So why TC? The answer is simple and thus instantly comprehensible: it's about food. Not people singing Christina Aguilera ballads or engaging in a fierce tug-of-war for the right to wear a shark fin atop their head for the needed advantage in some contrived "challenge".
But leave it to good ol' Patrick...
One Friday afternoon, as we chilled villainous at his home, he switched the TV to the Bravo network. Before my eyes were a handful of folks dressed up in chef gear (well, minus the hats) standing before a table of judges. It seemed Patrick's mom got him hooked on Top Chef last week with the debut episode of the third season and he was desirous of catching the second episode, which he'd missed earlier in the week. My general unease over things in this life embraced and championed by Patrick's mother aside, I gave in. Luckily for all involved, this second episode involved a BBQ "challenge", wherein the 14 remaining chefs were required to russle up the yummy for some Miami snobs. In case you've forgotten, or never in fact knew, everyone is a winner when BBQ is involved. Well, everyone except the chef who got kicked off at the end of the ep.
The competition is now down to 7, with a new installment due this Wednesday, 10 PM Eastern. I have, much to the shock of any and all who have dutifully endured my circuitous rants against the phenomenon of reality-based entertainment and its concurrent ill-effects on the historically writer-friendly medium of television, been a devoted viewer. Honestly, I haven't been this emotionally invested in an hour of TV since the last season of Hill Street Blues, when I kept hoping for someone, anyone--even Goldblume--to blow Norman Buntz' goddamn head off.
Let's look at, first, the 8 who have come and gone from the Bravo kitchen.
CLAY (eliminated in ep. 1)
AMUSED DOUCHE: The Southern, aw shucks-type fucko with a back story that Flannery O'Connor rejected for her fiction as too weird: his pops was a chef who committed suicide when the pressures of the profession became much too much to bear.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Was incredibly funny, which of course meant he was doomed to never be taken even two ounces of serious by his competitors or us at home. Also quite a bit cute, no?
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Flat out, Clay had a chance to rep lovely for a region of the country, and a style of cooking, that is treated with chuckling derision by established foodies when they're being nice. He failed demonstrably. Hopefully, his out sized humor and graciousness will not depart from him and result in the unfortunate gutting of some poor soul who thought repeatedly referring to Clay as "Cletus" at Food Lion would be too freaking funny.
SANDEE (sent home in ep. 2)
AMUSED DOUCHE: Self-taught chef nearing 40 years of age. More to the point, a lesbian with a fauxhawk.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Gregarious personality and untrammelled creative urge in the kitchen makes for one chef that left way too early. Bravo, producers!
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Booted after the "high-end barbecue" challenge, when judges deemed her poached lobster "not barbecue". She put it on a grill, for Christ's sake. Meanwhile, Joey's decidedly non-high end drumstick and Howie's Sandpaper Meat Delight went unpunished.
MICAH (blessedly removed from our televisions on ep. 3)
AMUSED DOUCHE: Was from South Africa, then wasn't. This subterfuge rather blew up in a bitch face. Oh, and she so so missed being with her daughter, Matilda. It's so hard being a single mom with a nationality crisis.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Named her child after the British Bulldogs mascot...maybe! I like to think so, anyway.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: During the awesome "Family Favorites" challenge, Micah talked smack about America--the very country she pretended not to be from! Actually, all she did was introduce her reimagined meatloaf with the fateful words, "I know you Americans like to put ketchup on things" which caused judge Ted Allen's birdcage door to fly open with great fanfare and a flaming yellow canary came forth to announce to one and all that xenophobic meat towers aren't even worthy to double as poop in a forthcoming Pink Flamingos remake.
CAMILLE (gone for good in ep. 4)
AMUSED DOUCHE: A lot of viewers found her, uh, "hot."
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Um...a female chef. I am contractually obligated by the presence of ovaries to support the women in this thing.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Except she isn't really that hot, or that good of a chef. She earned her ouster via fucking up a pineapple dish, which Top Chef has taught me is the culinary equivalent of fucking up at suicide.
