Here were my Power Rankings during the second week of this Top Chef season:

1) Kevin

2) Michael V.

3) Jen

4) Bryan V.

5) Eli

Yyyyyyep…If you need me, I’ll be leaning back in my chair the rest of the day simultaneously dusting off my hands and cracking my knuckles. Let’s just say I frickin’ EARN those Tasti D-Lite coupons that VH1 pays me in lieu of a salary.

My thoughts on last night’s Chefpisode:

– The Quickfire: Cook a thing inside a thing inside a thing, in honor of Vegas’ legal prostitution.

– “Welcome back” says Padma to Jen after tasting her weird seafood Russian nesting doll. Nice to see Jen back on the wagon (the cooking one) after a couple super-shaky weeks; her chances to win are probably shot, but she’ll at least go out on a high note. Unless she gets nervous next week and slips on a banana peel and flings a pot of soup up in the air and it lands on the Queen of England’s head and she’s like “Well I never!” Otherwise she’s fine.

– I get the impression some PA at Bravo was told to go through Michael’s 500 minutes of testimonial footage and pull out two lines that almost came close to being sliiiiiightly inflammatory towards Kevin. He doesn’t appear to dislike Kevin, but Bravo’s grasping reaaally hard to portray him as the Stefan “talented but too arrogant” villain who’s gonna lose the Final, when in reality he is a robot. Not sure how many more times we have to go over this fact.

– Kevin spent the entire episode being super-defensive about his simple style of cooking, even declaring that his decision to keep things really simple was, in itself, a very ballsy move. Kevin — don’t get intimidated by Michael’s two pseudo-insults about your simplicity. He’s just saying the words that the microchip the Bravo producers installed into his robo-brain forces him to say to create conflict down the home stretch. Your cooking is fine.

…Or WAS IT fine? Elimination Challenge and Final Four after the jump:

– Whew! Bravo left in the Whole Foods shopping montage this week after cutting it a week ago. It’s always so exciting to see the chefs ask for ingredients and then pay for them. I mostly watch tv in general for the exchange of goods and services.

– The Elimination Challenge: Take this thing that the best chefs in the word take 9 months to prepare for and do it in a few hours. No Vegas themes, no “make something sparkly you saw at a casino,” no “you’re cooking for the military so tell us why this challenge is extra special to you,” it was just, “here’s a really really frickin’ hard challenge that won’t let you hide, Mother[BLEEP]ers.” (There’ve been so many bleeps this season, it’s only a matter of time before Padma actually just swears at them in the Challenge descriptions.)

– It was clear from Eli’s “The bees are on the what now?” reaction that he was gone from the moment the Challenge was described.

– Jen shrewdly used her extra 30 minutes from the Quickfire to actually stop and talk to Tom! She didn’t run by him nine times saying “Busy busy busy busy!!!!” and singing “Gettin’ Jiggy With It” replacing the word “Jiggy” with “Busy.”

– Kevin overcame not one but TWO classic Top Chef mega-traps to win the Elimination Challenge:

1) “I don’t know how to do this technique at all, but golly, I’m gonna try it!”

2) “I know they want us to do this for the challenge, but I’m not going to!”

Amazing that he not only didn’t get eliminated after those moves, he won frickin’ $30,000 and a shot to represent the U.S. in a prestigious international cooking competition that I’m too lazy to look up how to spell.

– I have no basis for this analysis, but I got the impression that Kevin won the money and thanked Padma really excitedly, then a Bravo producer was like “Cut! Kevin, you have to mention the M Resort when you thank the judges,” and Kevin agreed, then when they re-shot it Kevin exaggeratedly went “I love the M Resort!!! It’s my favorite!” and Tom noticeably cracked up in the background. Screw it, I’m just gonna declare that that’s definitely what happened.

– Eli was clearly overmatched, especially in this fivesome, but he’s still frickin’ 25, he’ll land on his feet. His tears were a little unexpected though– who does he think he is, Kevin after winning?

Next week on Top Chef: “Look what you’re playing for…” CUT TO: A train. The chefs compete to see which one wins a train. Or are they cooking food for the train? It’s got to be one or the other. Special guest: This fella.

And remember: What happens in Napa Valley…… never mind. I can’t believe they made it the whole season without saying it.

Episode thoughts? Favorite / least favorite parts? Finale predictions? Leave ‘em all in the comments.

– Bryan, what the hell are you doing making an episode-opening phone call? Don’t you know that’s reserved for sucky chefs who know they’re about to be eliminated so they try to guilt their way into staying an extra week by promising to hit a culinary home run for their terminally-ill mother who is also an orphaned child?

– For this week’s Quickfire, Padma and guest judge Nigella Lawson attempt to cover up their steamy one-night stand by pretending that a “Breakfast In Bed” room service challenge was their plan the whole time. Contestants are challenged to cook a $14 bowl of Corn Flakes and put a dome over it.

–  Michael yells “BLEEP! BLEEP!” within the first one second of the Quickfire, before he could have possibly done anything / seen anything / processed information and reacted to it in the form of swearing. This was by far the BLEEPest episode of the season.

