I watched a rerun of this episode today and NAF1138 is correct - it was not Sarah’s choice to sit out the elimination challenge. Padma makes it very clear at the beginning that if the chef takes the immunity they will not be competing.
I honestly think you would have to be an idiot to not take the automatic spot in the final. I can see not liking Sarah for how she has treated Beverly but I can’t imagine any chef from any season passing up a guaranteed spot in the final 4.
Hated the episode tonight. Especially since it was a semi-final. I’ve never seen so many challenges that had absolutely nothing to do with cooking. Making people ski and then shoot targets for their ingredients? Pathetic. I thought Sara was going to have a heart attack. She was huffing and puffing. Someone that obese doesn’t need to jump out and do something this strenuous.
There was one bright spot. Paul showed a lot of class helping the ladies bust open those blocks of ice. He even commented that this was supposed to be about cooking and not busting ice.
^ I completely agree with all of this.
And I was really rooting for Beverly to beat Sarah. Please win it all, Paul!
I think that gondola ride would have had me hoofing it back to Texas.
Yikes.
Yeah, I thought it was a bit ridiculous - not quite as bad as the Pee Wee Herman episode but close. I was glad to see that Sarah and Paul, especiallly, gained some respect for Bev. I can see how her personality could get annoying but she obviously has the cooking chops and fought hard through the challenge.
Did you see the Houston commercial that ran during Top Chef last night?
I like it–a positive way to respond to not being included in the show. Nice logo there at the end. 
Well Sarah did say she wanted to be a nicer person. That lasted until they all got into the car and Bev was talking about LCK
I don’t care who wins as long as Sarah loses.
Linsay and Sarah both behaved like high school mean girls. Shame.
Paul helping them get to their ingredients - that was class. It was a very gentlemanly “F-you” to the producers, and I enjoyed it immensely. The frozen ice blocks were just so obviously easier for a man. Meaning, the one difference between men and women that almost no one can dispute: Greater upper body strength.
Overall, this season has been a major disappointment, from the quality of the contestant to the ridiculousness of the challenges. Last night’s Olympics challenge completely went off the rail. I’ll watch to see who wins (Paul, I hope), but Top Chef is getting deleted from the DVR schedule. I’ll stick to Top Chef Masters, assuming it comes back and they don’t ruin that as well.
It was awful, I agree. Great idea for a quickfire, but it stopped being a cooking competition with off-beat challenges with SOME basis in reality to just stunts. Yuck.
I detested that episode and I detest Sarah. All I can say about this season is that I’m rooting for the least-mean contestant, Paul.
Shitty fucking challenges. The ingredients you get to use should not depend on your physical strength or your ability to ski or shoot. Fucking dumb, dumb, dumb.
Like everyone else, i thought Paul showed some real class helping the others out in the ice challenge, and i hope he goes on to win it all.
Ha ha ha. People who have never skied falling down and tripping over each other. That is so hilarious … Wait, what, we aren’t watching Wipeout?
Paul helping the women with the ice blocks was classy. Padma posing with a rifle warmed my loins a little. The rest of the episode sucked. The forced cameos from past Olympians were especially painful.
I’m waiting for the episode where the guest judge is an MMA cage fighter.
Not only that, but at this stage of the competition the guest judge should be an actual chef, not some athlete whose most useful contribution to the discussion was “I thought your food tasted great.”
It made me think of America’s Next Top Model. They love torturing the “models” with photoshoots where they’re on stilts and runways that are in swimming pools and the model is in a giant hamster ball. But part of the fun in watching Top Model is laughing at the models’ delusions and the stress the competition takes on them. The fun in Top Chef is watching talented chefs cook amazing food.
At this point the chefs should all be the best of the season and be able to cook amazing dishes and I want to see that. This episode would have been ridiculous but not as annoying if it was at the beginning of a season, but it’s terrible at the end of the season.
I think I’ll watch the finale and cheer on Paul and then not watch any more unless I hear people say it’s improved. I do watch too much TV anyway, especially now that I have Netflix Instant. I gave up on watching Project Runway last season when it became much more about the drama and less about amazing clothes.
I don’t mind craziness in the quickfire challenges - as long as it’s fair craziness. (Not pobviously easier for men, or for Asian cooks, or whatever it might be slanted toward.) But IMHO it has no place in an elimination challenge.
That was absolutely horrible. I was glad to see that nearly everyone on the bravo site was castigating the producers for how horrible it was by making up challenges for the finalists that had very little to do with making good food and were more about humiliating challengers. They were lucky that no one got hurt with the ice pick. I wanted to slap Gail for complaining that the mango Paul served was still a little frozen. That’s because fresh mango isn’t meant to be frozen; if it was fully thawed, it would have been mush.
The only redeeming feature was the editing they did before a commercial break that made it look like the upcoming segment was going to feature Bev getting out her sniper’s rifle and taking Sarah down.
Tonight looks to be a better episode without the silly distractions during challenges. The quickfire challenge was fun. I always enjoy seeing Takashi.
And the final two are: Paul and Sarah.
It should be an interesting finale.