My breakdown of yesterday’s three-team deal involving Michael Morse and John Jaso is up for Insiders.
Usually I don’t discuss a Top Chef episode’s elimination until the end of the post, sticking to the chronological order of the notes I took while watching the show in real-time (well, DVR real-time). This time, however, a few reader tweets spoiled the ending for me before I’d even started watching, and so I had a pretty skeptical eye going from the start. Nothing happened in the episode to change my mind, not even Tom’s after-the-fact post explaining how they had “no choice” but to send Kristen home. Not only do I disagree with him, which I’ll discuss below when I get to judges’ table, but, for the first time, I think viewers who are questioning whether the judges’ decision was truly independent of the producers’ input have valid reasons for their doubts, not just the kind of tin-foil-hat thinking that I may joke about but haven’t really taken seriously.
* Stefan says Restaurant Wars is always a shitshow. He’s not wrong, although it turns out that this year’s edition was a shitshow for entirely different reasons than previous years’ versions. He ends up handling front of house duties for Team Sheldon, which seems like a good fit since he’s kind of a schmoozer by nature.
* The biggest twist: there are no kitchens. The chefs must build them from scratch, outside in the open courtyard area between the two dining rooms.
* Josie really not getting along with anyone. I may have just copied and pasted this from every previous recap.
* Stefan is shopping for flowers. Who cares? I don’t think it’s “gay” as Stefan said; I just think it’s a waste of time, especially when you’re a man down compared to the other team. Also, a lot of idiots would say cooking for a living or for pleasure is “gay” too, so, you know, maybe not using that word would be good.
* Stefan and Josh are at least saying the right things about working with a cuisine they are completely unfamiliar with, even though Josie would already be preparing her excuses for why her version of someone else’s menu didn’t work.
* Kristen says her menu is “ambitious,” and is inspired by when she watched French cooking shows when she was five and would try to mimic whatever the chefs were doing on screen. When I was five I was still watching Write On and Read All About It!. Then again, I’m a writer, so maybe this all makes sense now.
* Josie talks about roasting her bones on the day before, then never does it, even though Kristen asks her to do so more than once. This is known in the business as “foreshadowing.” Roasting bones isn’t exactly hard, you know; you oil them and stick them in the oven for an hour, more or less. Failing to do that is just laziness.
* Josie wants to preplate at least some of the items, including the fish for her bouillabaisse. Kristen wants to prepare everything to order. Josie thinks that can’t work for so many people. Josh predicts cooking fish to order will sink them, but I think cooking fish before the fact is pretty much the worst idea ever. Some things can be prepared the day before. Fish ain’t one of them, unless you like chewing on old tires.
* Other than Josie being Josie, Kristen’s team looks quite organized, and the other three chefs are getting along fairly well. Kristen might be micromanaging a little bit, saying she wants to “touch” every plate that goes out, but she views this as taking responsibility – and the judges wouldn’t hesitate to slam a team leader if a restaurant is sending out sloppy or unfinished plates.
* Are you sick of reading about Josie yet? Because I’m sick of writing about her, and I’m far from finished.
* Sheldon’s team is doing six dishes, two per chef, which seems incredibly ambitious given their disadvantage. That said, Sheldon’s laid-back temperament – I would call it a Hawai’ian stereotype, but we were just there in November and just about everyone we met acted pretty much like that – is a perfect fit under what could be a soul-crushing degree of stress. He even recruits the dishwashers to help with prep.
* This is really the all-Josie episode; if the producers wanted to craft a new villain with John gone, they got their material here, as Josie is all excuses, all the time, when she’s not flat-out lying to Kristen about what’s been done. She did the broth the day of service, not the day before, so it’s so late that she can’t use the gelatin Kristen wanted to add before charging the broth in the iSi canisters. When Kristen hears this, she says virtually nothing but drops a serious WTF face before telling Josie to switch to cream and soy (milk, I think?) and forget the gelatin.
* During the first seating, Stefan seems to be ideal in front of house, all schmoozing, keeping guests liquored up, saying the right stuff … which makes it so much more surprising when his service falls apart in the second seating.
* Here come the judges. Good grief is Padma’s skirt short. And her heels high. There are interstate highways that don’t go on as long as her legs.
* The judges start at Kristen’s restaurant. The first dish is Lizzie’s twist on charcuterie: rabbit rillette, pickled turnips, and beets, in a roasted chicken and rabbit broth. Total acclaim here.