– When Kevin walked into the bedroom, I joked “So for my breakfast, I made a roast leg of lamb…” and he immediately made my joke a non-joke by revealing his “hearty” steak and eggs, mentioning that they like their breakfasts “hearty” down in the heartland while listening to Heart.

– Eli wins the Quickfire with a delicious-sounding Reuben Benedict, and earns a crucial advantage for the Elimination Challenge: Continuing to not be Robin.

– For the Elimination Challenge, contestants are each given a Vegas casino to explore, select a detail about, and strain really hard to come up with a tenuous connection between that detail and the dish they wanted to cook anyway.

– In a perfect world, the scene where Bryan got inspired by the Mandalay Bay aquarium would’ve immediately cut to him in the kitchen with a frying pan just cooking the whole shark he had just been looking at.

– Really Makes Me Want To Go To Vegas Moment Of The Night: Jen sitting in the Excalibur “Knights” show by herself amidst three empty rows. Her feigned excitement was just the awkward gravy on top of the other awkward gravy.

After the jump, the shocking Elimination Challenge results, and the (second) best quote of the entire Top Chef season:

– Bravo cut the entire Whole Foods shopping scene. It really threw me off not getting to see Eli beeline right for some random food, then Michael patronizingly say “Eli went right for this food, and I was like, good luck with that,” then someone asking to see the scallops and going “yes, I’ll take them.”

– The show played a really funny “Viva Las Vegas” royalty-free sound-alike right as the contestants arrived at the convention space. I’m betting it was a Pump Audio song called, like, “Hooray Nevada!” (Any video editors in the crowd tonight?)

– Gimmie one sec to hit Control-V, aaaaand… Michael, Bryan, and Kevin are this week’s Top Three.

– At Judge’s Table, Michael Voltaggio delivers the quote of the night and second-greatest quote of the season:

“I figured, chicken wings, New York, firefighters – probably something they like to eat.”

Not quite as amazing as Preeti’s “The day I first realized I definitely wanted to be a chef, for me, was 9/11.”, but right up there. My roommate and I rewound it three times.

– Not only does Michael dish out the quote of the night, he frickin’ WINS after his ridiculous explanation. Tom and Nigella agree that his dish is probably something those firefighters like to eat.

– For his deconstructed chicken wing (if you love deconstructing things so much, why don’t you MARRY someone and deconstruct her am I right??), Michael wins “2 Days and 3 Nights” at Terlato Family Vineyards. I guess he’s not allowed to show up during the daytime on that first day — he has to arrive, sleep there, then begin Day 1 the next morning.

– The Bottom Three was even more shocking: Robin, Jen, Eli

– Toby Young, to Jen: “I’m afraid your dish was more Spamalot than Camelot.” Meaning, it was a 2005 musical that won a bunch of Tonys, not a 1960 musical that won a bunch of Tonys. Also, the meat was too tough, making it more like spam than a castle, on opposite day.

– Tom: “Unfortunately, Eli, your dish WAS a circus.” Eli’s thought bubble: “Then…don’t I win?”

– Again, not difficult, but I think we all predicted the Robin elimination the second she started walking around her casino, yammering about being inspired by that sculpture and using the words “art” and “gelatin.” She nailed three of Top Chef’s biggest “obviously going to be eliminated” cliches:

1) “I have no idea how to do this, but I’m gonna try it!”

2) “Hey judges, here’s this thing I was gonna make but messed it up so it’s not on the dish remember that!!!”

3) Being Bad

– A tiny sliver of my brain briefly entertained the thought of a possible Jen elimination just to shake things up on Bravo’s end and add some controversy to these pointless weeks leading up to the Brothers & Kevin finale, but if Robin had made it through to next week, no one would’ve watched next week’s episode, it would’ve just been too obvious. This episode was inevitable from about the .0001 second mark on.

Power Rankings, brought to you by “We’re not going to the M Resort for this Quickfire but we have to mention it by name every week”:

1) Kevin

2) Michael V – The “Next week on Top Chef” clip of him ripping on Kevin’s food yet again is really setting him up to be humbled in the finale. [INPUT: Trigger Humility Program v3.1 - CONGRATULATIONS HUMAN PEER. YOU ARE RIGHTFULLY VICTORIOUS. PLEASE ACCEPT MY HUMAN HAND SHAKE]

3) Bryan – He’s not even trying to hide his robo-ness anymore either.

Next To Go: Eli, Jen





Episode Thoughts? Favorite/least favorite parts? Predictions for the two weeks leading up to the Finals? Will Eli go first then Jen, or the other way around??? SO EXCITING!!!! Vent away in the comments.

– For the second straight week, “Let’s go to the M Resort” wasn’t spoken by anyone, it was just random audio dropped in over footage of the chefs leaving the house. Clearly, the show agreed to mention the M Resort by name in every episode, realized that there was no not-awkward way to do this, and just have a cameraman mutter “let’s go to the M Resort” in a Bryan imitation voice over footage where you can’t see anyone’s mouth.

– For the Quickfire, chefs were given a classic tv show and had to put their spin on the traditional tv dinner. The chefs then talk about how they grew up on tv dinners (what a HUGE advantage!) and how unfamiliar they are with the shows (”oh man I’ve never seen Gilligan’s Island — how am I gonna cook an island-themed meal if I don’t know what The Professor did in Episode 2F09, ‘Hula Parrot’??”)

