Damn, meant "hot circle". Myles's grading has me thrown.

What the hell?
So last week's absolute and utter crapfest warrants a B+, and you give this a B? Just…no. This was an uneven episode, but Christening was such a heaping pile of garbage from Alfredo's (I forget which one is worse) that I just don't get your grades at all.

But I really don't want to bash Blais — I'm an Atlanta girl too and have eaten at most of his restaurants, and yes, the man can cook. I enjoyed him when he was a contestant and had no problem with the snarky comments that he made then; I mean, who wouldn't have made those comments when you're dealing with Lisa and…

Blais was easily the biggest disappointment for me this episode. I expect dickishness out of the usual suspects (Dale, Spike, Chiarello), but Blais surprised me — he made some real asshole comments.

Crap, sorry, someone below mentioned Paul Rudd — oops.

He was also either a roommate or good buddy of Paul Rudd's — kick ass in all kinds of ways.

I'd go gay for Maura Tierney. Best wishes to her.

I don't think anyone's going to argue that Ilan shouldn't be the 4th. I'd put Harold first, Stephanie second, Hung third, and then pretend that Season 2 didn't happen.

Noel, I agree - there was a pretty big disconnect between the comments made during the meal and those made during judges' table. Unlike other episodes this season, I thought the editing was very good and made you think the end result was in doubt, although if you really thought about it as you watched (which I…

Oh, definitely for all seasons so far — no reason to have 3 to 6 months between tapings. All kind of stupid.

Break between Chicago and Finale
I don't think this has been covered, but I'd like to see a much shorter break (if any) between final in-town taping and finale. There's something to be said for momentum, and having such a big break can really screw things up. Full disclosure that I'm an Antonia fan and can't believe…

Saul, they have changed the rules midstream before. Last season was the first was a Final 3, and they only told the contestants about that during the Final 4 elimination challenge. They also did a double elimination in Season 3 without any warning (granted, those contestants worked on the same dish).

God, I wish they had just done a double elimination and been done with it.

What dorkinfo said. The Holiday Special was a joke — you had people on that who were kicked off in their season's second episode. I'm looking at matching up the top 2 from each season and having them all compete against each other — I think it would be cool.

I would love to see a cookoff between all the Top Chef winners and runners-up, Season 4 included (Harold/Tiffani; Ilan/Marcel; Hung/Dale; Antonia/Richard/Stephanie - Lisa not even worthy of being included). Other than maybe Dale, Ilan would easily be exposed as the weakest link (yes, even more so than Marcel, who I…

I'm an Atlanta girl and like Blais a lot (his food really is fantastic), but I guess I'm not seeing the cakewalk to victory by him over Stephanie that Noel does. Sure, I think he's easily the most creative chef of the group, but judging by the elimination challenge results this season, he and Stephanie seem to be…

They just need to pretend that Season 2 never happened so we aren't subjected to Ilan aka "I cribbed all of my recipes from Mario Batali's restaurant" ever again.

I don't think it's so much keeping a pretender around (who happens to be a chickie) versus getting rid of a bigger threat. If Antonia or Stephanie screws up, Dale is more likely to take advantage of that than dipshits Spike and Lisa.

I thought the same thing regarding Season 1 and figured that, based on overall performance, the Top 3 had to be Harold, Tiffani and Lee Ann — they were heads and shoulders above the other folks. But Lee Ann screwed up in the Final 4 challenge and Dave slipped in there. Dale has shown that he's a much stronger chef…

I agree that they so badly want a woman to win that if either Richard or Dale slipped up at this point in the competition, they would send him home over someone just as/more deserving to be sent home — yes, you Lisa, who has been in the Bottom 3 for FIVE consecutive episodes. Yeah, yeah, past performance isn't…