see next post (to avoid exposing spoilers)
As soon as she walked away from the judge’s table, I knew exactly who was going home. But I still sweated it out and swore I’d never watch again if it was Kevin!!! I was surprised though that Jennifer martyred herself (doing two complicated dishes at once) instead of taking the lead, as she has done in other challenges. I want to have Kevin’s babies, but I think his niceness may hurt him in view of such strong cooks with leadership qualities, but I still hope he’ll pull a Stephanie!!
Wow . . . first time on the bottom for Jennifer and Kevin. Honestly, I thought that if they were being true to their claim that each challenge is judged independently, it should have been Jennifer going home. They didn’t like either of her dishes. (Ironic that a disciple of Eric Ripert had so much trouble with fish in this episode – even misnaming it in the quickfire.) Sure, Laurine struggled in the front of the house, but she was freaking out in large part because Jennifer’s dishes were taking way too long.
That said, I’m glad to see the obvious Big Four still alive in the competition . . . whether or not they deserved it on this particular day, they’re still the most deserving overall, and will probably give us the most competitive finale.
And how about that sibling rivalry between the Voltaggio brothers?
It seems that though the two brothers are always fighting, it does seem to work for them. I’m re-watching the beginning, with the tag team challenge, and one brother mentions that he’ll go after the other brother because it will be easy for him to figure out where he was going. Of course, they lost that challenge but it wasn’t a total fail.
Even though she’s the queen of annoying, I was glad Robin got some validation with her dessert, even if she had to fight for it- I don’t think she’s a Top 4, but I also don’t think she’s “just lucky”.
Good point. And I believe Michael said he wanted Bryan and himself to be the last two because he knew if things got screwed up early, Bryan could start to fix it. They may not always get along, but I do think they believe in each other’s skills.
I think this might be the first time that the judges did take into account past performance. Jennifer probably should have gone home but she is clearly a better chef than Laurine.
Nutjob Robin lives for another day, although her dessert was well received, I just can’t stand that woman.
On one hand, I really didn’t want Jen to go.
On the other hand, it felt like she should have.
On the other hand, we didn’t taste the food and we saw the whole thing edited to create suspense.
Having a look at Tom Colicchio’s blog and then rewatching the judges table, I think I can see a little more of where they were coming from in sending Laurine home over Jennifer . . . it sounds like they liked Jennifer’s halibut even though the dish as a whole didn’t come together that well, so she was arguably 1 for 2 . . .
Meanwhile the undercooked lamb was Laurine’s dish, even though Kevin did the final cooking (I totally missed this on first viewing), and they blamed her for that (even though Kevin cooked it . . . it sounds like she set herself up for it a little with the “I’ll send it back if it’s not right” comment) . . . so between that and the poor service she was arguably 0 for 2 . . .
I still think a lot of Laurine’s problems were the result of Jennifer and Kevin’s screwups, but she certainly didn’t do anything to save it.
It also sounds from Chef Tom’s blog and judges-table comments that he thought the team’s main mistake was having everyone turn out two dishes back-to-back, putting everyone in the weeds and leaving no one to be team leader as Jennifer had done in the Air Force challenge. So I guess the blame for that rests on all of them.
I think the edit was deceptive in that it seemed to show Jennifer as being in more danger than she really was. She did one ok dish, and one fail dish. They did say the halibut was perfectly cooked and that they liked the sauce. They said they “cancelled each other out” in combination, but there was nothing bad about any of the per se compeonents. On her other dish, the main problem seems to have been a broken sauce (basically from trying to do too much at once and getting herself in the weeds). So she didn’t do everything wrong.
Laurine, on the other hand, did nothing right. She failed both at the tables and at her dish. I also think that Colicchio really didn’t like it that she basically gave up on her own dish and let Kevin botch it that way without putting up a protest or sending it back. I don’t think there’s anyway that Jen or either of the brothers would have allowed botched dish to go out with their name on it like that.
The brothers’ relationship is interesting. They bicker a lot, but they also clearly seem to trust each other more than anyone else (Michael instantly chose Bryan first to be on his team, and I think that Bryan would have done the same), and while Bryan has expressed some resentment for what he perceives as Michael’s controlling personality, we’ve also seen Michael bristle at criticism of his brother in the stew room, and seen him say some very nice, complimentary things about him in TH’s. The quickfire was a good example. He knew he could trust his brother to “start to fix” any mistakes, and he also knew he would be able to understand and finish whatever his brother was trying to do.