– Also, “Spin on the traditional tv dinner” meant “Cooking three things and putting them in compartments.” Really made me want to subscribe to TV Guide Magazine.

– I literally do not know how Michael Isabella could have lived his life without seeing an episode of frickin’ Seinfeld. Whenever he’s near a television, does he just close his eyes and ears, ball up, and roll away screaming?

– I was disappointed that none of the shows were completely terrible theme choices, aside from Seinfeld and maybe The Flintstones. I really wanted one dude to be like, “Pepper Dennis?? Oh sh*t. Guess I’ll make something with pepper.”

After the jump, Eliminator, the ZZ Top album:

– Wow, how’d Top Chef manage to book a challenge in Craft Steak? Must know someone.

– Jen, calm down. You’re good at cooking. Eli, Robin, and Michael I. are not good at cooking. Just cook normally and you will cook better than them. Losing Top Chef 12 weeks in isn’t as embarrassing as spilling veggie sauce on Natalie Portman’s entourage.

– Could they have possibly set up the “no meat” twist any more obviously? It was already obvious from the preview clip last week of Natalie Portman saying “I have one request” and everyone being shocked, then the episode was called “Meat Natalie,” then the chefs spent 10 hours talking about the meat they would definitely be cooking, then they were let into the meat locker before even being given the challenge, and then BOOM! You can not in fact cook meat oh snap! That was such an unexpected twist, M. Night Shyamalan should’ve been the guest (he only eats meals that are twists).

– Michael Isabella has 60 G-D dishes on his restaurant menu? Is he the chef at a 24-hour diner? Though I guess that would explain a lot…

– Michael also came through with the inspirational quote of the night: “Gold medals are lost in the last six minutes of competition when people change their mind.” So true! The 200m is always lost when a runner decides with only 6 minutes to go in the 20 second race that he’s gonna run the other direction.

– Padma elicited some giggles when she described the garlic as being like “A little prick on the tip of my tongue.” I wish there was some way to see everyone at the table simultaneously thinking “Don’t make a Salman Rushdie joke, don’t make a Salman Rushdie joke…”

– Regardless, Kevin – the meatiest meater that ever meated — wins the Quickfire then the Elimination Challenge and manages to hold back the tears when he receives a suite of GE appliances with which to cook his own Schwann’s frozen dinner. Talk about the high life — the dude’s practically living in a rap video at this point.

– Not that it’s been particularly difficult this season, but I called Michael’s departure less than halfway through the episode for my seventh straight correct elimination prediction, yelling it out loud in a room of no other people. Can I somehow make money off this pointless talent? Other than the $20 a week I’m making now, I mean?

– Robin stays on the show another week after giving this frantic, rambly explanation of her dish:

– The show hasn’t done anything Vegasy in a while. What happened to, like, forcing the chefs to cook playing cards with slot machines?

Updated Power Rankings

1) Kevin – I feel like he’s gonna emerge from the brothers scuffle to take this thing; he’s too good of a chef, too likable, and too memorable to lose to Robot A or Robot A.1.

2) Michael V – I really get the sense that the show’s setting him up to be the Stefan A-Hole runner-up (they tried the same thing with Richard the season before but he was too nice). Michael’s comment about “I could’ve made Kevin’s dish in 20 minutes” is the stuff of future comeuppance-getters.

3) Bryan V – He’s, whatever.

4) Jen – She received one of the most damning evaluations ever from Tom, who explained “We’ve seen chefs this late in the competition get tired and psychologically they start falling apart.” I’m not sure when Top Chef became Full Metal Jacket, but after seeing Jen’s nerves these past two weeks, she seems more likely to shoot Tom from a toilet than to win this thing.

Next To Go) Robin, Eli. Doy.

Next Week On Top Chef: Toby Young believes that a chef has taken a Vegas gamble and lost, just like Tom Cruise in the movie Rain Main (is probably what he says after that).

Episode thoughts? Reactions? Favorite/Least Favorite parts? Robin stuff? Finals predictions? TV Shows you would have liked to have seen in the Quickfire? Leave it all in the comments.

– Blank knives with two of them saying “First Choice” and “Second Choice”?? What happened to knives that say “Rutabaga”, “Shoehorn”, and “Dennis Quaid”? (”When I drew ‘Dennis Quaid’ I wuz like, whoa!”)

– The relay-race Quickfire was legitimately creative and exciting, though, and was one of those occasional “Oh, this show can be awesome sometimes” moments. It would’ve been more awesome if Robin used her ten minutes to literally just take a dump on her team’s partially completed meal.

– I love when the show has a “BLEEP” when there’s no one on the screen. They couldn’t just cut it? They have to let you know that during the exterior shot of the Whole Foods someone happened to swear?

– Also, the line “Let’s go to the M Resort” was uttered by NOBODY, it was just recorded some other time and dropped over footage of the chefs leaving the house when no one’s mouth was visible, clearly to appease the M people and their demanding Chairman.

– CONTROVERSY!!! Laurine tried to steal Robin’s revelatory SPARKLING WATER idea, but Robin was having none of it. In response, Robin stole Laurine’s idea to put the food on top of the plates rather than underneath.

