Top Chef 9/22/10--"Reunion"

Stupid Andy Cohen. (click for more)

Woah, “Top Chef: All Stars”? I wish I had more confidence that actual good chefs would be on it, instead of knowing they’ll have Marcel and Ilan, for drama, and like, Betty, or Leah, or just random personalities who made for good ratings. I mean my only hope is for CJ or Andrew, or possibly Stephanie. Or Carla.

Kevin was surprised to win, even though he was confident. Angelo admits that Kevin just did a better job. Tom says it came down to the best food (like always). Andy pretends there are “conspiracy theorists” who will say it was all Mike V. I mean…I guess. But why aren’t those people yelling about how Hung did all of Angelo’s work? They all got a winner for a sous chef. Kevin says he could have worked with Hung too, since he’s got a past relationship there. Ed gets called on not being very happy to get Ilan, and he tries to qualify that, but he gives up and is like, OK, yeah. Heh. Montage of Ilan being bossy. He knows Ilan didn’t hurt him. Gail tries to remind everyone that Ilan won.

Montage of Kevin. People talking about how he’s very serious and hard on himself. Also that his presentations are gorgeous. He’s going to take the money and open his own place, plus buy a house. Then Andy turns to Angelo and makes him admit that he expected to win and that he failed. Dude. Of COURSE he wishes he hadn’t been sick. He gives a ton of credit to Hung. Kenny also had a “shocking” exit, and he says the other team had great food. Tom FINALLY says that there are shocking exits all the time.

Viewer questions! Tom is so grumpy! Why are you grumpy, Tom? He says the food at the beginning of the season was bad so it made him grumpy. They’re away from their families for a month and the reward is good food, so if the food is bad, then I think he gets extra grumpy. Eric! How did you get so good looking? Sigh. He says it doesn’t help you in the kitchen. Hee.

Tiffany got eliminated because her dish was a little more rustic. Everything was great so they had to nitpick. Video from her wedding. Well first they talk about how she won two trips. Her wedding is gorgeous. Of course, now, because Andy like, has to live vicariously through everyone else or something, we have to have a montage of Ed flirting with Tiffany. Because Ed’s girlfriend and Tiffany’s husband won’t mind. Seriously, I know it happened, but we all saw it happen, they didn’t make out or anything, and Andy takes far too much glee in forcing people to relive their mistakes like that. Sigh. Oh, Ed told her that if she wanted to “try the white guy” she could. Interesting. Andy tries to dig up some gossip but no one cooperates.

Montage of people blaming each other. Well…not really, but chefs throwing each other under the bus, but also saying “Oh, your food is great” and then at Judges’ Table saying “Yeah…it sucked”. Amanda! Why did you cook with sherry for children? She says you just do stupid stuff on this show, she has no explanation, and for the record it was like $3. Lynne and Arnold! Andy claims to have been in the building that day and wants to know about the pairs challenge. When Arnold cooked the pasta early and didn’t take the blame. Jeez, I can barely remember that. Lynne says they weren’t mad at each other, but just in general frustrated at the situation. Oh, but Arnold doesn’t think they went home for a bad dish. Eric brings up raw pasta and Arnold gets super defensive, like “Yeah, we know, let’s bring that up again.” Calm down. Andrea! Why do you hate Michelle Bernstein? She pretends not to know what he’s talking about, but I’m pretty sure she knows they’ll have the footage. Andrea stops short of saying Michelle was biased against her, but that’s what she means. The judges tell her that Michelle went out of her way to be fair. Andrea decides to fill everyone in: Michelle stole her pea puree one time. Hee!

Oh, but that segues into us asking Alex if he stole Ed’s pea puree. Well, I knew this was coming. First, though, montage. Actually, montage of people talking about how Alex sucks, then about the peas. HA! When the montage ends, Ed takes off his shirt to reveal a T-shirt that says “Where’s my pea puree?!?! Peagate Scandal 2010 Top Chef” They should have just said “Peagate 2010”. There’s something on the back but I can’t read it. Alex says he would never steal anything. Amanda all of a sudden is like, I totally watched him make it, he was right next to me. Tiffany rolls her eyes and says that he just looked guilty. Alex claims to not have known it was a big deal, and Tiffany is like, stealing is a big deal. He says he had no idea they were asking him about it because they thought he stole it. Ed only half believes he did it, anyway. Amanda seeing him make it does not convince Ed. Kenny is like, the night before he had no clue what to do. Kelly agreed he had bad peas before. So Tom says, you turned starchy peas into a winning dish. Alex says thank you. Yeah…that was Tom’s “I don’t believe you” voice. Amanda starts to say there’s probably footage of it somewhere, and it just didn’t make the show, but Tom says he asked the producers and they looked through hours of footage and found nothing. Tom also says guaranteed if they caught Alex on camera stealing things they would have shown it. Andy tries to say if they had him on camera making his own puree, they would have shown that too. Alex doesn’t agree, and I don’t really agree either. I mean…as Alex says, it makes good TV. He and Andy argue about it.