I think those guys want to beat each other, but neither wants anybody else to beat his brother, and they work together like a Swiss watch even as they bicker.
By the way, it looked like Michael probably deserved a lot of the credit for Robin’s dessert. They showed him going over it with her and writing some instructions on how to class up her recipe, and she herself said that his tips on technique were what put it over the top. It’s not the first time somebody has done well by executing a Voltaggio brother’s idea.
Right. It’s the old saying, “Nobody beats up my brother but me.”
I still can’t tell them apart and I don’t care. I find both of them thoroughly unpleasant people. If they were just bickering with each other, it would be one thing, but they’re a strong reason I’m not watching much this year. I read that in a real kitchen, that’s normal behavior - but it isn’t must see television.
BTW, the guest judge’s comment “Here’s the book I wrote. It’s, like, my Bible.” God complex much?
You knew Laurine or Naurine or whatever her name was was gone the second they had her talking on camera solo at the beginning of the episode. She never gets screen time. I predict Robin, Eli, and that guy that looks like Oscar from The Office will be the next to go 1,2, and 3. Any of the final four could win it all and I would be OK with it.
What about the not too feminine lady looking fairly feminine in her bikini?
What about the younger Voltaggio given up 7.5 grand to his team mates and then the older Voltaggio telling him to keep it? That is some painful pride on display there.
Could someone tell me which episode the chefs had to make “tv dinners” based on a tv show and Kevin did a family meal from The Soporanos and Brian did Mash?
Right. I was going to say the exact same thing. They behave just like my brothers and I would in the same situation. It is one of the reasons I like watching them so much. I find it amusing. My wife and a friend who watches (who have no siblings) hate the brothers, partly because of the way the behave towards each other. They just don’t understand that type of close brotherly love. It is a deep, real love by the way, though brothers would never admit that to one another openly. I loved the plastic wrap thing contrasted with the stew room comments; so typical, mess with each other on the small stuff but stand up for each other on the big stuff.
This episode featured welcome excitment and playfulness after last week’s snoozefest. The game of culinary telephone was a great idea and I hope they do it again in future iterations. I wonder how it feels for Mike I. to know that he is only kept around because he is mediocre. Week after week the judges basically tell him flat out that he is a middle of the pack type guy.
I loved the ironically edited TIVO stop that showed Michael V. look like an ass.
That got a laugh from me as well.
I agree, I really liked that quickfire.
I don’t understand how some people seem to hate the brothers . . . they seem pretty innocuous to me. Plus, Mike Isabella’s odiousness pretty well outshines anything anyone else can do.
Kevin is easily my favorite, however. Multiple times this episode he had little self-deprecating comments about how he’s not sure who’s better at this or that, even though in fact he has the most total quickfire + elimination wins, and tied for most in each category. (as tallied by wikipedia)
I am no Robin fan, nor a hatter either. But I think she had a damn good reason to get mad with somebody screwing with HER dish, which was an always dangerous and often deadly on Top Chef dessert for petes sake.
Those brothers sure as hell would blow their tops if somebody was dicking with THEIR dish. And if they can’t stand some curse words from a middle aged woman…well please :rolleyes:
Yeah, it might be love, I just don’t want to see it. It comes off as one or the other being bitchy and petty. Can we ban brothers/lovers/ex-es/any other pairing on future seasons?
Regarding Robin and someone being a pottymouth - I thought she was the one who was complaining about swearing? I could be wrong, I was working on something during that part.
I rolled my eyes at Mike I’s posturing over the salt request. Dude, if people ask for salt at Grant Achatz’s restaurant, they freak out and try to figure out what went wrong - and send salt. You aren’t the master of all cuisine. I wonder if he/they had more of an attitude about it because Padma was the one who made the request, even though Colicchio also mentioned there was no salt in it. I suspect she probably gets some disrespect because she’s “just” the host (though a cookbook author as well).
Jennifer seems to have lost her confidence big time, and doesn’t have a whole lot of time to get it back before she runs out of room for error. Her posture, her voice, everything is a whole different person than the early weeks.
Kevin is really the master of the pig. Very smart of him to focus on his specialty, while varying it enough to not seem too repetitive.