* Then we get what turns out to be the pivotal moment in the show: No one even tested the mounted bouillabaisse broth in the iSi canisters, so the foam doesn’t work; Brooke, who was handling front of house duties, is standing there working the broth with an immersion blender while in a dress and heels. Kristen says she’d prefer a dishwasher to Josie, which is a clear insult to the dishwashers on Sheldon’s side who are doing actual work without making excuses.
* The result of all of this is that it takes way too long to plate and serve Josie’s course, a bouillabaisse with halibut, Dungeness crab, and scallops. The dishes don’t have anywhere near enough broth, and the fish is unevenly cooked. It’s a disaster dish, with Tom saying later (but before judges’ table) that Josie should go home for it.
* The other result is that we see service breaking down in Kristen’s kitchen, with tables getting the wrong dishes and tickets coming in incorrectly. Given the editing, it’s hard to see this as unrelated to the stinkbomb Josie dropped in the kitchen by being in it.
* Kristen’s main dish is a take on beef bourguignon, a Burgundy-braised short rib with garlic purée, glazed carrots, pearl onions, and mushrooms. The dish has nowhere near enough sauce or acidity; what’s on the plate is good, but the consensus is that she didn’t reinterpret the dish far enough, so it feels like an incomplete version of the original.
* Brooke’s cheese course has fresh baked gougeres (made from choux paste and usually deep fried), cheese, roasted radish, and an espresso truffle … plus something else that isn’t included in the online recipe but that the judges said was impossible to chew.
* Kristen’s dessert is her take on the two types of macarons, the French version with almonds and the American version with coconuts (called macaroons). She does an almond cake macaroon with coconut custard and salted buttercream, and no one particularly likes it, saying it’s not reminiscent of either of the original pastries and was too heavy to recall the French version (although to be fair, French macarons are light, but are usually filled with buttercream or ganache, which isn’t). Overall, Kristen’s restaurant was generally disappointing, but not a flop other than Josie’s dish; Lizzie is the one team member who’s very clearly going to be safe.
* Back to Sheldon’s restaurant, we see Stefan dropping the hammer to get the first seating out and clear the big backup at the entrance, which continues to grow regardless.
* The first dish is Stefan’s kilawen, yellowtail crudo with three sauces: cilantro, spicy chili, white soy. He seems to have a knack for raw fish, and the judges love it.
* Josh’s take on balut has a poached egg, duck confit, and a foie gras mousse. Stefan didn’t explain the dish enough, although if he’d said what balut really is – a fertilized duck egg, poached and eaten in the shell, looking a bit like a grey chicken fetus – that might not have helped. Padma says it was executed beautifully, while Tom says it doesn’t read filipino at all.
* Sheldon’s miki has prawns with tapioca roll/pasta and achiote. Stefan wasn’t there to explain it and then comes and “scolds” the judges after it – a bizarre misstep for a guy who usually is willing to suck up to the judges for his own benefit. It’s like no one told him he’d have to work a doubleheader today.
* Sheldon’s adobo pork belly with mung bean purée and pea shoots salad gets praise from Tom as the best dish all day, with Danny Meyer largely agreeing. I don’t think this was mentioned on the show, but that braised pork belly was deep-fried first. That might have helped its flavor a little.
* Josh’s dessert, a take on halu-halu, has coconut sorbet, avocado mousse, bananas, and shredded coconut. It’s another hit, and it’s clear by this point that Team Sheldon is going to win.
* Stefan’s dessert has ginger tea and a dark chocolate confection with macadamia nuts, ginger, and peppermint oil. Those are some seriously strong flavors fighting each other, and I’ve never liked the chocolate/ginger combination even though I’m a big fan of both.
* Now we see Padma saying Stefan should go home for service, while Tom says Josie should go home for bouillabaisse. If only.
* Judges’ table: Brooke gets praise for her front-of-house performance, while Lizzie gets praise for starter. Josie gets killed for her bouillabaisse and immediately begins blaming Kristen for her dish. Kristen has the chance to explain the gelatin being scrapped because of Josie’s screwup, but declines, which was a fatal mistake.
* Stefan gets crushed for service but owns up to it quickly, largely because that’s what he does with the judges. Tom says Sheldon’s adobo pork was the best dish all night; Team Sheldon wins and he gets a new Toyota Avalon. Padma tells Stefan he’s very lucky, since he would have been sent home had Kristen’s team won.
