I think they mixed that one with the one from the DC season where the chefs selected unusual proteins and then in the middle of the Quickfire had to move one station over and work with what their neighbor had prepped.

Looks like this lackluster season is getting the prosaic reviews it deserves.

Precisely!

I disagree with this sentence: "Unfortunately for the chefs, bad cooking makes for good television."

Hugh! Definitely Hugh. There is something I don't like about Emeril that I can't quite pin down; maybe it's just "BAM!" whiplash.

Oh yeah Tom's so done with this. And well, it's been 10 years so I don't really blame him. I'm a little surprised they didn't just replace him with Emeril this season. It's New Orleans, after all, and Emeril's still got decades of mugging for the camera left in him.

Looks like another team challenge next week. Yes, yes, last week wasn't really a team challenge, but it felt like it, right? Neither was the first one, but they all had to cook one of three proteins, proteins that they probably wouldn't have chosen by themselves.

I think they're working off of the theory that to get more people more invested in the show they need to make it bigger: more chefs, more complicated challenges, more dramatic non-starters. It made them do unspeakable things to the format of Seattle's finale.

Good episode, but I thought the (second) elimination challenge was kind of convoluted to watch, even though it's a classic set up. In the past (3, 5) when they've done it there were fewer people, which made it easier to keep track of who was cooking what and easier to see who did it better, whereas last night's second…

I actually did not particularly like the TV in the stew room aspect. I think it cuts down on the drama for the chefs; when Padma walks in to invite the top group in there's no suspense as to who it will be. I like the stew room for what it is: a generator of alternately rambunctious and tumultuous filler material to…

I was on the brink of saying that in my comment last week. It seems like each character has a storyline that's plucked and slightly mutated from a movie, and Lip's is definitely Good Will Hunting. If that scene with the judge wasn't somehow a reference, then I haven't seen that movie 3 and a half times.

I really want to like Shameless as much as I used to and not just give up, that's the problem.

Oy. I am getting so tired of the challenges this season. This one was no exception, they decided to combine three of my least favorite elements of past challenges: healthy cooking, manufactured drama, and a cockpunch of product placement.

I guess I should admit that I'm far less familiar with Seattle than I am with any other city Top Chef has been to, so perhaps it's not Seattle's fault per se. Still, I think both of those challenges were poorly framed, and perhaps the fact that someone says the word "local" every five seconds this season has somehow…

I guess I should admit that I'm far less familiar with Seattle than I am with any other city Top Chef has been to, so perhaps it's not Seattle's fault per se. Still, I think both of those challenges were poorly framed, and perhaps the fact that someone says the word "local" every five seconds this season has somehow…

Can we collectively agree to forget that Texas ever happened?

Can we collectively agree to forget that Texas ever happened?

Personally, I thought "Pike Place Pickle" suffered on account of it's cool quotient. The challenge seemed frankly ridiculous to me in the time allotted, and I thought maybe the people who come up with these challenges just wanted to focus on trendy, artisanal ingredients without thinking through if it was possible for…

Personally, I thought "Pike Place Pickle" suffered on account of it's cool quotient. The challenge seemed frankly ridiculous to me in the time allotted, and I thought maybe the people who come up with these challenges just wanted to focus on trendy, artisanal ingredients without thinking through if it was possible for…

No one else I know watches this show, so here is my mental dump: