Top Chef

[Mutagen]

Yeah, it was like Jackson wanted to run both the front of the house *and* the back of the house (the latter by dictating the theme) and shit the bed with both. Even if Luke was objectively the "worse" chef, personally I still wanted Jackson gone out of sheer annoyance.

And again, HUGE contrast with Buddha who was in a similarly insecure position on his team. But he handled it really smartly and gracefully by (mostly) not trying to overrule his teammates on what they were comfortable with, and then just kicking ass at front of house service.

[scarlet]

Jul 25, 2005 17:00:24 GMT -4 Mutagen said:

And again, HUGE contrast with Buddha who was in a similarly insecure position on his team. But he handled it really smartly and gracefully by (mostly) not trying to overrule his teammates on what they were comfortable with, and then just kicking ass at front of house service.

Plus, Buddha is like a Top Chef savant, in that he's studied all the seasons and knows what fails and what works.

[Mutagen]

The space food challenge is exactly the kind of thing I love Top Chef for. It was a cool idea and getting to see NASA/ISS was legitimately awesome.

Ashleigh is so frustrating. IMO she's a good chef but she doesn't seem to be as good at playing the competition part strategically. She's like the anti-Buddha in that sense.

[izzypop]

Apr 25, 2022 11:47:10 GMT -4 Mutagen said:

And again, HUGE contrast with Buddha who was in a similarly insecure position on his team. But he handled it really smartly and gracefully by (mostly) not trying to overrule his teammates on what they were comfortable with, and then just kicking ass at front of house service.

Meant to add this earlier, but loved that Buddha got a “ Paul Hollywood handshake” for his Parker House rolls. If you do something basic, it had better be perfect, and his rolls were.

[Mutagen]

Seeing some complaints on Twitter about last night's result (not to overblow a handful of Tweets into something larger). Spoilers:

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}About Sarah making it into the finale while Nick went out. I sort of get it emotionally (I really like Nick and if you're assessing the whole season, he was a lot stronger than Sarah IMO). But man, there's no question Nick simply shit the bed on this particular challenge last night. And he knew it and was already saying his goodbyes before the judges table was concluded. When you look at all 5 dishes that were up, there's no way you could justify sending anyone else home.

[ahah]

That's always been the challenge with this show along with Project Runway. The judges are charged with judging each challenge on it's own. The audience tends to judge the entire season and not a single challenge.

[Mutagen]

Totally, and if two people in the bottom are equivalently bad, I think it's fair to take their past performance into account. But when it's between someone who had an off day versus someone who had a major fuckup, it's hard to justify keeping the person who fucked up. (Not that you were saying otherwise ahah, just running my mouth with general opinions here!)

[scarlet]

Yeah, the person who won last night is my least favorite of the remaining chefs and the one who went home I liked, but it was the right call.

I'd be happy with Buddha, Evelyn, or Damarr winning. They've all had really, really strong dishes all season long, with only a couple hiccups.

On a different note, does it seem like Gail is trying to sex up her image? Lots and lots of cleavage this season. Though, I think I'd take that over Tom and his hats.

[petitesuite]

I haven’t watched the episode yet (so I realize I enter this thread at my own risk ) but I actually think it’s kind of bs that the judges say they are judging on that night alone. Maybe they think they are, but it’s just not how human brains work. And although I admittedly can’t recall specific examples off the top of my head, I am almost certain they have evoked that rule to eliminate chefs who aren’t little white boys more often than the reverse.

Also last episode I thought that Gail looked like she hadn’t gotten the boobs memo and I support her doing whatever she needs to do to rectify that

[Deleted]

It was sad, but it was right call. The person sent home just messed up so badly there was no possible way to justify keeping them on and sending someone home who had a better dish.

I too have noticed noticed Gail showing a lot more cleavage this season. Last night especially, the girls were right out there! Good for her though if that's what she wants to do.