* Lizzie and Brooke are told they’re safe, while we hear Kristen saying “bite my tongue” under her breath as Josie makes excuse after excuse. Kristen falls on her sword and takes all of the responsibility, which I suppose I should respect greatly, but I don’t think it’s abdicating responsibility if you stick to the truth about an employee (figuratively) who didn’t do her job.
* Josie: “I’m an easy target.” Yes, because your food sucks.
* So Kristen is sent home over Josie, in what Gail revealed afterwards was a split decision. This entire discussion felt extremely contrived, with Padma’s sudden anti-Kristen sentiment looking horribly forced. The judges missed two extremely obvious points when conducting this fake debate over who to send home. First of all, Josie’s dish was the only one on either side that was served late, and with Josie doing that twice previously this season, some basic deductive reasoning would tell you that she was the cause, not Kristen. Second, their behavior and body language at judges’ table spoke volumes: Josie was all excuses and emotions, while Kristen was calm and took responsibility while deflecting attempts by the judges to get her to pin the blame on Josie. I’m not buying Tom’s claims afterwards that they had no choice or didn’t have all of the available information; their own expressions on the show implied that they knew just what was going on, and were trying to get Kristen on the record. I also don’t think the judges needed to send Josie home on the basis of her season-long incompetence. The only excuse I can make for the judges is that neither Brooke nor Lizzie chimed in to support Kristen, perhaps for competitive reasons. Overall, this was a new low for the show, an embarrassing episode that has, unfortunately, given the show a lot of the wrong kind of attention. It is very hard for me to accept that the show is all about the food when the chef who dominated the entire season is sent home for someone else’s cooking failure, and while Kristen comes off way, way better on TV, it undermines the entire show to see this. I’m usually just acting fake-angry about stuff on the show – it’s a reality show with no impact on my life other than entertainment – but now I feel like I’ve been had. We get more drama, but the best chef is gone. That’s like trading Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez.
* Having Josie in the final six is like having Willie Bloomquist on the WBC Team USA roster. She’s far and away the worst chef left, and with Kristen winning Last Chance Kitchen (I can’t even be bothered with an LCK recap), she’s still the best chef sort-of standing. Of the six in the main competition, Brooke is the new #1, followed by Sheldon, Stefan, Lizzie, Josh, the Mariana Trench, and then Josie.
Last’s night’s Last Chance Kitchen was the SEC Championship game of Top Chef.
Sigh.
Also, did you see this article about how first world demand for quinoa has affected the countries that produce it? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa
Good review, I hate those cooking shows though; like that Ramsay guy how can the food be good when everyone is driven toxic by him? Something to be said for cooking “Con Amore”
Seems like a contrived way to draw attention to last chance kitchen and/or to increase the drama when Kristen is ultimately returned to competition and wins.
THIS might be the episode that ends my love affair with Top Chef. I even stuck through it whenever TC:Desserts is on. Total BS.
On that weird Andy Cohen after-show, Padma told Kristen that she couldn’t have said anything to the judges that they hadn’t already figured out. But, if they figured it all out, how could they possibly ignore Josie’s massive failings. This decision ranks right up there with the Vernon Wells trade and makes even less sense.
I hope the producers of the show make it over here to read your review. This was the first time that Top Chef has truly felt like a heavily-produced reality show. It’s gone off in that direction before, but last night this show felt no different than an MTV reality show. Which is a shame because now that it’s been tainted, I won’t be able to look at it the same. Their “wink-wink” moments will no longer feel wink-wink to me. It’s like I can see the Director yelling “and….ACTION!!!!!”
i find it unlikely that they’d undermine the integrity of the show by cutting the best chef at the expense of a garbage one who is more than likely going to be cut soon anyway.
kristen’s own dishes weren’t particularly well done.
Hey Keith,
I want to apologize for being one of the spoilers for Top Chef last night. There was a typo when I tweeted at you and I meant to say “if” Kristin goes home, would that be one of the biggest upsets, and I typed that she “is” going home instead. I hadn’t even seen the end of the episode yet when I wrote that. Anyway, I love reading your recaps and Insider posts, and my apologies again.
David
You weren’t watching 3-2-1 Contact when you were 5?
The thing I don’t get is why a producers’ decision would lead to Kristen being eliminated. As you said, she is the Paul Qui of this season – not just head and shoulders above everyone but humble and likable. Granted, she was a bit less likable in her high-stress mode this time but it’s made clear that Josie was the problem child. It’s so…WTF. I guess the argument is they wouldn’t have done this a couple seasons ago, without LCK, that we will keep watching because she can come back and whooooa. I dunno. It’s just. The first serious female frontrunner since a woman won and they bullshit kick her off?