LIA (completely shafted in ep. 5)
AMUSED DOUCHE: Sous-chef at NY's famed Jean-Georges. Along with Tre, one of two chefs amid this year's crop actually approached by the TC producers to compete.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Delightfully cute, right down to the rosacea on her cheeks. When her "reinvention" in the Fam Faves challenge was judged to be craptacular, she salvaged all by venturing forth the now-legendary line, "I guess I just didn't understand the complexity of franks 'n beans." The judges laughed, and America swooned. Did I mention Lia is a former literature major? Fuck a Micah. Reading a Bazooka Joe comic gave her a headache.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Lia was screwed over by all who conspire to keep those of us with less-than-porcelain skin off the airwaves. You heard me! Or read, rather. The clock struck "get the hell on" during the Latin Lunch challenge. Out of her element. the unflappable Lia valiantly put forth a trout polenta dish. Dubiously Latin, and apparently mushy, it should still have received a pass from the judges for not just giving up in the face of an unfamiliar style under a severe time limit. Especially considering that her BFF on the show, Casey, lives in fucking Texas and made a chicken and rice dish that was undercooked and decorated with some coffee/molasses "mole substitute" that looked like motor oil and per the judges, tasted even worse than that.
JOEY (freed in ep. 6)
AMUSED DOUCHE: Big fat Italian-American from New York. Nicknamed "Pickles". 'Cause he so obviously eats 90 of them daily. Cusses bunches.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Once invited Hung to kiss his New York-approved ass and then told Howie to man up after Joey told the judges he felt Howie should be eliminated at the barbecue challenge--despite not having tasted Howie's dish.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: A visit to his Myspace page reveals that he hates to read (unless it's cookbooks!) and he doesn't know how to put pictures up that are any larger than thumbnails. He doesn't grasp simple instructions delivered evenly and calmly very well, and will never live down the fact that he was the chef eliminated when Rocco Di-goddamn-Spirito was the guest judge.
SARA N. (made a stylish exit in ep. 7)
AMUSED DOUCHE: AKA, "the short, Asian Sara".
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Way too nice and way too green with the colors still. I hope she continues to develop her kitchen skills while maintaining the sweetness that causes gay men to flock to her with Professor Higgins intentions.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Episode 7 was a classic bait and switch by the producers: convinced that they were going to spend a late night partying in Miami, the chefs were instead deposited at adjoining roach coaches to prepare snacks for drunks. The three women remaining had no choice but to ply their trade in very unprofessional "night-out" clothes. Sara was the most immediately flustered of all the chefs over this chicanery, and she never recovered. While I feel for her disappointment (and the fact that she had to share a coach with Howie), she deserved her ticket back home for being a whiny pouty grumpy beeyotch who put ice in the milkshakes. I shit you never, this woman made milkshakes and put ice in them. Them shakes is s'posed t' be thick, honey. Like sucking a wrench out of the mud, ideally. Dilution of a milkshake is actually a felony crime in 3 states, and Sara was lucky to escape with only a bruised ego.
TRE (made the internet cry with his departure in ep. 9)
AMUSED DOUCHE: The muscular black chef with a brilliant smile, affable personality, and superlative cooking chops. An early favorite for the win.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: You know who Tre didn't get along with? No one. Furthermore, he won 3 elimination challenges with such drool-pool dishes as...cheese grits topped with bacon-wrapped shrimp! After that, he seemed damn near unstoppable. But then came the two-part "Restaurant Wars". Tre fans, try not to get too discomposed as I kick the truth about your idol.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: The RW challenge comprised two episodes. During the first, Tre was named Executive Chef of Restaurant April and wasted no time in bragging in the individual interview segments. In fact, he guaranteed victory for his team of Casey, CJ and Brian all while laughing loudly and arrogantly. After a draw was declared for the first run-through, Tre further dug a hole by proclaiming he could make bread pudding "in my sleep", refusing to replace a dish on the menu that got shit on by judges, and centering the new courses around a salmon pesto that looked like he decided to get innovative with some fresh afterbirth he found laying around.
