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I’m going to be honest with you, because honesty is important: I didn’t pay very much attention to last night’s episode. I had stuff going on. It happens. We’re all adults here. There’s no crying in recaps. On top of that, I am away from my “comfort zone” (also known as My Pajama Lounge), and so just all around this will be a more-truncated-than-usual account of last night’s episode. It’s like Padma is always saying: HAVE IT WORK. You know her famous catchphrase? “Have it work.” Classic Padma. Anyway, the guest judge for the Quickfire Challenge is Wylie Dufresne. FULL DISCLOSURE: I have eaten at his restaurant! The waiter was an asshole. If Wylie Dufresne is reading this, one of your waiters could, at the very least, use a talking to, sir. Anyway: the challenge is the Mystery Box challenge. Everyone gets a box of unique mystery ingredients that will form the basis for their dish. After that, more mystery boxes will be delivered, from which everyone will get the same mystery ingredients, which they must incorporate into what they are making. Once again, it is the perfect recipe for mildly interesting television with a side of garbage actual food. “In order to test your skill at highly refined food preparation, which requires thought, precision, and balance, we have emptied a dumpster into a bowl. Have it work, foodsigners.”
Angelo straight loses his mind. Beads of sweat straight popping off his forehead.
Everyone is struggling, because these mystery boxes keep pouring in, and they are each one filled with worse garbage than the last. “Ramps and grape jam?” Wait, here comes another one! “Cereal dust and tobacco.” Wait, here comes another one! “Staples and a pair of used panties from one of those Japanese vending machines that sells used panties, aren’t those vending machines weird?” Seriously, this Challenge is funny to watch, but I’m at a loss to understanding the point. It’s the same on every “meritocratic” (sure) reality show. I’m happy the people on Project Runway can make a dress out of rotten lettuce and empty bottles of thousand island dressing, but also so what.
Angelo has a heart attack and dies. But he is resuscitated and rushed back to the kitchen to learn that he lost. Tiffany wins for her cooked fish with bubble gum reduction on a bed of toenail clippings and shaved popsicle sticks. Tiffany has proven herself to be a real dark horse in this competition! Her and Kevin are a couple of real dark horses. (Sorry.)
For the Elimination Challenge, the chefs will draw knives to select a classic dish, and then they must “disguise” that dish before serving it to spies at the C.I.A. and also the director of the C.I.A., Leon Panetta. And also Eric Ripert. Do C.I.A. agents really use disguises at this point? I mean, I know that a deep cover background story complete with fake passports and other falsified documents is basically a fancy “disguise,” but are they really rolling frozen pastry dough into fake mustaches and introducing themselves to people as Professor Kung Pao?
If you haven’t been following my very good friend Max Silvestri’s concurrent Top Chef recaps at Eater this season, a) you should, and b) he has had an on going joke about how Angelo is a spy, which would explain his indeterminate accent, and his complete inability to relate to other human beings. Needless to say, this episode was tailor made for Max’s Angelo jokes, and I am very much looking forward to reading his recap!
Everyone hates Alex, except Amanda, because one time pills. Shop shop shop. Cook cook cook. Everyone explains how incredible it is that they are going to the C.I.A. and I agree that it is incredible, but for very different reasons. Like, I don’t think it’s particularly impressive that through no effort or particular skill on their part, the producers of the reality show on which they are contestants, organized a challenge based on the C.I.A. in keeping with the geographic theme of the season. I do however think it is incredible that the director of the C.I.A., Leon Panetta, agreed to participate in any way whatsoever. Last week, I was very surprised that Nancy Pelossi had nothing better to do than appear on an episode, but compared to Leon Panetta’s responsibilities, Nancy Pelossi’s job is a FUN HOBBY.
These guys know what I’m talking about:
To his credit, Leon Panetta DOES leave the meal early, but he really should not have been there in the first place. And the worst part is that his leaving feels staged. I mean, I’m sure he did just have to leave, but this show is the Fake Mayor of Fake Mountain, so when he explains that he must attend to urgent business, it feels like a joke. “Does Leon Panetta dine and dash often?” Padma asks some lady sitting next to a cop (?). YES, PADMA, SOMETIMES THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY AT A TIME WHEN AMERICA IS ENGAGED IN TWO OVERT WARS AND AN ETERNAL COVERT STRUGGLE WITH INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, YES, SOMETIMES HE HAS TO LEAVE DINNER EARLY AND WILL NEVER GET TO FIND OUT WHETHER OR NOT KEVIN HID THE COBB SALAD IN A PASTRY.