– Why is Jen always so GD nervous and busy when Tom stops by? She’s like that person at your job where you swing by their desk to ask if they want to grab lunch and they always say they’re “just way waaaay too busy,” and you’re like, “um, I also work here, but…never mind.”

– Jen also delivered the quote of the night: “[BLEEP]. We’re [BLEEP]ed.”

– Restaurant Names More Appetizing Than “REVOLT”

• Terrib
• Disgus
• Ba
• Tastes Like Shi

After the jump, both Voltaggio Brothers get eliminated (SPOILER!!!)

– Revolt was clearly the winning restaurant, but again, Bravo, have you EVER considered switching up the order in which the winners and losers are announced? There’s no bigger waste of tv time than the tense close-ups at the Judge’s Table before Padma announces “Congratulations, you are the winning team.” The first team is ALWAYS the winning team. Bravo, we don’t Men In Black flashy-thing ourselves in between episodes, we KNOW the first team is the winning team, the silence before the announcement isn’t suspenseful, it’s a waste of time. Just cut the fake suspense altogether or announce the losers first sometimes.

I’m just now realizing that I’m more passionate about this than any other single cause. It’s not sad – that’s better than not being passionate about anything, right? Don’t answer that.

– Ever notice how inorganic and annoying the cheering sound effect underneath the Bravo Poll result is?

– Brother Michael wins and splits his prize money with his team, even Robin, despite a bunch of Producers’ voices offscreen whispering “NO NO, KEEP THE MONEY, WE’RE TRYING TO MAKE YOU A JERK / INTERESTING!” Fortunately, a producer grabs Bryan before he gets back to the waiting room and convinces him to act like a jerk by refusing his brother’s generosity. We still know they’re both robots, Bravo, but we really appreciate the effort.

– Laurine loses, because she’s not good and Kevin and Jen are good and Michael Isabella didn’t do anything bad this week.

– You could tell Laurine was getting eliminated before the episode began. Before the season began, even. Before the concept of television as a form of illusory movement powered by electricity was a human ideal, even.

– Laurine’s post-elimination quote: “I’m a rock, but sometimes even rocks rock too hard, like when I listen to Rock N’ Roll all night and watch Rocky in the Rocky Mountains. And I eat that ice cream flavor, butter pecan. What? Yeah, butter pecan, what should I have said?”

YOU CAN’T SPELL “POWER RANKINGS” WITHOUT SOME OF THE LETTERS FROM “SEATTLE’S BEST”:

1) Michael Voltaggio
2) Bryan Voltaggio
3) Kevin
4) Jen

Next To Go: Robin, Eli, Michael I.

– NEXT WEEK ON TOP CHEF: Natalie Portman has just one request, but it makes everyone go “HOLY MOTHER SH*TF**K!!!!!!” Maybe she asks everyone to listen to the dialogue from Attack of the Clones while cooking? Nah, no one was stabbing themselves, has to be something less extreme. We’ll see.

Episode thoughts? Favorite Parts? Predictions? Exclamations of shock that Laurine didn’t win the Season? Leave ‘em in the comments.

– Angel versus Devil Quickfire! Was that some weird Angels & Demons DVD cross-promotion? Because that theme was a little bit of a…

Also, who has an “Angel” on their shoulder in Vegas? “For me, Vegas is a constant struggle between ’should I help that old lady cross the street, or should I do coke off that stripper’s cleavage? I will now represent this conundrum with halibut.”

– Last week, Ashley pulled the “raised on food stamps” card and successfully turned her competition around, and this week, Robin casually slipped her battle with lymphoma into her Quickfire presentation, and mysteriously ended up on top. A disgruntled Eli then uttered “I wish she’d lost that cancer battle so we’d have a little quiet in the kitchen,” which I thought was slightly uncalled for.

– Guest Judge Michelle Bernstein wasn’t subtle with the innuendo in the Quickfire. First she tells Kevin “That is one big fat piece of bacon!” then tells Eli “Cheap thrills? My Favorite kind…” then tells Bryan “Your dish would go great with anal sex with me.”

– The Mattin Tribute was both heartfelt and necessary. I still can’t believe he died last episode.

– Michael Isabella continued his pattern of alternating smart and stupid performances -

Two Weeks Ago: “Derrrrr…bearnaise?”

Last Week: “Curing cactus is a delicate process, permit me to demostrate.”

This Week: “Derrrrr…EGGS?”

How does he not know what Eggs Florentine is? Even I know how to make that, and my only experience with the dish is ordering it at brunch at 4 pm while still too hungover to read or taste ingredients.

Next week he’ll be like “So I came up with this grand unified quantum physics theory…” followed by the week after, “I didn’t know you could cook with chicken.”

– Michael also shamelessly repeated the “Florentine is foreign-ta-me!” joke twice — who do you think you are, dude, me? Trust people who hang around me, it’s annoying.

After the jump, let’s pour ourselves a nice tall glass of ELMINADE!

– Kevin won the Elimination Challenge for his re-imagined chicken mole, and also received the Naturalest Sentence Ever Award for his exclamation, “Hey, guess who just won a set of Calphalon Unison Non-Stick!”

