Hot ham, this was a boring episode. In an increasingly boring season. I think? Right? Sometimes I can’t even tell anymore, to be honest.
But I do have one seriously exciting development to report, and it’s that the magical all-knowing Wikipedia monkeys have gone and added the Last Chance Kitchen nonsense to the season 9 page, so I no longer have to watch it AT ALL in order to include the result at the end of every recap. Thanks, Wikimonkeys! It really is seven or eight minutes of my life I’m grateful to have back.
Part One: A VERY SAUCY QUICKFIRE
The chefs draw knives and are each assigned a classic Mother Sauce. Veloute, bechamel, tomate, espagnole or hollandaise, that is, and not Mommy’s wine, in case you were confused. Make a dish using that sauce and put your own spin on that sauce but don’t spin the sauce too much blah blah you all know the drill.
Everybody on the show cooks! Everybody at home opens a bag of potato chips and sighs sadly.
The whole Quickfire segment is pretty unremarkable, although we are introduced to Episode Subplot B, which is that Heather HATES Beverly. She cries! She hogged the sink that one time! NOW SHE MUST PAY. Heather snots to the camera that Beverly always makes Asian food, no matter what the challenge is and the judges have yet to call her out on it. Was her scallop dish last week Asian? Or her chili the week before? What about her short rib asada at the quinceañera? Also, define “Asian food” for us all, Heather. Korean? Chinese? Japanese? Malaysian? Indonesian? Indian? YEAH I THOUGHT SO YOU CAN SHUT UP NOW.
Beverly does end up in the bottom this time, though, for overshadowing her take on espagnole with a separate wasabi sauce. Nyesha — who repeatedly mentions her passion for sauces, saaaaad tromboooonnnne — and Dakota are also among the least favorites.
Top three are former saucier Grayson (who seems cool, I think, and I like her), Pretty Chris and Paul. Again, that Paul! He’s doing quite well, especially for someone who really isn’t getting much screen time. (Which probably means he sticks around for awhile, and the producers are “saving” what little story they’ve got on him for later. I HAVE CRACKED THE CODE!) Ponytail Grayson wins! Curly-hair Grayson and sleek-hair-blow-out Grayson are both totally psyched for her.
Part Two: RAISE THE STEAKS GEDDIT IT’S A PUN
The main event is to cook a four-course steak dinner for 200 cattlemen as a team. The main main event, however, is the steak course, since all 200 steaks must hit the tables at a perfect medium rare. Oh, yes. This is going to end well.
(SPOILER ALERT THIS DOESN’T END WELL.)
There are really only three things of Actual Note that deserve recapping here.
1) Whitney makes a potato gratin. Whitney does not par-boil the potatoes or par-bake the gratin on the first day, and in fact straight0up rejects the suggestion that she do so in order to guarantee that the potatoes aren’t underdone. She then further cements her incompetence by not covering the raw potatoes properly overnight, and has to redo the entire top layer the next day because surprise! The potatoes turned brown. Because they’re raw potatoes. And they do that.
So after six hours of cooking, Whitney serves an incredibly basic-looking, undercooked potato gratin. I’m no culinary wizard or anything, but even I know how to freaking make a potato gratin in less than six hours. Seriously, this is like biffing a challenge that involves reheating canned soup.
2) Ty-Lor-D-OfTheRings worked in a steak house and thus, is in charge of the steaks. Which you know, is a little ballsier than making a potato gratin. Yet so similarly doomed to failure. He cuts himself badly on the first day and has to go to the hospital for four stitches. (Four, not one. AND he insists on staying until the end of their cooking time and goes to the hospital at night, while his fellow chefs get their rest. JAMIE.)
So on the day of service, he’s injured and exhausted, and makes the call to send the steaks from the grill to the kitchen where the rest of the team will finish them off in batches in the oven. Tom raises a perfectly arched eyebrow at this decision — if you’re gonna own the steaks on a challenge like this, it’s probably better to own the steaks and not let them out of your sight. But I gotta admit I see the logic here — there’s a slightly better chance at ensuring every steak is uniformly cooked and arrives at the table at the proper moment if they’re in complete control of the cooking temperature and plating in the kitchen rather than whipping them off a grill outside and rushing them back in.