Ugh.
Anyway, pretty much everyone does terrible. Either they don’t “disguise” their dishes at all (seriously, Amanda? You hid your French onion soup in a bowl of French onion soup?) or they do, and it’s gross. The judges three favorite dishes are Ed, Tiffany, and Kelly. Tiffany wins! BOOM. She also wins a trip to France. Nice. Ed is mad, because he wanted that trip to France for him and his girlfriend, to take her mind off the fact that he tried to cheat on her with Tiffany. Don’t worry, Ed. You’ve already lost more Elimination Challenges than your dad ever lost in his whole awful life.
The three losing dishes are Amanda, Angelo, and Alex. People are really hoping that Angelo goes home, but that’s kind of ridiculous. I mean, he could go home, and then it would literally be anyone’s game, because no one would be watching, and we’d never know. “Who won this season of Top Chef?” “Anyone it doesn’t matter.” That being said, he does look like he is about to cry. Personally, I think Amanda should go home, because she did not even do the challenge. People on this show are constantly rewarded for making good food outside the ridiculous limitations of the challenges, which makes sense insofar as this show is supposed to be about who can cook the best, but at the same time, all the challenges are retarded, and people can cook much better completely outside the constraints of these joke recipes. So, there should at least be some kind of balance. Then again, Alex is the worst. Old snake head. He goes home. Goodbye. No tears shed for this one. Alex was overly aggressive for someone who had no idea what he was doing, and he almost certainly stole Ed’s pea puree, and the fact he made it this far always seemed like an accident, and his head is the same head as a snake has. R.I.P.
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Angelo’s sweat tastes like coward.
I think Leon Panetta excused himself to visit the CIA cafeteria.
again with the silly photos! oh gabe, you’re too much for me. (twss? ew, i’ll go away for a while now.)
Wow, spambot, you’re a dick.
um
that was supposed to be a reply
to the spambot
in case that wasn’t clear
sorry about that you guys
This episode was just the worst. All their fake, inane jokes about being spies and all their forced enthusiasm about going to the CIA. Last season, in Vegas, they really ramped up all the corny themed challenges where the show attempts to capture the “spirit” of the town or whatever. I mean, it wasn’t so bad in Vegas b/c Vegas is a fake clown city for fake clown people to blow their money and catch syphilis from a legal clown hookers. In DC it just seems desperate. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of clowns in DC, but Top Chef is going full clown-tard. Add this to the insufferably boring content of first half of the season and its just been an ughmare.
I love Top Chef but I’m pretty sure they’re revving their collective engine on their collective bike and collectively zipping up their leather jacket and looking intently at the ramp next to the shark tank.
at the judges table, when tom was making all those puns, it seemed like there was someone off camera with a gun forcing him to. toby young hostile take over!
“it seem you disguised….yourselves… as bad cooks”
Was there a joke about the Culinary Institute of America? Because it would’ve been so great if somebody was like “Noooo, I meant the OTHER C.I.[gunshot]“
there wasnt! i kept waiting but they really dropped the ball on that one.
Next week the Top six will compete in the congressional bill challenge: Each contestant is given a flavorful and bold dish to start with and compete to see who can water it down to the point where everyone hates it, but decide that it’s better than going hungry.
Topical and hilarious. Very Jon Stewart. All the +1s in the world.
I assume they can add as much pork as they want, though? (sorry)
It’s comments like this that keep me coming back. (Just kidding, it’s Gabe that keeps me coming back.) But seriously. This is hilarious but it’s also smart! And as a result, I feel totally ok about wasting part of the short time I was given on this earth by reading recaps (and the ensuing comments) of stupid reality television shows that I have already stupid reality watched.
“…Angelo is a spy, which would explain his indeterminate accent, and his complete inability to relate to other human beings.”
So, Tommy Wiseau is also a spy?