– Ron definitely deserved to lose this week, and you could see it coming pretty far in advance; it was like watching miners mine ore, watching that ore melted into steel, the steel turned into beams, the beams used to lay railroad track, other steel used to construct two trains, two humans being born and going to conductor school then becoming train conductors, boarding those two trains, then the trains wrecking, with twisted metal and sh*tty paella flying all over the place.

– Toby Young was very effortfully not-annoying this week, perhaps taking to heart the venomous hatred from the blogosphere during last season (I wasn’t a fan, but our commenters wanted to frickin’ murder him). Perhaps that car crash lobotomized him a bit.

– Still, 65% of Bravo voters believe that Toby is a “Bloody Cad,” while only 35% believe he is an “English Gent.” I voted for a write-in candidate, “Bleedin’ Bangers n’ Mash In Me Queen’s Trousers, Love!”

– Did you notice, as Laurine was explaining “The chips aren’t totally crisping the way I wanted them to, so I decided I’d try to re-crisp them by putting them back into the fryer…” this song started playing in the background:

– Ashley was so poor, she didn’t eat much beef growing up. She still has childhood scars from these commercials.

– Ron’s exit speech: “If finishing in eleventh place in a basic cable reality cooking competition isn’t the American Dream, then I don’t know what is. Oh wait, maybe like, Democracy? Nah I’m sticking with the first thing I said.”

Guess Who Won A Set Of Calphalon Unison Updated Top 5!

1) Michael V: The excitement just never starts!

2) Bryan V: First or second, it’s just splitting tans.

3) Kevin

4) Jen: Pulled a rare “Sounded Defeated in the Testimonials But Actually Did Well” turnaround, despite being so busy she could only talk to Tom for seven seconds instead of the standard nine.

T-5) Ashley, Michael Isabella, Eli

Prepare Your Tributes) Robin, Ash, Laurine

– Next Week On Top Chef: Bravo clearly runs up against their budget as the chefs have to cook a meal in their house kitchen! With special Guest Judge, Ron! Cookin’ in your kitchen is what VEGAS IS ALL ABOUT DICE BLACKJACK!

Episode thoughts? Favorite/least favorite parts? Predictions? Toby Young reactions? Leave ‘em in the comments!

This week, Nicholson randomly dropped by the Ritz Carlton in Philly to watch Wednesday’s Top Chef episode with none other than Philly-based competitor Jennifer Carol, a surefire Top Chef Vegas finalist to be:

Could Jack’s appearance mean an upcoming Top Chef victory for Jen?

At the risk of devolving into Lost-style information-scrap hoarding and reading into things too far, I’ll sayyyyyyyyy… DEFINITELY.

– Ashley pulled the ol’ “sensing my doom” plea for Top Chef sympathy, opening the show by congratulating her brother on his new child, then claiming she was raised on food stamps, and finally inserting a piece of paper saying “I HAVE CANCER-AIDS” into her dish for the Judges.

– Who voted cactus over rattlesnakes? What are you, Bravo, THE STATE OF FLORIDA IN THE 2000 ELECTION???? I have just received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Topical Satire in the middle of this bullet point. And I haven’t even gotten to my 20 minutes of sweet Elian Gonzalez material.

– How did Mike Isabella learn to cook overnight? Last week he was like, “Dahhhhhrrrrr, bear knees???” then in the Quickfire, he was describing the process to properly cure cactus. When did he touch that talent ball from SpaceJam?

– How many of these goddamn chefs grew up in the woods?? Ashley grew up in a wooden jail or something, Mattin grew up in the French woods (which definitely don’t exist), and Robin is an “outdoor girl” from Idaho who “spent a month in the woods.” No further explanation, Robin? Just sorta wandered out into the woods and chilled there for a month?

– This week’s Bravo Team Player Award goes to Eli, for his happy exclamation “Where’s the keys to the Highlander? I’m sleeping in there! Cause it’s so comfortable and roomy, not to mention economical in these tough times we’re facing! And you can fit SO MUCH Swanson broth in the trunk!”

– I was hoping the Elimination Challenge twist would be that they’d have to cook for the Bunny Ranch, specifically the fat owner and his wife who sleep with everyone. Also instead of eating the food, they’d have sex with it.

After the jump, an Elmination Challenge that will the opposite of shock you! Put a surge protector onto you, or something.

– There were SO MANY BLEEPS when the chefs arrived at the tepees. Has anyone ever gotten that instantly angry from little cloth tents? “Whoa tepees f***ing motherf***er sh*tf**k! Also, ass!”

– Ron’s doing voodoo now? He’s an Indians uniform shy of literally becoming Pedro Cerrano. Then later, he was asking for a sword — is he gradually going back in time? Next week, is he just gonna be a literal dinosaur?

– Speaking of Ron, more advice to my future son, if he ever goes on Top Chef: Never make two dishes. The judges will always hate the second one and tell you how much better you would’ve done if you’d just stuck with one. Then my son will go “goo!” He’s one year old in this hypothetical.

– The Bravo Poll Question of the Week: Who would you want as a tentmate?