I will say that what happened to Nyesha last season was similar, and her elimination in LCK too since she had to take on another chef’s ingredients. But not *this* egregious.
If Kristen gets all of the blame for the one poor dish, a dish that wasn’t “hers” so to speak, shouldn’t that be counterbalanced by the credit she should get for the good dishes? I guess that’s why I don’t care for Kitchen Wars. If you’re going to get blamed for someone else’s bad dish, what’s the benefit to being the head chef? You’re better off being in Lizzy, Brooke, or Josh’s position – just make your dish without having to worry about leading or running the front of the house.
I was going to make the same comments about Lizzie and Brooke keeping quiet, but I see you addressed that in the second to last paragraph. I also think that after a certain point, body of work has to be a factor. I can’t believe the decision was that obvious for a couple of judges that they couldn’t have said “it’s a close call, but Kristen has clearly been better over the course of the competition, so that’s the deciding factor.” This decision pissed me off. But I also agree that you could totally see Padma trying to sell it, which made it look like the decision was manufactured.
@Daphne – My guess would be now that John is gone, the show needs a villain. Kristen is indeed more likable, and a better chef, but drama sells on reality TV. Stefan is kind of a jerk, but I’m not sure he’s as dislikable as Josie. She’s also relatable. We all know people that do as little or as poorly as possible, barely scrape by, then blame everyone else for their mistakes and come through Scot free.
This was like some sort of meta-actualization of The Fountainhead where we see mediocrity skate by, talent refuse to compromise, and a system unable to distinguish between the two.
Like others, I don’t really think I can watch, and like KLaw, I’m amazed the judges didn’t ask about why the dish was late. Also, I’m bemused that the other two women sat back and said nothing. I suppose the strategy at judges’ table is when you hear your safe to shut up, which those two did, but I can’t believe the Judges didn’t ask the other two: Hey, tell us what happened?
They seemed awfully eager to allow Kristen to say ‘my fault’ and awfully eager to overlook cooking mistakes (under and overcooking) when in past episodes they never overlook cooking mistakes.
I agree with a couple of previous comments, that this isn’t the first time that TC has slid towards a scripted reality show (just from season 9 keeping the Mean Girls together so long and Beverly beating Nyesha and winning LCK), but at least all those chefs were competent. I think there are at least 3 times that Josie should have gone home, but didn’t.
This is my first season watching Top Chef (thanks to all of your previous mentions in chats and such) and I was hooked. But you were spot-on in your review. I want to be angry, but it is just a contrived tv show. But i thought this one was based more on skill than drama. I believe i was wrong and that is why I feel cheated. I’m not sure if i will watch the rest of the season. I hope the ratings drop after this (even if they miraculously bring Kristen back), so the producers know they audience isnt happy.
I’m curious why the judges didn’t ask Lizzie or Brooke what was going on in the kitchen. If I’m one of them I probably wouldn’t have spoken up either but if asked I think they would have told the truth. I agree that the episode seemed much more producer involved than any I’d ever seen though.
You see this every season where a chef just trys to blend in an do as little as possible ala Josie. It sucks you can only get so far with that mentality and I finally thought her time was up.
It’s clear she is nowhere near the chef as the others around her. Her tactics are just desperate attempts to stay around. While I applauded Kristin for not throwing her under the bus I feel like she could have calmly explained the entire situation. Instead she took all the blame and inevitably sent herself home by doing so.
The biggest “huh?” moment for me was watching Padma vehemently defending Josie. I’ve only been watching a couple seasons, but do not recall her doing that for anyone else. To do that for someone that is easily the worst remaining chef is puzzling at best.
Personally, I think the show is better when it’s food-driven and not drama-driven. The producers seem to disagree.
I have to agree with Daphne here, if this was a producer’s decision (which I don’t believe), it was a strange one. I understand the the painting Josie as a villain, but her skills are clearly inferior to the rest of the competitors, and she won’t last until the end of the show. If she somehow makes the final 3, then I’ll call shenanigans…but it would make more sense for the narrative to pick a villain that has a better chance of making the finals (Stefan or maybe Josh). Given the integrity and the trust the show has imbued upon us during the last ten seasons, it doesn’t make any rational sense for things to be forged now. Tom has been pretty honest in speaking out against editing decisions that the producers have portrayed in the past (like in the pea puree incident), I don’t see why he would be less than honest in his blog now.
