

Tiebreaker 2: Team that scored most points in RW

*$15.00 will be kept for Trophy shipping purposes, if needed (it's heavy). If shipping isn't needed, this will go to the Champion.

A bit of housekeeping:

1. If you haven't already, please send in your $10.00 entry fee. Payable via Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, or Google Pay.
2. Make sure I input your team properly on our Standings Page. I'm a year older with two crazy kids and a serious sleep deficit. I'm super prone to dumb mistakes now.

Alright, with all the business out of the way, let's see how the Draft shook out, with a little Episode 2 recap mixed in:

Every Chef was chosen this season, including Leia. Good luck to Tousche the Great for going out on that limb. They were also one of four teams to not select Buddha (along with German Muffin, Champagne Padma,  and Kelly M.) 

Damarr pulled the Episode 2 double victory to reward his five teams with a quick +15 points. Shout out to fellow TCFL Founding Member Top Chef Redemption for managing to have all three Episode 2 bottom-of-Elimination Chefs and stumbling out of the gates with a -9 and last place overall. Further proving that while we are TCFL Founders, we're not actually any good at this.

As is true in any non-All-Stars season, we had a lot of variance in our first Tiebreaker question with nine of the 15 Chefs being chosen. Buddha leads the way again here while Episode 1 Elimination Challenge winner Robert was selected only three times.

Shout out to our lone Rookie this year, This is not top scallop, and his referrer - The Losers. I'll excuse the rook for introducing yet another scallop-centric team name to the mix, joining Scallop Fingers and Top Scallop.

Congrats to Tot Chef, Scallop Fingers, and Team Runner Ups for already winning the Cheese Fountain tiebreaker with the Episode 2 Quickfire. It's kind of funny how a bunch of the Chefs basically scoffed at making chips and dip. And it was even more funny to see one of my favorite Top Chef tropes: someone (Jackson) just refusing to follow the brief and thinking their creativity will turn out well in the end.

Our Alums this week included Dawn (for the second consecutive episode), Sam (what the heck happened to Sam? Does he look weird to anyone else?), and Brooke (Mrs. Commish rolled her eyes as I predictably swooned).

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I liked the format of the Elimination Challenge. Padma having to explain it made it seem clunkier than it actually was, but I like the idea of having the votes and margin of victory actually mean something. What I could have done without was the whole Offense/Defense thing, but it did result in Dawn's team basically out-smarting itself.

Most importantly, I'm a sucker for any reference to Friday Night Lights (the movie, not the show). So apropos of one of my favorite movies of all time, let's do Commish's Top Times I've Cried at the Movies (because dudes can cry too):

#4 - Aladdin (1992)

Sure, I was 7-years-old, but I distinctly remember breaking down when Genie said goodbye. By the way, A Whole New World is my personal "best Disney song ever".

#3 - Friday Night Lights (2004)

"I-Right Wiggle, 34 Switchblade. For the state championship. I love all of y'all, baby. I love all of you."

#2 - Furious 7 (2015)

I can't. I click-checked the clip to make sure it was the right one, but I can't even bring myself to watch the whole thing.

#1 - Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The official runtime of this movie is 3:01:00. Pretty sure I was crying for 2:58:00 of them.

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Thanks as always for sticking around for another season of TCFL. I do truly enjoy writing these up and hearing from you guys. Remember to check out the Standings Page, which is updated through Episode 2, and stay tuned for the Episode 3 recap (with a special guest) later this week. Until then...