Ashley – 12%
Mattin – 16%
Getting Eiffel-Towered by the Voltaggio Brothers – 72%

– Tom’s critique of Robin just kept getting more insulting as it went: “This isn’t really something you want to serve at a Ranch, or really anywhere. Also, your haircut doesn’t totally suit you, or really any non-fugly human being. Just my feedback.”

– Two best editing moments of the episode:

#1) In the Quickfire, Tim Love: “Did you have fun with the cactus?” Ron: “I did!” Tim: “I don’t give a sh*t!” (implied)

#2) In the Elimination, Tim: “This cocktail is terrible” (Cut to Ron dancing a jig)

– We’re really gonna have to wait two more weeks for Robin and Ron to get eliminated? They can’t throw in a Double Secret Probation “SUPER High Stakes Quickfire!” next week where everyone has one second to cook a dish then they just vote off Ron and Robin?

– Still, it was no surprise Mattin’s days were numbered after he finished in the bottom three during last week’s challenge, “Sing the French National Anthem.”

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS TOP 5 STAYS IN VEGAS TOP 5

(I still can’t believe they haven’t said this quote yet. I’m starting to get antsy, like that SNL monologue where Cuba Gooding Jr. kept not saying “Show me the money”)

1) Brother Brian – He’s won three Eliminations now, whoopee!

2) Brother Michael – The finale should be him and Brian battling in a Tan-Off. Wait, no, that’d be silly, it’s called Top Chef and it is a show about cooking, they’ll probably determine a winner by having them cook.

3) Jen – She’s the decent-looking girl in your college class who, because of the lack of better options, ends up looking really attractive by the end of the semester.

4) Kevin – Thanks to commenter Tam last week, he’s gonna be Yukon Cornelius for the rest of this competition / life.

Distant 5) Michael I – Moderate talent + A-holishness might be enough to keep him on ’til the end, though it’ll be a travesty if he beats out any of the above for a Finals spot.

Please Lose Already) Ron, Robin

– Seeing Toby Young on the scenes from next week was as instantly demoralizing as seeing A.J. Soprano on the “Next week on the Sopranos” segments. I’m guessing Toby returns to the Judges’ Table like Eddie Murphy returns to his vehicle in the movie “Metro”: With a bunch of pointless movie references.

Home on the range episode thoughts, people? Favorite quotes, favorite/least favorite parts, updated predictions, pre-emptive Toby Young angst? Leave it all in the comments!

– I had one of those “Probably take this show too seriously” moments when they announced that someone would be eliminated in the Quickfire and I yelled out “Holy sh*tf*ck!!” out loud in my apartment by myself. And it was teased in the episode last week and I still reacted like that. I’m a good human being.

– How obviously did the “High Stakes Quickfire” occur just to sweep Jesse under the rug before they presented to the French chefs?

– My regular TC-watching partner Matt has a pet peeve of dishes with “smears” that really obviously look like poop, and yet, there was Kevin, a clearly awesome chef, taking the high stakes Quickfire with (assuredly delicious) cartoon poo and vomit streaks. Hey, if it works, more poo-wer to him. (Ed Note: Delete that)

– Anyone who plans to go on Top Chef should be sure to specifically practice two or three go-to Amuse-bouches, cause they always come up. Memorize presidents before you go on Jeopardy, amuse-bouches before you go on Top Chef — that’s what I’m gonna tell my kids, and they’re gonna be like, “Daddy what is tv? We only watch space holograms.”

– Also, “Amuse-bouche” means “mouth amuser” in French. Hehehe.

– Does Bravo realize Laurine is still on the show?

– Also, if Mattin can’t even get out of the bottom on French Week, he’s really screwed when they get to the “Not Wearing A Gilbert & Sullivan Character’s Costume” Challenge.

After the jump, THE ELIMINATOR. Yep, they had to go through the American Gladiators obstacle course this week. Crazy Twist.

– Little overboard on the high-powered Judging Panel, eh Top Chef? How are they possibly going to top the caliber of guest talent from this episode on future weeks? In the finale, they’re gonna somehow resurrect Julia Child and just have her and Laurence Olivier chilling at a table.

– Is that what you call “teamwork,” Michael I.? My friend Kevin and I “teamed up” for this IM exchange this morning:

Me: They kept talking about their teamwork, but Bryan was LITERALLY holding his hand while he made the sauce!

Kevin: it was like an improv game where mike’s hands were tied behind his back and bryan actually made the sauce

Truer words…

– Michael I. doesn’t appear to know what he’s doing, but should still survive for a while on testimonial-arrogance; I can’t believe he actually said “If they understand the concept of our broken-down Bearnaise, we should be good,” as though he (er, Bryan) might have conceptualized something too advanced for a panel of five of the world’s greatest French chefs to comprehend. “If Scorsese understands what I did with this establishing shot…”

– Hector probably did deserve to go home, but he’s at least performed decently so far, and I’d definitely hire him over Robin, Ron, or Ashley. Or Lisa from two seasons ago (been a while since I took that shot, I’m required to every three weeks).

– I kept expecting even the translator dude to stand up and say “Hector’s meat effing buhh-lowwws.”