The difference to me is that Josie treated this challenge as a reality show competition and Kristen treated it as an actual restaurant. In contrast to some of the earlier restaurant war challenges when a head chef picked a theme and his or her team had the freedom to operate under the loose theme, it looked like Kristen was involved in conceptualizing everything as a real exec chef would do. In a restaurant, it doesn’t matter if a delivery is late, or a line cook screwed up- EVERYTHING is the responsibility of the head chef. Knowing this philosophy it makes sense why in a Restaurant Wars challenge, Kristen wouldn’t throw Josie under the Bouillia-bus the way Josie did to Kristen.
So, Kristen had a hand in conceptualizing everything, she took responsibility for the bouilliabaise failure, and her dessert seemed to be just an ok dish. Meanwhile, Josie failed at the one dish she worked on, but Kristen took responsibility for it. If it were me I would have probably sent Josie home (hard to give a perfectly honest opinion with seeing Josie’s insubordination though), but I don’t think Kristen’s dismissal was that egregious.
At any rate, the fact that Kristen took responsibility (rightly or wrongly) reminds me of the discussion when Armando Galarraga was denied his perfect game. Sure he was wronged, but it served him better (as far as notoriety) in the end. And this too will serve Kristen better in the long run. She said she really didn’t have any experience as an executive chef but she showed she had the character of a good one. I imagine with her skills and vision and talent, she’ll have potential restaurant partners beating down her door.
I don’t believe that the producers had a hand in this result. The theory that the producers just wanted to keep a villian around ignores the fact that they already had the perfect opportunity to keep John around by sending Lizzie home 2 episodes ago. No one would even accuse them of foul play in that case because Lizzie truly had a putrid dish. John was rounding into villianous form with some of his seemingly insane comments towards the end of his run. Not to mention John is more talented than Josie and could have more easily made it deeper into the competition without involvement from production. If you look at twitter, the majority of responses to last night’s episode are completely negative. A lot of people are threatening to stop watching the show out of disgust (somewhat of an idle threate in my opinion). What do they have to gain by doing this? Why would a show intentionally antagonize its fanbase?
As far as the actual show is concerned, it was truly cringe-worthy. I was dying for Kristen to stand up and throw Josie under the bus like she deserved. It seemed pretty clear that she felt that wasn’t morally the appropriate thing to do, so why didn’t Brooke step in? In a team competition, the judges can only react to the food put in front of them and the information given to them later by the chefs themselves as to who was responsible for what. The judges made it pretty clear that they were upset about the saucing of the plates and Josie took advantage of that. She made it clear in the judges mind that Kristen was responsible for that portion of the dish. I think the way she acts is revolting, but you have to remember that there is a large cash prize on the line. I’ve seen people act much worse than she did with that kind of money looming. I have the utmost respect for the way Kristen acted, but as we have seen in life and in sports, honor and respect is not always rewarded as it should be.
The only thing that truly confounds me about last night’s show is the way Padma acted. She seemed truly vindictive for seemingly no reason. I don’t mean to stereotype models or women in general, but she really exhibited some “model behavior” during judges’ table. For whatever reason she was really overzealous in her crusade to send Kristen home. On Watch What Happens Live last night however, she was remorseful about the whole ordeal, expressing her wish for Kristen to have put her foot down and not allowed Josie to simply flail around during prep. I’m sure it will be discussed on the reunion at the very least.
Regarding LCK, I don’t see any reason Kristen can’t run the table. There are 6 contestants left so presumably there will be 3 more episodes of LCK. Hopefully Sheldon or Brooke will not be eliminated between now and the finale. I think it’s safe to assume Kristen could beat Josie, Stefan, Josh, or Lizzie in LCK. Even if she does happen to go home, she’ll clearly win the Save-A-Chef vote based on public sentiment. We’re all upset right now, but I don’t see this as even close to the end of the road for Kristen yet.
What a fucking joke.
I was looking forward to CJ vs Kristen in the final, boo
Keith, off subject but I wanted to thank you for your tweets last night calling out Notre Dame. I was so angry when I saw the AD talk about conducting an investigation into the fake girlfriend while shedding tears for his player’s pride. Yet the way they handled the whole Lizzy Seeberg crime/tragedy made me furious. Thanks for being one of the first mainstream (I mean that as a compliment) media person to call them out. I think it is gaining steam today because of media like you.
I echo Mike. I think I say this kind of thing to you about twice a month on Twitter, but one of the reasons I follow you more than any other sports writer is what seems to be an unfailing sense of duty to speak out about the gross ethical problems in sports.