Angelo is either a spy, or a sad man with a Russian mail-order bride he can’t afford to import yet.
Every time Amanda says something, she makes herself sound stupider. The KGB hasn’t existed as the KGB for a while now, “Natasha.” It’s like she gets her idea of spies from “Rocky and Bullwinkle.”
Or Team Fortress 2. “Spy over-seasoning mah pork chop!” I’m sorry I’ll show myself out and go to Pale-nerd-virgingum.
I actually found Amanda more and more endearing this week. She was super dorky, and she’s even nice to Alex, and I’m pretty sure that’s the same way my boyfriend would act if he was in the CIA building(I know, that’s my boyfriend). She probably won’t be Top Chef, but she could still take the title of this season’s Top Chef of My Heart.
So they stole the mystery box challenge from the other cooking competition show, “Chopped”?
the real name of the challenge is “IN YOUR FACE, FOOD NETWORK”
no they stole the challenge from any culinary school anywhere
Wait- wait wait-
there were no nukes or children soldiers in this show? Well I don’t know how the internet works, I thought everything literally happened, I mean, why else would they recap it in this show, they wouldn’t just be MAKING SHIT UP OH WAIT
http://bit.ly/96pXqK
SO META!
MO META
Max is right about Angelo being a spy. He said that his girlfriend is from RUSSIA (!!!). Thus, either he is spy or he is a creep with a mail ordered bride.
OH GODDAMNIT. Sorry Meaverly, in my excitement I missed your post. I know, I know, I’m a plagiarist commentator, etc etc.
As though we are the only two people on the internet to have made that observation. She’s probably not even from Russia, but some excruciatingly poor country that also uses the cyrillic alphabet, like Moldova or Belarus.
Apparently it’s now cool to eschew your fork and eat directly from your knife, cause Top Chef is on the CUTTING EDGE, you guys.
I felt like Wiley and E.Rupert were watching the candy bar episode of Seinfeld in the green room before taping the show and thought it would be really funny if they only ate from their knives. Seriously, what was that all about?
Ed seems oddly desperate to draw attention to the fact he has had physical contact with women. “I have had a few asian girlfriends,” “my girlfriend wants a vacation” “I totally smushed Angelo’s girlfriend,” “my father already told me I have date raped way more women than he ever did.” Relax, Ed.
In other news, I miss Top Art. Also, I didn’t watch in time to join the discussion last week, so if anybody still wants to discuss the merits of Abdi’s show vs. Peregrine’s, I’m totally game.
It seems obvious that the body bag painting won it for Abdi. Maybe it’s because I only saw it on my non-hi def tv, but it really didn’t do anything for me. Then again, I only saw all of it on my tv, and Peregrine’s fawns were stunning.
I was so excited after the last 2 challenges that the end was gonna be a blowout!
The last episode was awful, All three did some seriously shitty work there. The Fawns were very idellic but she should have focused on it more, everything else was really, really boring. Abdi’s stuff was just the worst, those horrible basketballers on the floor (OMG WHY ARE THEY WEARING SHORTS!?!?), The sketchbook, that super lame body bag that made David LaChappele cry was nothing, no emotion. And Miles… Miles… miles… Please take a cue from Jackie and just do nude shots of your body, your art is mad boring.
All that said, I would pay to see Ryan fuck Miles.
I watched this show by accident that night while drunk on Scotch with no prior knowledge of what was going on. Here are a few things I said while watching:
“They are holding this at CIA headquarters!? Can you do that!? Everyone knows where the CIA is now. EVERYONE. WHAT IF IT GETS BOMBED. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ALL OF THE INTELLIGENCE.”
(When the head of the CIA got up to go attend to some business in the middle of the episode.) “Oh my god, you guys. Did he just save the world in the middle of Top Chef?”
And then I spent the rest of the time talking about Wiley Dufrense’s name and how improbable it is, and how if you flip Beef Wellington upside down it is still Beef Wellington.
Pretty sure everyone already knows where CIA headquarters are. http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=14285748619747425860&q=central+intelligence+agency+langley&hl=en&cd=2&cad=src:pplink&ei=7P9uTMzDNamgzASLh9nfBg