– Ron & Robin are both well into the American Idol “Do we really have to wait extra weeks to just see when these people lose?” category, which strikes every reality show around Episode 5. Someone should write a song about them to the tune of “Rockin’ Robin,” only it’s about chefs who aren’t good instead of a bird that rocks.

– Gail’s quote, “We couldn’t have had this meal at this point during any other Top Chef season” was completely right. If this had been last season, Joël Robuchon would’ve lined up 10 of the chefs against a brick wall and massacred them with a Tommy gun.

Updated Top 5 From the M Resort (As in, “MMMMMM – Food!”)

1a & b) The Brothers - Essentially taking turns dominating, but Bravo will have to weigh the “Brothers Showdown” finale potential against the fact that they’re both really kinda boring.

2) Jen - Absolute shoe-in for the Finale. Just a matter of who brings their A+ game that day. And takes it one game at a time. Can’t win ‘em all. No “I” in team. Any given Sunday… was not a great movie.

3) Kevin - It’s inconceivable that the finale will end up being a different foursome than the Brothers, Jen and Kevin, unless Bravo’s like “Crazy Vegas twist! That Preeti chick wins somehow. Told you anything can happen Vegas baby OMG!!!!!”

Distant 4) Eli - I guess?

T-5) Not Going To Win — Ron, Robin, Ash, Michael I., Ashley, Laurine.

Episode thoughts? Favorite Lines? Predictions? Ripping on Michael Isabella? Leave ‘em all in the comments.

– Three weeks in, it is painfully obvious how much better the chefs are on Top Chef Vegas than on Top Chef New York. From now on, I’m referring to TC:NY as the NFC West of Top Chef seasons.

– Think we had enough testimonials of chefs mentioning that they have family in the military so this challenge is special for them? I was waiting for one dude (probably Michael I.) to be like, “Yeah, I got no family in the military, so I don’t give a crap about what the military does for us. I put rocks in my food.”

– If you thought wasted dudes at a Vegas pool were finicky food connoisseurs, wait’ll you see servicemen and women returning from duty in Afghanistan! They will NOT stand for underseasoned shrimp in their Greek salads!

– Mark Peel: “The most difficult ingredient that you’ll be working with in this Quickfire Challenge, of course, is time. The second is potatoes.”

– Did anyone else think of a Mark Peel “potato” joke? I’ll bet I’m the only one to have thought of that ever.

– I can’t believe Ash got away with his sweet potato ice cream-turned-custard, not because it looked bad, but because it had all the makings of the “interview after the results, talk about how I screwed up” lead-up to the judges ripping on his dish. I wish Mark Peel had at least quoted, “Then you go ahead and do something like this, Ash…….and TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!”

After the jump, the Airtacular Elimination Challenge, and THE GREATEST QUOTE IN TOP CHEF HISTORY:

– Something got stuck in the judges’ craw in the Elimination Challenge, huh? They were all like, “Here’s our craw – what the F*CK did you f*ckers stick in it?? Now we’re gonna take your underseasoned dishes personally.” I’m guessing the Bravo producers tampered with said craw; this season’s group is so much better than TC:NY, they have to make up for it my laying into the couple crappy chefs even harder.

– How satisfying was it to watch Michael I’s reaction when Padma told him to come back with the bottom group? Watching his smugness from his partner’s winning dish transform into fumbling excuses over his pointless salad was simply breathtaking television. They need to submit that two minutes and Preeti’s 9/11 quote to the Emmys for consideration as “Greatest Televised Things.”

– Preeti’s pasta salad looked a little familiar:

– No comments about gays in the military, Ashley? Or did Bravo just cut her dissertation for time?

– Preeti at least went down with the greatest (non-Fabio) quote in the history of Top Chef:

“The day I first realized I definitely wanted to be a chef, for me, was 9/11.”

I realized how fragile life is, and how vulnerable we all are, and I just thought to myself: I really need to start making some sh*tty pasta salads. Also, the military is a theme this week, so, you know, 9/11. Those cameras aren’t on and that mic you put on me is fake, right?

– Padma’s pretty hot regardless, but what was up with her leopardskin skirt at the airbase? It reminded me of Lindsay Bluth wearing her sparkly “SLUT” t-shirt to prison after she was pissed about not getting enough cat calls.

UPDATED TOP 5:

1a) Brother Michael – He’s been absolutely on fire (literally look at his tan lolol), but Tom’s reaction to his bacon dish was uncharacteristically giddy. I haven’t seen Tom blush like that since the truckloads of “you’re our gay idol” mail from the TC:NY Reunion.

1b) Kevin – Didn’t win this week, but dropping him to the second spot is just splitting beard-hairs, he’s pretty much nailed every challenge, and I don’t see him just randomly screwing everything up one week.

1c) Jen – It’s gonna take either a one-week total botching by someone or Bravo to demand a Brothers Finale for Kevin/Michael/Jen not to be the Top 3. But I’ve been wrong before.

4) Brother Bryan – Also has yet to really make a bad impression, and his legitimacy plus the Bravo desire for brother-rivalry should let him cruise into the final weeks. Is his sister in the military? Someone look into that.

5) Eli – Solid performer from Day One; may be more of a “does well enough week to week” guy than a “grab this competition and win it” guy, but he could’ve won Top Chef New York (Though I think I could’ve at least made the finals.

