Top Chef 3/7/12--"Reunion" summary

Previously on “Top Chef”: it no longer matters. All that’s left is the reunion and then this season is over. (click for more)

Oh, all the judges decided to show up today. So then…why is Andy Cohen here? Paul looks good. Paul, are you glad you won? Duh. Clips of Paul’s journey. I’d forgotten he was a pothead. That’s how long the season was. Paul wins a lot. He is not involved in any drama. The end. He says he never felt like he’d made his parents proud until he won the show. Aww! His grand total winnings? $185,000, a trip to Costa Rica, and a Prius. Tom said that Sarah went out of her comfort zone but Paul’s meal was flawless. Sarah says she put herself out there, and she did feel accomplished. She also says she wasn’t robbed, even though that’s what it sounded like in her confessional after she lost. Andy becomes Jeff Probst for a moment and says someone in production told him that Sarah said “Fuck off” to a judge that night of the finale, because she was so upset. Really? She doesn’t “believe” that, and Andy’s like, you were there. Yeah, “believe” is an odd choice of words. Cue a shot of Tom visibly wincing. Did she tell him to fuck off? Awesome. Sarah maintains her innocence, and I guess we don’t have footage, because Andy drops it. Sarah keeps talking though, which makes her look more guilty, whether or not she’s guilty. She says she was emotional, she doesn’t remember saying that, but she’s sorry if she did, because she didn’t mean it. She keeps losing it, I guess because she’s the type of person who cries at everything. She then says it’s shitty it’s being brought up now. Maybe, but it’s also par for the course. It’s a reality show reunion. That’s when they bring these things up. And then all of a sudden she’s talking about how awesome Emeril is. What is going on? I think she did it. I mean, I’m not condemning her for it, I’d probably say a lot more than that.

Time for fake viewer questions! Was everyone mad when they got to Texas and there were 28 other chefs? I know I was mad when they got to Texas and there were 29 chefs. Richie says this was a good way to prove your skills, instead of being cast for personality. Bev, do you have a medical condition that makes you cry all the time? Seriously, that is the gist of the question. She is just emotional. Now we have a clip of everyone crying. At least they cut it in a hilarious manner, with Lindsay and Sarah saying “I don’t cry, crying is stupid” and then them crying. Sarah says something about crying after great sex, which, ew, so another fake viewer asks about that. She has no idea what she meant either. Apparently Grayson and Malibu flirt on Twitter all the time but they’re not dating. Malibu is red, but he swears it’s the tan. He’s still not that great. I mean, he’s cute, but not drool-worthy, you know? Montage of Grayson cursing and saying crazy things like that thing about the quail egg and slaughtered chickens and “gonna be like sex in the mouth”. And she says that thing again about “jam out with your clam out” which is EXTREMELY dirty and if one of the guys said the equivalent (rock out with your cock out)? Probably get bleeped. Think about it, I totally will admit I didn‘t get it at first. I can’t believe they let that through again. Tom is shaking his head. Also the stupid frog song.

Andy says something about a “Top Chef spin-off”, which means Ed one time said something about “Mediocre Chef” so the production people ran with it and collected a montage of fail. When Bev lit that pan on fire, and things like someone saying the food was lame and everyone celebrating. This is even worse than when Andy decides on a bromance. This is 4 minutes of random things spliced together because Ed said one thing while they were driving somewhere. It is the video equivalent of a poorly Photoshopped meme.

Tom says the judges were cranky because it was too hot. Gail kisses up and says that this group of chefs was so great they made the challenges harder. Last Chance Kitchen montage. They leave in the part where Nyesha says she especially wants to beat Heather and she did. Nice. The next question might actually be from a real person, because it addresses the idea that the producers fixed Last Chance Kitchen by having Nyesha and Beverly switch stations during that challenge, so that Beverly could benefit from Nyesha knowing what she was doing. And I’ve heard that in other places, and I can’t imagine the producers being savvy enough to address it on their own. Tom says they each ended up with unfamiliar ingredients. Nyesha kind of hesitates to answer, and Tom reassures her she can say it’s unfair, but it’s a challenge and it threw her for a loop. Everyone wanted that chance to come back, so no one thought it was unfair the thing existed. Boo. That means they’ll do it again.