Thanks for the review, Keith. It was cathartic reading this because last night was an atrocity, relatively speaking.
Thank you guys for reminding me I had a link about Lizzie Seeberg I wanted to tweet out, from Jezebel.
As for me calling shenanigans on the judges’ decision, the conspiracy theory, one I’m loath to espouse and yet I broach anyway because that’s how I roll, would be that eliminating the clear leader (given some sort of opening to do so) creates enormous controversy and publicity for the show, yet might not even impact the ultimate results because they have two other avenues for the eliminated chef to reenter the competition – LCK and Save a Chef. Look at us here – this is probably a record for comments on any of my TC recaps (and I’m thrilled about that), because we’re all rabble rabble rabbling about it.
To be completely clear, though, my objection is that the post hoc rationalizations aren’t ringing true for me. Tom’s come out after a weird judging and explained himself in a way that made it clear that the editing misled us, or we didn’t see everything we needed to see. In this one specific instance, I felt like his explanation didn’t answer the question for me.
Maybe after that challenge Kristen was so fed up that she figured she’d rather go through LCK the rest of the way. She had to see that she’s better that just about everyone else and instead of having to deal with all of the crap of the contestants and judges and dumb challenges she would rather go for the one on one battles. She had already won $45,000 (I think) so maybe she was willing to take that risk so she could get the hell out of there
Wow. This is like the Angels keeping Vernon Wells and releasing Albert Pujols.
I wonder what happens if the judges are tied 2-2. (I agree with those who thought Padma was more fiery than usual, especially in her dislike of Kristen.) Do the producers break the tie? Does Tom say, “I’m the head judge, bitches?” If not, maybe he should.
This may be selective memory, but doesn’t the leader of the losing team in restaurant wars go home almost every time? Particularly when they are given a significant advantage from the start? Yeah, I know Josie was worthless for her team, but I feel like there was no point (editing?) where Kristen either made the expectation clear, or just took charge of it herself.
A friend commented beforehand how badly he hoped Josie would be gone, but I told him that if the team with more chefs loses, Kristen is in big trouble…
It was a ridiculous decision, I felt like I knew what was going to happen from the previews and not-so-vague headlines on the internet. I may be wrong (and not sure if anyone mentioned it — a lot of comments!) but at the end of the broadcast there is a disclaimer that says that producers can influence the outcome — keeping Josie on the show is misguided as she is overly grating and will likely be dispatched at the earliest convenience. That being said, Kristen could have saved herself, but chose not to, so I guess respect to her.
There’s no doubt that Kristen will be back via LCK or that text campaign they keep mentioning. If not, she’ll surely have plenty of professional opportunities should she want to move on from working with Barbara Lynch, whose restaurants rank amongst the best in Boston, perhaps that figured into Kristen’s decisions as well. That and the 45k.
uh…reality shows are fake. Isn’t that pretty clear at this point? Don’t we have enough insiders semi “on the record” attesting that shows like this have story developers? TV is fun, and good tv doesn’t get that way by accident. I don’t see why competition reality shows should be seen as much different from others. They depend on narrative too, and it isn’t like WE can taste food.
Still, sorry the writers screwed this one up.
A logical conclusion to Padma’s anti-Kristen argument is that Kristen’s only recourse would be to tell Josie that due to her not being able to get her components done adequately in time — that the final product is not good enough to serve in her restaurant. So that the judges got empty bowls. THAT would be good TV.
It seems that this season the fans get to vote a fan favorite into the final. I am guessing that Kristen is a front-runner.
Having worked in a restaurant and volunteered for 5 years to set up a restaurant in a field and serve 400 guests a fine-dining meal, I will tell you that the chef that touches every plate hampers service. Hugely.
The way to be a good leader is to give people their due and let them do it with some guidance or checking in and to let people fill in for you when you aren’t standing over them. A great leader is one who can leave for a night and have the restaurant run as well as when they are there.
I don’t think Kristen should have taken the blame for Josie but she had major execution flaws. I want her to win but in her restaurant I would have been very frustrated.
Should the fact that Kristen drafted Josie when – or am I mis-remembering the draft order? – she had a chance to pick someone else (John, I believe) enter into the conversation? If the Seattle Mariners improve their run scoring due to the arrivals of Kendrys Morales and now Michael Morse to the lineup, but their run prevention suffers even more due to the regular playing of some combination Montero, Morales, Ibanez, Bay and Morse in the field, should we not at least implicate the GM in creating the roster? I know that it’s not nearly an apples-to-apples comparison, but Kristen should have known enough about Josie and John to assume that John was the lesser of the 2 evils.