No Chance: Jesse, Michael Isabella, Laurine, Ron

Episodes without “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” joke: 3. (Ironically, I took the “Under” on the Vegas Over/Under of .0001 episodes.)

Episode thoughts? Reactions, predictions, favorite lines other than the 9/11 one, Michael schadenfreude? Leave ‘em in the comments.

– Nothing says CRAZY VEGAS BACHELOR PARTY quite like hanging around one pool in the afternoon eating hors d’oeuvres ten feet away from your bride’s bachelorette party doing the exact same thing! WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS STAYS IN VEGAS OMG!!!! (They’ve now made it two episodes without saying this, which I cannot believe).

– Also, the people in the parties clearly weren’t going to be picky about the food. Could you imagine pounding tequila shots with friends around a pool in Vegas, then turning and being like “You know, I wasn’t totally getting the citrus in this octopus ceviche. Really disappointing.”

– I loved Jen’s complaint, “I hate this Battle of the Sexes – it doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or girl.” Well, yeah, but have you seen how frickin’ arbitrary the team divisions usually are?? Is Girls versus Boys really lamer than having Chefs randomly draw knives that say “Falcon,” “Neptune,” and “Neil Young”?

– Yes, it’s absurd that gay marriage is still illegal throughout most of this country, but that tantrum by Ashley was pretty unnecessary. “What do you mean, why am I mad? Because we’re being asked to make appetizers in a weekly Vegas-themed reality cooking show for two people celebrating a traditional fun precursor to a ceremony that most states do not allow our orientation to partake in!” Your challenge next week – create a dish based on one of Carrot Top’s rejected props. “Sure, no problem!”

After the jump, the Elimination Challenge VEGAS STYLE. Meaning, it is literally in the city of Las Vegas:

– Everyone seemed so helpless and baffled in the sun, with the same complaints repeated again and again; my friend Mike responded to the screen, “If only they were to invent some sort of lotion that was anti the sun, but sadly they do not have that…”

– I thought for sure Eli’s tuna tartare was destined for failure; it sounded like about the last thing I’d ever want to eat poolside on a 200 degree day served in handheld individual-catering form, but he pulled it off. Will it be enough to get him into this week’s Top Five? A lot of people care.

– Another necessary, content-tastic DVR-buster segment! Michael’s line, “You guys are like two pickles in a…pickle brine!” sounded like a joke I’d make, and I’m extremely annoying, trust me.

– Ashley made another classic Top Chef giveaway, when she mentioned in her testimonial about her panna cotta “I’m not really a pastry chef, not sure how this’ll turn out…” Is there a bigger red flag that someone’s going to screw up a dish than the “I’m not really a [BLANK]” comment, other than maybe adding corn starch at the last minute or using canned/frozen protein? No one’s ever like “I decided to make a soufflé, even though I’ve never made one before” and had the judges be like “I can’t believe this isn’t your strong suit, it was so good!” Don’t make a frickin’ pastry, then! Do these people not read my weekly recaps?? I thought everyone in the country did.

– After the bottom four left the Judges’ Table, Todd English suddenly commented “I thought Ashley’s watermelon was one of the best dishes of the night.” He then turned into the camera and dramatically added, “But I must nevah tell her…”

– Eve was pretty clearly not going anywhere this season, and her dismissal was less shocking than a — what’s not shocking? — than a surge protector. Hey. Yo.

– After Padma’s “Please pack your knives and go” this week, my friend Nate blurted out maybe the most obvious joke ever that I honestly don’t believe I’ve ever actually thought of — “You are…the BOTTOM CHEF.”

– Next to go? Gotta be Jesse, unless someone murders Padma with a scallop or something, in which case, she’s gone the week after.

Top Chef Las Vegas Top 5 Brought To You By The New Glad Hotel And Casino:

1) Kevin – This picture is out of focus, but his Quickfire dish was amazing-looking. Didn’t finish in the Top 4, but already impossible to imagine this guy not making it to the finals. [Ed Note - The Mattin picture to the right is unrelated to this Top 5. Can't imagine why commenters were confused, it's just an unexplained picture of a dude right next to another dude's name.]

2) Brother Michael – Won the Quickfire, second in the Elimination; might not even need the Bravo “keep rivalry intact” producer cheat to go far this season.

3) Jen – The top three chefs all appear better than anyone from last season except Stefan, and the remainder of the field is infinitely stronger. (Carla made the finals?? Hosea WON??? Was that a season?)

4) Brother Bryan – This song should play every time the brothers end up head-to-head.

5) Eli – Mostly avoided criticism in the first two weeks; doubt he can win it, but has “won’t F-up badly enough to lose for a while” written all over him.

– The clip for next week’s episode showed a bunch of U.S. soldiers clapping for the chefs for some reason. I’m looking forward to a speech, “Sure, everyone recognizes soldiers, but who are the real heroes? The answer is that the chefs are the real heroes. Let’s hear it for them.”

Top Chef Vegas Episode 2 thoughts? Predictions, favorite lines, favorite parts, favorite really shoehorned-in gay marriage tantrums — leave ‘em in the comments!