and thank god for not-toby young
When they first showed the judges arriving at the ball, and saw two large guys in masks (Tom and Emeril) and two evening gowns, I quickly thought "Which evening gown is Toby?"

oh hosea…
As predictable as tonight's ending was (we're going to send home Stefan! maybe! except of course we won't!), what bugged me most was Hosea's excusemaking. It may've been the editing, but Padma barely said a word at JT and Hosea launched into a litany of excuses.

that's a very reasonable reaction.

i have a terrible secret
i did not care for the godfather

…and another thing
what would constitute a safety? or a neutral zone infraction? or an unnecessary roughness penalty, etc etc blah bloo blee…

the scoring…
…it seems unfair that in the case of the judges tying that the secondary panel would get to essentially wield the judges' points. if anything, a tie should render said points moot. i.e., nobody gets the 7 points. however, it's an arbitrary scoring method to being with, so whatever.

lame on a stick
oh, how i wanted that sliverish margin of victory to tilt the other way. this show is better with solid, soft-spoken types like radhika, engaging harmless weirdo types like carla; but no, we have to live with leah for another week.

freaking scallops
…are quickly becoming the ilan move of top chef. juts use them every time and coast, like ilan and his saffron. it really seems like the judges are in the tank for jamie; they never ding her failures as badly as they do the other chefs'.

…fourth? mister red?

and as much as i agree with the low correlation (perhaps negative) between tv-friendliness and actual talent, i did like that this was (1) an individual challenge, and (2) one that gave the chefs a large amount of room to decide what they wanted to make.

alex's strategy
…of making a dessert. has that *ever* been a good idea on top chef? voluntarily making dessert?