Um…now there is a photo of Ty-Lor with no shirt and half his ass hanging out of his pants. And Andy starts talking about photos and he knows it’s coming. What? He jokes it’s his application for an apartment. Heh. Then he claims they’re artistic but not sexual. Right. Tom is dying. It was part of Ty-Lor’s coming out process, he says. Someone asks Ty-Lor if he’s a bear, I think (the sound went out) and Andy thought it would be funny if the “viewer” was named Tom Colicchio. Ha ha, Andy. You forget, TOM is the bear. Anyway, Ty-Lor says sure, he has body hair. Is Malibu in love with himself? I never would have thought that. I would have thought he was just a pretty boy. Like Angelo. He says he’s single and people should call him.

Montage of people getting hurt. Lots of bandages. And in an interesting shot they forgot to tell us about, MotoChris getting medical attention while he was cooking outside for the steak dinner possibly? As in, there is a medic taking his blood pressure. How do you edit out that entire event? There was no hint that he was sick. Ed admits he was a dick to Sarah when she left after getting heat stroke. Montage of MotoChris being weird and quoting Star Trek and wearing socks with sandals. He is weird. Hugh asks if he gets his ideas by spinning around on the floor real fast. Hee! I have to say, Hugh is the pleasant surprise of this season. I thought he would be annoying, but his judging was fine and his blog was hilarious. MotoChris’s hair is trending. Seriously. Lindsay hates watching herself on TV.

OK, now that we’ve spent half the show talking about whatever, we can get to the point of this reunion, which is Beverly. I knew it was coming, I’m not upset. Andy claims 90% of questions had to do with Beverly and how she was treated. Then he calls her “interesting” and “controversial”. Montage of Beverly. She is kind of a klutz. She says she felt like she wasn’t being heard a lot, but that she also knew people had her back. Her family didn’t support her at first, but they do now. Lindsay explains her Restaurant Wars behavior as her coming off the BBQ challenge and being sleep deprived and exhausted. Sometimes you go off the handle. Has anyone apologized? Sarah did, and Lindsay says she and Beverly talked. Or I guess they’re OK now? Something. Sarah didn’t want to hurt anyone, and Beverly respects everyone. So Sarah and Lindsay have apologized. Beverly says when it gets personal, like when people question her work ethic, then it’s hurtful because that’s her image. Andy wants her to point fingers but Beverly won’t. That leaves Tom free to throw Heather under the bus and say how shocked they were because they were on the same team. Heather says that was not the right thing to do, but that Beverly doesn’t trust herself, asks too many questions, and there could have been more of an effort. Basically she said “I know I looked stupid, but I stand by everything I said.” Beverly points out that shelling, cleaning, and butterflying 400 shrimp takes time. Andy asks Heather point blank if she feels she owes Beverly an apology for the work ethic comment. And Heather point blank says no. Wow. “At that time” that’s how she felt. Obviously you still feel that way. Grayson jumps in for some reason and says Heather crossed the line. Heather says she was just stating her opinion, and Tom for some reason defends Heather by saying she didn’t do it to hurt Beverly. Grayson says, yeah, actually, I think she did. She says Heather bullied Beverly that night after Restaurant Wars. Grayson would stand up for anyone. Beverly was hurt, but she’s at peace because “they” respect her. Gail says not very many people would have handled that with such grace.

