Historically, in writing Top Chef recaps, I would try and come up with a fun headline. You know, just something kicky and fun. Maybe some wordplay. Maybe a pop culture reference. Something about the food they cooked, but in a light and joking manner? Anyway, as you can see, the headline on this post is straight-forward because this show has become almost unbearably dull. If they’re not going to make this enjoyable and entertaining, I’m not going to beat my head against the wall trying to do their jobs for them. On this episode, the winner of Last Chance Kitchen, the lowest rated Internet webseries of all time, is revealed and it’s Beverly. OK? Beverly is back. They try to make it into this whole thing. “Did you even know they were doing Last Chance Kitchen?” Yeah, I knew, and I couldn’t have cared less. Right from the get-go by starting the season off with 400 contestants and whittling it down to 15 over TWO HOURS this season of Top Chef has been tedious and insulting to its audience. Just because people like something doesn’t necessarily mean they want a TON MORE of it (with the exception of Justified, which should be on every single night and/or just be a 24-hour network of its own with brand new episodes every single hour). It is actually possible to contain yourself to a 12-episode season and make that season interesting and compelling and fast-paced and not slog it down with 10 extra episodes of absolute garbage. But hey! If the Top Chef producers want to run this thing into the ground so that no one even has the energy to stay tuned for Watch What Happens Live! that is their business. Literally. That is their job. But I still think they should be fired.

Welcome back, Beverly. Everyone hates you.

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My apologies in advance for how boring and self-serving this first paragraph is going to be, but can I just say that my DVR has not properly recorded an episode of Top Chef in months, which means that if I am not home to watch it live, which sometimes I am not, because I am a human adult in 2012 and we all have responsibilities (read: bars to drink at) then I have to stay up for the late-night airing of the episode, which sometimes means even having to watch a couple of minutes of Watch What Happens Live. The point is I have the hardest life out of all the lives and I am a saint for even doing this and we all agree about how true both of these FACTS are and how sad we all feel for me. But seriously, last night was the worst yet in that my DVR did not tape the episode properly, but I was actually home for the last half of the show and it still just wouldn’t play and then I stayed up late to watch the rerun and watching LIVE still didn’t work! It just kept showing me the first 5 minutes and whenever I would try and pause or restart or turn the machine off it just was stuck on this endless Quickfire Challenge loop. O’ WOE IS ME! What’s even going on? Who designed this technology? Has even Bravo given up on this show? Fuck it. Fuck it! (You can’t be upset about this annoying introductory paragraph because I already apologized for it. You have to accept my apology and forgive me, that’s how it works.)

Anyway, the Quickfire Challenge if anyone even cares at this point:

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Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it, just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men’s store, a catnap in your office chair or two cups of good hot black coffee. OR HOW ABOUT A LIVING NIGHTMARE? (Via TheHuffingtonPost.)

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Remember when Charlize Theron was on last week? That was so great. I wish she was still here this week. Oh! There she is! Charlize Theron comes into the stew room where everyone is discussing Beverly’s elimination. Grayson is going to miss her, and points out that her plates were always perfectly balanced. Ed makes some joke involving a water bottle, which sends Lindsay on some self-aggrandizing defense of the time she was an asshole. Like, you know what, we’re all assholes sometimes and it’s not the end of the world, but don’t start a story about how much of an asshole you were with “I’m the most diplomatic person, but.” You’re clearly not the most diplomatic person. Butros Butros Gali is the most diplomatic person. You’re a hot-tempered contestant on a reality show who had an easy scapegoat to blame for a dish that probably wasn’t very good to begin with. Anyway, Charlize Theron comes in and thanks everyone again. Haha. OK, Top Chef. I think you’re done. I think you have squeezed the last drop of celeblood that you can out of the Charlize stone. (Hey, producers, think about getting Sharon Stone as a guest judge next season so I can make that joke again but even better.) “I was a fan, bigger fan now,” Grayson says. And isn’t that what it’s all about? If Charlize Theron can make just one fan be a little bit more of a fan then her appearance on this show was totally worth it. CHARLIZE THERON, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. Charlize Theron. Never forget. Charlize Theron.

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Guys, how intense was Restaurant Wars last week? JK. JK JK. But all the chefs are in the stew room just dealing with it. Muddling through. Can you even–did he really–who do they think–and cetra. Tom walks in and everyone just groans. Haha. UGH, THIS FUCKIN’ GUY. Tom just tells them that they’re heading back to San Antonio and he will see them there. You gotta love this show’s insistence on perfect continuity. There is not a moment that goes by that we do not know where our chefs are and how they got there. (i.e. there is not a moment that goes by where we don’t know what particular type of Toyota they are driving and how “sick” it is, which is generally “totally sick.”) Everyone drives back to San Antonio and we see them shuffle into the house. GOOD GRIEF, WE GET IT ALREADY. They really could have cut out a lot of this stuff and saved more airtime for the exciting SHOPPING MONTAGE. The next day, the gang is back in the Top Chef kitchen with guest judge Eric Ripert and a mysterious conveyor belt. For the Quickfire Challenge it is explained that everyone has half an hour to cook, and they have to use three ingredients off the conveyor belt in their dish, and the longer you wait for ingredients, the better the ingredients will be, but the less time you’ll have to cook. This is all fine and good as a reality TV challenge, but Eric Ripert tries to explain how this somehow correlates to the actual challenges a chef faces and I do not believe him. In what way does a conveyor belt filled with graham crackers and Pop Rocks combined with a time constraint and the necessity of using the graham crackers and the Pop Rocks even if you don’t want to correlate in any way with real cooking? DM me, Eric Ripert. Anyway, cook cook cook. Convey convey convey.

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