But then: Enter Lindsay, dasher of dreams and destroyer of everything. She and Heather step up as expeditors/meal-pacers/bossypants. And then she inexplicably freaks out right as the appetizer course is served because the steaks! The steaks need to be in the oven! Now!
Yeah, actually they don’t, sweetie. But the chefs in the kitchen follow her instructions blindly and start finishing off the steaks, which probably only required a few paltry minutes. Edward pulls out the steaks, declares them perfect and starts hollering for plating help…only to be told it’ll be at least another 10 minutes, because the guests are still eating their appetizers.
By the time the steaks go out, they’re completely overcooked and everybody knows it, but there’s nothing to be done. Except for the producers to cut to shots of LINDSAY LINDSAY LINDSAY over and over again, in the television equivalent of pointing fingers and tattling that SHE DID IT SHE DID IT IT’S ALL HER FAULT.
3) Episode Subplot B continues with Heather going on and on (and ON) about Beverly taking too long to prep shrimp. Beverly is too focused! Beverly only cares about saving her own ass! Beverly is selfish! Beverly would be fired in Heather’s Imaginary Kitchen Where Heather Is In Charge for taking so long with the shrimp! Beverly Beverly Beverly!
Dakota: Heather is the most obnoxious person I have ever met. She’s mean and she’s a bully and I would punt her ass to somewhere random in Asia if I could.
Beverly: *says nothing, smiles sweetly, thinks about ponies and rainbows*
I don't have enough arms to carry everything and it's ALL BEVERLY'S FAULT
The worst of the bullying happens right before Judges’ Table. Heather, clearly nervous that the biggest mistake of the meal (the overcooked steaks) could easily be pinned on her and Lindsay’s inept pacing, starts openly angling to set Beverly up as a fall guy by CONTINUING to harp on how long she took to peel and devein 400 shrimp and could have helped more. Okay. You don’t like Beverly, we get it. You sense weakness and have figured out she’s unlikely to fight back and call you on your smack talk. Fine. Go back to kicking puppies already.
It’s…gross, how obvious she is about it.
And even grosser that she ends up in the top three ANYWAY, because the judges liked her dessert. She made a cake and omg she made a cake in the quince episode so WHY YOU GOTTA ALWAYS BE MAKING CAKES, HEATHER? So all her pre-judging finger pointing was for naught and she is not given the chance to throw pointless blame at Beverly or anyone.
SOON, BEVERLY. SOOOOOON.
AND THEN SHE WINS, beating out Nyesha’s compound butter and sauce of Quickfire redemption and whatever thing Puffy Hair Chris made. I forget. Too distracted by the hair, I suppose. Heather wins a car and also my eternal loathing.
And then! Evil gets away with even more evil, as Lindsay Dasher of Dreams And Destroyer Of Everything isn’t called for the bottom three, and Ty-Lor makes it clear that he’s NOT a bus-throwing finger-pointer, and takes full responsibility for the steak snafu. This seems to be his standard reaction to being on the bottom, and while full-on arguing with the judges isn’t often a good idea, I feel like he probably should show a little more backbone next time before the judges tire of his sad-eyed I done messed up all the things demeanor.
But in the end, while messing up the steaks at a Texas steak dinner IS a pretty big deal, Ty-Lor is at least tossed a few points for stepping up and taking on the risk, unlike, say…Whitney and her infernal six-hour under-baked plate of potatoes and cheese. I mean, come on. Tom is especially merciless, telling Whitney that this is basically the easiest decision he’s ever made as a judge in the history of Top Chef because ZOMG SO TERRIBLE. Pack your knives and get the hell out of his sight, Whitney.
I mean, at least until Last Chance Kitchen, where presumably Tom managed to calm down about the gratin because Wikipedia says that she beat Chuy and will live to be completely mediocre for at least another week.
Next week: Double elimination! Oh, how I love to see the herd get thinned out like that. Also Heather gets paired with Beverly because GOLLY GEE PRODUCERS WHAT A COINCIDENCE, and appears to get into a fight with Grayson, who is like, I will take this scrunchie out of my hair and BAM MY FOURTH SECRET IDENTITY IS WONDER WOMAN AND I WILL WHUP YOUR FOIE GRAS, GURL.
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