Let’s move on. Alex won some Quickfire, and said he would spend his money on a hooker and an 8 ball. Which they aired, and he was mortified. Montage of Tim singing and being smooth. Also talking about how hot Padma is. He is also mortified. Andy tries to encourage Padma but it’s just gross. Montage of Kenny vs. Angelo. Remember when Angelo was cocky? Before he started failing and had a mental breakdown and started talking to himself? Tom says a good chef has to have confidence. Andy reveals the official T-shirt this season says “Beast in the Kitchen”. Blah. Kenny already has a tattoo on his stomach that says “Beast of the Kitchen”. Montage of Steven getting blasted by the judges. Andy demands they say something nice to him. And he won three challenges! But he agrees with what they said, because you don’t have time to tweak your dishes in competition. In this competition, working that way does not cause you to win anything.

Now let’s pretend someone asked about the Stew Room! There is hockey with cardboard pads and wrapping paper tubes for sticks. Craps with huge boxes for dice and cardboard chips. They made a baseball out of plastic wrap and Angelo actually throws it so hard he busts through the wall. Awesome. Also, “a fan” asked if John is still upset he went out first. I mean…they have these clips and questions every season. So either the producers are seeding the questions, or people are not paying attention. John says the restaurant he works for is doing well. Don’t remember John? No? Neither do I, that’s what happens with 17 people. Tracey! Are you offended that Tom said your sausage was offensive to Italians? She says she had hoped it would be edited out. Hee. OK. Andy. No one asked Gail how it’s different being a judge vs. a host. No one cares. Montage of Judges’ Table outtakes. “Who are we sending home? Tom, you can’t go home.” Tom’s really funny, actually. “You caught my balls on the fork”.

Commercial interlude: one of those stupid websites where you put in two pictures and it makes a baby face. Except much more low-budget. Is that what we’re reduced to?

Now we must take a closer look at “the opener” of Top Chef, where they remixed the opening credits and set them to porn music. This is even stupider than the babies. Montage of guest judges. Like Nancy Pelosi and Buzz Aldrin. Angelo! Are you an arrogant bastard all the time? No, of course not. Montage of Angelo and how he won a lot and spied on everyone. He says something about not humping legs but carefully choosing what leg to hump. And talking to himself. And lapsing into French randomly. Maybe it’s Russian. And telling everyone what to do. Tamesha! Did Angelo sabotage you and make you go home for giving you bad advice about your dish? Not really, plus Angelo says it’s a nice thing to be helpful. Most of the chefs believe Angelo was sincere. Montage of pranks. TP’ing beds, tying shoelaces together, putting plastic wrap on the toilet. In retaliation they wrapped all of Angelo’s clothes. Individually. Angelo put all of Alex’s knives in a pot with water and froze them. Nice one. I think they put honey in his deodorant? Piled clothing on the bed and then plastic wrap the whole bed. These pranks are pretty good.

Andy makes them name all the winners in order. They ask for volunteers, and when Kevin volunteers, Andy says that if he does it properly, everyone will get the “suite” of Top Chef wines. I can’t believe they haven’t had to cook with those yet. Or match food to them. Kevin does it properly! None of the winners will be on All-Stars.

Who will win Fan Favorite? Arnold is campaigning. Kenny’s name is thrown out, as is Tiffany‘s. Finally, the All Stars cast: Stephen and Tiffany from season 1 (AWESOME); Elia and Marcel from season 2 (what did I tell you); Dale, Casey, and Tre from season 3; Richard, Dale (Asian Dale), Antonia, and Spike from season 4 (…asshat); Fabio, Carla, and Jamie from season 5; Jen and Mike I. from season 6, and Angelo and Tiffany from this season. Interesting. It could have been worse. Angelo promises not to get sick. See, Tiffany from season 1 already won the All-Stars challenge they had. The judges talk about how they already know everyone and people are awesome.

Woo the end!