Even Martha couldn’t turn this episode around: Elena’s Top Chef Recap

Okay kiddos, Elena’s back with another Top Chef recap.  She’s right, this week sucked, and not even Martha Stewart could bring it back.

A little disclaimer before I begin this recap.  I didn’t watch the show on Wednesday night yet most people I spoke to thought I had.  Therefore, I’ve heard it’s disappointing and there’s something about people actually going home.  I do notice that it’s again a super long episode.  Like movies, the best reality shows are often well edited.  An extra 15 minutes doesn’t mean well edited.

Now I love Martha Stewart.  Unlike most famous women, I think she’s in on the joke that is Martha Stewart.  She doesn’t make me feel inadequate because I could ever make a perfect guinea hen with a garnish, but I love watching her do it.

So this quickfire is boring.  Cook stuff in one pot.  Even Martha can’t make this exciting.  Eugene, whose tattoos barely escaped elimination last week, gets called out as bad.  Fabio again ends up in the bottom.  Ariane, Jamie, and Hosea end up on the top.  Ariane and Jamie have a friendly little competition thing going on, tasting each others’ dishes and whatnot.  But you know that one day Jamie is going to sabotage Ariane to finally win something.  Unsurprisingly, Ariane wins again – impressing Martha with her butter-free cauliflower puree.  Really this was as boring as it seems.  Even I can’t make this more exciting.  Oh no – do I miss Daniel and his bizarre facial hair?  Why aren’t Karen and Eric here making fun comments?

Just when I was nodding off, I hear the sound of the Harlem Gospel Choir.  How nice, beautiful, and completely unrelated to food, much like making a dish inspired by the 12 Days of Christmas. Carla produced her most sane moment, calling out the task as daunting.  It should be daunting for Radikha – how is she going to be able to make something Indian around the 12 Days of Christmas?  It’s about to be even more daunting when the fridge doesn’t close all the way.

Let me interrupt this recap to discuss the random interstitials that they’re putting through the show.  They get me every time, especially this one which is more exciting than the actual episode.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching the cheftestants sing the twelve days of Christmas, all except for four calling birds.  Who has 4 calling birds?  Once I realized they missed it, I had to sing the song in my head starting at 12 drummers drumming to get down to 4 to figure out what 4 was.  I hate that song.  On the plus side, I was rewarded with a preview for the Millonaire Matchmaker.  Love that show – except for when the head woman told all the girls you have to have straight hair to get a millionaire.  I’ll show her.

This episode reminds me of Bring It On.  Radikha and Hosea are the East Compton Clovers and everyone else is Kirsten Dunst.  They walk in with the check to send them to Nationals and while Gabrielle Union tears up the check to be strong for their squad, Hosea and Radikha are like, “please God help me.”  This episode made me miss Tiffani and Howie and Hung.  Even Stefan is like “If I win this competition, I want to win fair and square” and “It’s what people do in the kitchen, you respect people.”  Yeah it’s a nice Christmas story, but don’t they know that they’re not here to make friends? Is this the same show where people regularly throw people under the bus?  Where’s someone proclaiming “I’m not your bitch, bitch!” and “You’re a snake…sss.”  Don’t you feel like the reunion show just got that much more boring?

I just wanted to take a moment to remind you all what Hootie/Carla looks like

Oh AIDS fundraising, how nice.  It really is – but it makes me want to proclaim “I chose not to wear the ribbon.”  Back to the food, Radikha totally worked Indian food into her partridge in a pear tree.  In the most interesting thing of the show, they dislike everything … except for Radikha and Hosea!  Ha!  Maybe we’ll see the backstabbing and the throwing under the bus.  So far Padma has the comment of the day with, “You’re going to win with a deviled egg?”  I suppose not Ariane.  Chase has a full table the entire time.  Hosea says it’s because Chase’s good looks – I would want to stand near there and figure out if he can introduce me to Hugh Laurie.

And Hosea wins.  Which is kind of a rip-off.  Theoretically anyone who helped him shouldn’t get to go home.  Jamie, Melissa, and Eugene are in the bottom.  Eugene should be going home, tattoos and all.  He totally Dos Caminosed his dish (here for your Pac-Rim cooking… puh-lease).  Tom’s disappointed with the food overall.  Well Tom, I’m disappointed with this episode.  I loved last week and now you serve me this drivel.  I feel like they’re setting me up for a Tyra-like comment of “who do we send home, the guy who thinks he knows it all or the girl who can’t taste Gorgonzola?”  Tom comes to scold the cheftestants and nobody ends up going home.  At this point I’m really quite angry.  This is quite possibly the most useless episode of Top Chef I’ve ever seen.  It’s way too early in the season to not send people home.  I don’t care about 2 of the 3 in the bottom.  This would have been a great time to trim the fat.  Instead I suffered through a super long, forgettable episode of Top Chef.  Bravo’s lucky that most other shows are in repeats because I want that 1 hour of my viewing life back (and I’ve watched some crappy TV).

(Images via TVGasm)