Didn't Ron watch season 7? Andrea and her vanilla-mustard sauce sent her packing. They hate attempts at savory vanilla!

I'm pretty sure Fitz said in this episode that he thought sending Karen back to school as soon as possible after the funeral would be best for her. I think it's more likely that Karen acted out due to grief which was magnified by the isolation from her family, not just from Mellie. Not claiming Mellie is a flawless…

I'm hopeful Blais will improve throughout the season. He has the significant disadvantage of coming to judge Top Chef AFTER being a recurring judge on Guy's Grocery Games. Hopefully after sitting at this panel for a couple of episodes he'll realize that this is a completely different show (specifically tonally) and…

I LOVE the new format for Judges' Table. I hated last year's bit with the TV, it just seemed really detached to me. I hope they keep this up for the rest of the season.

Once Tom started talking about how gross the fishy aftertaste was, I figured Corn Soup Guy was a goner. They were surprisingly light on their critique of Broccoli Salad Lady, probably because her food was just mediocre instead of icky (corn soup) and INSANE (I mean….petroleum sauce?)

The pace of this episode was very strange. The judges were declared winner of the first challenge five minutes in! I get that the third challenge is the 'important' one, but it seemed silly to rush the first two challenges as much as they did.

I think I get that vibe more during her talking head interview bits than in the group cuts. She does seem relatively chill in the group but I just get a weird/bad vibe from her. Can't really place where it's coming from. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree!

I'm also not really feeling Nina and it seems like we're the minority…her attitude just rubs me the wrong way. She must be a very talented chef to win all of these challenges but the editing makes her seem so arrogant.

From the preview it seemed like next week is teams of 2 so I wouldn't be surprised if they did a double elimination.