Kristen had a chance to pick Josie or Micah (John was already eliminated by then). I suppose one could argue she should have picked Micah and it really surprised me she didn’t. The look on her face at that point was like she was being offered McDonald’s or Burger King – I don’t think she wanted either of them.
@ Steven, regarding Padma and the “model behavior” stereotype, I have noticed throughout the years of watching TC that Padma does seem a bit more critical of female chefs. Maybe there is nothing to it and maybe I’m looking into something that’s really not there but it’s something I’ve noticed. Plus what was up with Padma saying “Josie….. you’re safe. Kristen please pack up your knives and go”? Has she ever done that before, calling out the name of a chef that was safe? Because I honestly don’t remember her ever doing it. I wonder if that was something she did on her own or if that was something she was told to say to build more drama.
@J.J. Nope, I’m almost certain (having watched every season within the last year…yup, I have an iTunes problem) the only time the fakeout has ever been done has been during the finale (e.g., Season 6 “Kevin…you are NOT Top Chef”). That bit really bothered me.
I do think we should acknowledge that the show on a whole has been a bit harder on woman chefs. When Stephanie Izard blew through Season 4 with Richard close on her heels but never clearly ahead of her, and the narrative was that “Stephanie only won because Richard choked in the finale,” and otherwise no woman winners (and four all-men finales out of nine seasons), that’s a pattern. Note that this never came close to happening last year with Paul Qui. His team lost Restaurant Wars too.
I’ve never watched a single minute of Top Chef, but I love reading these recaps. As a Mariner fan, I especially appreciated the Soriano/Ramirez trade reference.
Initially, I was indignant until Keith’s blog reminded me that besides falling on her sword, deciding to use minimal broth in a Bouillabaisse, touching every dish that went out, and attempting do too much in her vision — Kristen’s own dishes fell short too.
This was not an obvious blown call by the umpires & while I would like to believe that a Tie-Goes-to-the-(Restaurant)Runner, you can’t really fault a bang-bang play going either way.
@Karri: Very helpful insight, thank you. One thing they didn’t show us on this episode was Kristen actually touching many of the plates. She seemed to examine them, but we didn’t see a lot of tinkering other than the bouillabaisse, which we know needed the supervision. Was she also slowing up the other four courses?
@Daphne: Agreed on the show’s apparent gender imbalance. I believe Sarah Grueneberg was the only female finalist on the last four seasons of TC, including All-Stars – The Volts/Kevin, Blais/Isabella, Kevin/Angelo/Ed, then Paul/Sarah.
Daphne, I disagree that Richard was never clearly ahead of Stephanie. I know you’re going to trot out that, heading into the finale, they had an equal amount of wins, while Steph had a few more top appearances and a few more bottom ones, and all of that is undeniably true.
That said, Blais destroyed Stephanie on QFs,where Stephanie only got 2 wins compared to Richards 4 (one of which was when they were on the same team), 1 top compared to Richard’s 3, and 5(!) bottoms compared to Richard’s 4.
You also have to account for the fact that one of Stephanie’s wins (the Block Party) is a little dubious since the judges seemed to imply that she didn’t have the best dish (Dale did, but his team lost). Add to that the fact that Richard left the judges baffled and had more memorable dishes, its hard to argue that he wasn’t at least the favourite heading into the finals.
That said, I dont want to take anything away from Stephanie. She clearly is an incredible chef, and I’ve heard great things about her restaurant. She definitely deserved the win.
If I recall past seasons correctly, just as there is a “risotto curse” on TC, the contestant who takes the “executive chef” position for the losing restaurant of restaurant wars usually gets the ax.Even if Kristen had not fallen on her sword, the judge’s argue that ultimate responsibility rests with the executve chef.
My point is that the narrative in the all-star season makes it sound like Richard had no competition and a woman only won because he blew it, not on her own merits – to illustrate, what one would have said if Paul had lost in Season 9. I was surprised when I watched Season 4 only about a month ago and saw something incredibly different. My impression was that both chefs wowed the judges pretty consistently – Richard for his baffling creativity and Stephanie for her consistent execution and knowledge (an area where, in Season 4, Richard was uneven; he’d clearly grown by all-stars).