Montage of bitchy comments. Wait, that’s it? No one will make her apologize? Good, I hope she’s ready for the internet shitstorm on the way. Well, maybe I should have amended that to read “montage of bitchy comments from Sarah, Heather, and Lindsay” because that’s what it ends up being. Priceless? Heather says she’s bossy but not obnoxious. No, she really said that. Are you guys always bitches in the kitchen? Sarah says mentoring is important to her and she doesn’t have any turnover in her kitchen. Uh…OK. She doesn’t want people to think she’s mean, which means I think I was right about her watching some of the show between the main show and the finale episodes. She was all of a sudden so nice and especially nice to Beverly. I think she saw herself and thought “wow, I do not look good”. She tells Andy she’s not a bully, but sometimes you have to get things done. Ty-Lor for some reason stands up for Heather and says she’s professional and taught him a lot. Padma says “Tell the truth, she bullied you into doing that picture”. Ha! Heather stands behind everything she said, because this is her personality. Andy tries to make us feel sorry for her and has her talk about the internet backlash. But I don’t feel sorry for her. Death threats, OK, that is poor. No one on reality television deserves your death threats. But this is the exact reason I don’t go on reality television, because I know I’m a bitch and I don’t need everyone else to know that too. I’ll get edited exactly like Heather, and just like Heather, I‘ll have actually said all those things and will have no excuse. Andy brings up the stupid first team thing, with the frozen shrimp that Lindsay blamed Keith for, and they had that fight about it. Keith says he wasn’t eliminated for the shrimp, he was eliminated for his dish and the shrimp was just “the fart in the air”. OK.

Montage of stupid things, that SHOULD have been commercial interludes, but they weren’t because everyone is stupid. Long car rides are good for stupid things like filming each other and talking about dating sites. People lusting after John Besh, who, like Malibu, isn’t that hot. Making fun of Chuy’s stories. Ty-Lor driving and flipping the bird to some other car.

Did the girls have an advantage in Restaurant Wars because the guys went first and the girls could fix everything? No, because they didn’t have time. The advantage was more because the girls had an extra night to rest. Boys won anyway. Paul and Grayson cooked for Michelle Obama? They’re at some school, and then Fabio and Blais are there too! And Tom! And…who is that? Jen? Oh, I think it’s that asshat Spike too. You know he was on “The Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs” or whatever they called it, and he was the first one out? Very satisfying. They had some type of Quickfire thing. I wish my school had done cool things like that when I was little. Emeril hates to send people home, but he likes to see people’s passion. Hugh tells people they would fail at Top Chef if they tried it. Gail is sweet and perfect and never loses it. Hee. Another stupid producer-produced fake montage designed to make Gail look like a bitch. That was lame. I think whoever has been making those fake montages is the person responsible for picking clips for the commercial interludes. Also Gail has a book.

Now a random question about Beverly and those stupid challenges in Whistler. Sarah says if Paul had won the first round, there wouldn’t have been any food because Paul busted all the ice in the second round. True that.

Really, Andy? “Would You Rather?” you couldn’t find a better use of your last five minutes? Heather, make out with Beverly or cook Asian food forever? Make out with Bev. Sarah, Texas or Italy? Padma is like, uh…not that hard. Italy. Malibu, would you rather be a porn star or an action hero? OK, that one is funny. Action hero? What? Apparently we were short on quotes this season, because the T-shirt has no quotes, it just is black with white dotted lines outlining a torso. A weird looking torso. It kind of looks like boobs, and an hourglass figure, but there are some weird lines that do not correspond to anything. And then a giant knife in the middle. This T-shirt sucks. Oh, that was the Commercial Interlude. Just like the T-shirt: nonsensical and stupid.

You know that show “Around the World in 80 Plates”? There is a chef from St. Louis on it. From a restaurant I have been to. And it was delicious. I think I’m going to try recapping it, so let’s hope it doesn’t suck.

Montage of judge outtakes. When Padma was introducing that Quickfire where they thought they would have to kill snakes, someone put fake joke snakes into the box she had. Babbling. Slow clap? I think that’s how the judges told that group they were the winners, with the slow clap. That’s kind of awesome, actually. John Besh says the rub was nice. Padma flirts with Charlize Theron. There is a weird conversation about Tom touching his penis. Pee Wee asks everyone if this is Top Chef’s jumping the shark episode. Burn! Because that episode kind of was. Some girl says Hugh is sexy but please wax the unibrow. Or the “Hughnibrow” as Andy calls it. But if you raise $100,000 for his charity he’ll go on Andy’s show and wax it. Malibu will probably win fan favorite. Will I watch Andy’s show to find out? Fuck no.

“Around the World in 80 Plates” starts in May! See you then!