I'm a fan of -- gasp! -- a reality show

Oh. Or that.

 

It's not him. If you go through his blog, there's link to him being on TV in an ad for iloveny.com or something like that. It definitely doesn't look much like him.

And that last episode was awesome. Definitely didn't see Elia being bald. Could have seen Cliff and his monster arms beating the hell out of Marcel, though.

 

Thought this may be a Rob and Big thread.

Put your belly on him, son.

 

Great show also!

 

Do work!

 

They will be indeed keep doing work. Season 2 is being filmed in April!

 

And now we're down to the final two, and I must say I'm surprised that Marcel got that far (and on doing his 14th foam, no less). Elia going was no real shock; she and Marcel needed to decisively beat Sam and Ilan to make the final two, and only one did. A little surprised that Sam went home instead of Ilan, because it looked like he was the most consistent performer on the show (excepting the world-turned-upside-down, last-shall-be-first beach breakfast episode).

Man, Marcel must have been a Grade A douche if even Elia was sick of him. I think Elia would plate Hitler's dishes.

Final prediction: Ilan.

 

That episode sucked my nuts.

The scene where Elia told the judges that everyone hated Marcel was clearly edited seven ways from Sunday.

Their biggest putdown of Sam was that he didn't cook anything -- ignoring the fact that three of the chefs served raw fish for their entrees. The only thing Marcel cooked was his lotus chip, for fucks sake.

My girlfriend said it best: "If they let Marcel win, I'm never watching this show again." Nice reward for Sam for being the consistently best chef throughout -- he gets bounced before the final for no particular reason while xantham gum-foam boy continues.

Fuckabuncha Top Chef.

 

And the judges are being wildly inconsistent this season. Some days, not cooking the product gets you dinged. Other times it's fine, and in fact one of the quickfire challenges was to create an entree without cooking it (I forget which episode, but Marcel won with a bunch of watermelon hunks that he called "steaks"). One episode they're complaining that the competitors aren't breaking out of their boxes, the next they're getting in their face for trying something with which they aren't familiar. Chef behavior was a big issue last week, but now it's not a personality contest. They must all come from fusion backgrounds, because they can't help but to send mixed messages.

Interesting that there was a lot of backlash from Michael getting ousted two weeks ago for not spending all his fixtures money when Sam and Ilan decided that a rustic Italian restuarant didn't need wine, Cliff sucked ass working front of the house, and Marcel served a chicken wing nearly raw. Michael probably shouldn't have gotten as far as he did, but again, consistency -- are you killing someone for their performance that week, or in general? Circumstances demand different standards each episode, but it seemed like they were bouncing Mikey as retribution for the times they wanted to but couldn't.

 

If this show wasn't rigged as shit, Marcel would have been gone for the raw chicken wing and Mikey, pathetitard that he was, would have made the finals.

There are few things that are inexcusable in a working kitchen. Sending raw chicken out the window is one of them.

Undercooked steak, pork, etc.? Can be a mistake. But since you NEVER serve chicken anything but well done, there is NEVER any excuse for sending it out that way.

And Collichio is a fucktard, while I'm at it.

 

And they understand that, because they lectured Betty and Mia about overcooking the duck in the Service episode, stressing that there's only one way to serve it. Same principle applies here, except with the added bonus of making your diners sick.

On the one hand, Marcel v. Ilan sounds like the most obvious rivalry pairing out there (with the exception of Marcel v. Betty). But assuming they don't edit the first episodes until the whole thing is done, they could easily make it look as though the two hated each other, and so their meeting in the final is a fufillment of some sort of reality-show destiny.

It's funny -- we're debating dumbing down in the other thread, but I've noticed it kind of rears its head here in post-production. Carlos talks about playing it safe at the beginning of the Thanksgiving episode, and sure enough, he's booted at the end for playing it safe too much. Mia talks about being homesick in the catering episode, and guess who jumps on the grenade at the end? Even most of the curveballs are telegraphed (Mikey hopes to win the Quickfire because his tooth hurts and he wants the immunity, so naturally when they get to the Brand Name Withheld Because They Ain't Paying Me Kitchen, Padma strips that element out of the challenge. And then he wins. O, cruel fate, how ironic or coincidential ye be!).

And yeah, Collichio is a douche. Good thing most of the male chefs there couldn't punch their way out of a crepe, because in the real world, he would have been knocked the fuck out by now.

 

I agree -- the heavy-handed editing is getting to be a bit much.

I know it's Bravo and they are catering to the loves-me-some-high-drama-and-bitchy-interplay crowd, but c'mon.

And seriously, they need set criteria for each challenge, and they need to be scored according to them. And then they need to tell us how much past performance can affect whether you are thrown off or not.

Because if you take the contest as a whole, there is just no argument for booting Sam. Consistently good and pretty food, every time out, except, as you noted, the ridiculous beach challenge.