Thats a fair statement. I think in the AS season, they tried to craft narratives for all the frontrunners, and saying that Blais was the ’07 Pats is the easiest one, when in reality, he was more like the ’09 Colts.
As we were preparing for who would go home, my wife said to me, “It’s going to be Kristen.” I replied, “No way. It’ll be Josie. The judges aren’t stupid.” Boy was I wrong. I was angry at the decision since it was so horribly wrong.
The main problem I had with the decision is the horrible inequity of how the judges handled it. Had Sheldon’s team lost, there’s no way that they would have sent Stefan home because of the horrendous way in which he handled his front of the house duties. In fact, they strongly implied that Stefan would have been sent home. It is, therefore, logically incongruous to make Kristen the fall guy for Josie’s incompetence. I can understand that the judges perhaps didn’t know the entire story but, as you pointed out, they knew something was up — particularly when that dish was the only dish that came out late, as Josie’s usually do.
The judges, thus, turned this week’s episode into a battle of Kristen vs. Sheldon which, effectively, gave the other 5 immunity for LOSING the previous week. All of Josie’s screw-ups became Kristen’s responsibility since she is running the team. If that’s the way they’re going to do restaurant wars, they should do it as the finale and use the eliminated chefs as sous chefs.
Like others, I think the producers must have been involved. It generates controversy, gives people a villain rather than eliminating her (they’ve been setting up Josie for this role for weeks), and encourages people to watch Last Chance Kitchen since Kristen’s now the hero who has been cheated. To me, that’s the only logical explanation. Even if it’s a tie between Kristen and Josie, which it wasn’t unless you want to absolve all the chefs of responsibility for their cooking, Josie should have gone home due to her history of failures and Kristen’s of success.
Come on SrirachaDragon, you couldn’t come up with a baseball reference? 😉
My personal favorite moment was when Kristen got the treatment that all Asian chefs seem to get:
“You’re not going to have any Korean influence?”
– None other than Josie
She’s doing a fucking French concept! Why would you assume she’s going to have a Korean influence? Because she’s Korean”? Everyone on the damn show is something, but it seems like only Asian chefs get that shit thrown at them.
Late to the party but three thoughts:
1) While I don’t think Kristen should have gone home, she didn’t really help her cause either. As it’s been pointed out her dishes weren’t great, she did seem to slow down things in the kitchen (Lizzy said as much) and she didn’t defend herself at Judge’s Table. In no way should she have gone home, but if we do assume the judges don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, a decision like this could be made without any producer interference. This somewhat reminded me of Restaurant Wars in Season 7 when Kenny was somewhat surprisingly sent home when he was the team leader even though he was one of the better chefs up until that point (iirc (I’m also trying to figure out how Kevin won that season still…)).
2) I felt during the entire episode that Josie may have been sabotaging the entire challenge. It’s one thing to not get something done in time, it’s another to seemingly always go out of your way to not follow directions and not get done what you said you would. She was insubordinate the entire challenge. For reasons unknown to all of us, this never ever came out at Judge’s Table. I think only Kristen has herself to blame, and I don’t think keeping the truth from the judges counts as ‘keeping one’s integrity’. But anyway, I thought Josie’s intention the entire challenge was to sabotage it, put out the tears and excuses at judges table, and hope for the best. Somehow the judges didn’t see through the act.
3) I’ve seen a lot of comparisons of Kristen to Paul… I don’t see it. I think Brooke isn’t that far behind Kristen and Sheldon might be on to something here. I also think the talent on the whole was better last year, or at least, more forward thinking.
Keith, great insight, as always. I watched the episode a few days late – was suitably shocked, having avoided previous social media accounts of it – and then raced over to the Dish to read your reaction.
You verbalized my outrage over a reality show that I should not care this much about.
But to be balanced, I also read Tom’s post to see if he could defend the outcome.
And, actually, I think he did. I thought his points were worthwhile, and of course, we are privy to much more than the judges, and we have the benefit of a tightly edited, consumable TV package, which is naturally going to have a narrative presented. The judges do not.
So, based on his statements, I can at least see how they made their decision, although I still would have gone with Josie at that point, given their information.
The real issue I have is with the concept that they are supposed to only judge that week’s performance. Why? What is the purpose of that?
I understand that the main criterion for judging should be that week’s dish, but why not consider the body of work, too? Your show is to identify the best chef. It seems this system may just identify the person who can avoid being the worst week-to-week, before finally winning the final challenge.
If that had been the case with Josie v. Kristen, surely Kristen’s complete work would have trumped her perceived failing this week.