His exit has led to pronouncements on blogs nationwide; namely, concerning the "transparent idiocy" of the TC judges--who, you will remember, voted a Tre dish tops of all entries in three previous challenges--and the patently "unreasonable" policy whereby judges consider only that challenge when determining what lackluster performance to send home. In other words, what you did one or two episodes ago doesn't count for shit if you try and feed people placenta pesto. Inevitably, I even came across a couple comments suggesting racism on the part of Bravo in giving Tre the boot. Uh, no. The case of the Jena 6, that's racism. This is Tre being on a team with a woman who seduces onions, a one-nutted giant, and the one and only Seafood Boy--and still fucking up worse than any of them. Consider that before you go decrying this cruel cruel world.
All of which leaves the remaining 7 hopefuls. (Ooh, this section is brought to you by the Glad family of bloggers! I typed this on a GE keyboard and the spellcheck was provided by the great folks at Lean Cuisine!)
HUNG
AMUSED DOUCHE: Oh that Hung! From the very first time we saw him, when he claimed to be a Certified Professional Asshole, he's been so desperate to be hated. Ooh, I don't hold my tongue for anyone! I sharpen my knives with smug! When one combined his self-absorbed attitude with his early promise (QF win, placed in the top 2 for the first Elimination Challenge), it was hard not to envision a time in the near future when I'd be watching the show with gritted teeth and steaming ears as this diminutive little snork alienated his fellow chefs and whipped up some divine concoction, thus rendering him impervious to any petty criticisms as he steamrolls towards his coronation.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: But then, in one of those developments, that makes me think there might be some divinity at work here, Hung started to suck. Dish after dish brought him before the judges for admonition; his Quickfire challenge offerings were uniformly poor and denied him challenge immunity week after week. Then, it got a little despairing (but only a li'l). Quickly, though, it became hilarious once I realized this arrogant snot was insisting on godhead status in the kitchen in spite of the consistent "assness" of his creations. And instead of praying to the first ten gods that popped up after a Google search for Hung to get the boot, I felt part of me would die if he left. Whose comeuppance would I savor like a salmon with delectable BBQ glaze? Also, he almost accidentally stabbed Casey with a knife as he ran around in the kitchen like some meth-addled Robin. That counts for something.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Well, he's made it this far. And with Tre gone, his confidence is back with screaming vengeance. He stands a very real chance of winning the overall competition, and if this should occur, well...be forewarned that no children will be spared my squalling wrath.
CASEY
AMUSED DOUCHE: Looks like Jennifer Aniston. Is female. Befriends other chefs only to have them wrenched from her arms (see Lia, Tre).
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Honestly, the only reasons to root for her on my own end are she's a woman and she may befriend Hung and/or Howie very soon.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: She has never made one dish I thought looked all that great shakes (hell, even Sara N. pulled that off with her Vietnamese BBQ) and during the Quickfire Relay Race she singleknifedly screwed her team by dicing onions with all the speed of a heavily-sedated widow. All the while, Hung is breaking down chickens with such ferocity I believe he was Jack the Ripper in a prior existence.
BRIAN
AMUSED DOUCHE: Seafood whiz who looks like B-52 Keith Strickland. I am the only one I have seen who has noticed this resemblance. Last name is "Malarkey". Some people are born great.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: His single elimination win was at the storied BBQ challenge, when he unleashed one of the top 5 tempting dishes of the year with "seafood sausage." Oh, that BBQ challenge! I can just see myself several decades down the line, telling other peoples grandchildren about what a magical hour of television that was.
Apparently his marriage is an, um, "open kitchen". His wife's Myspace touts membership in a group that seeks out willing participants for "male-female-male" threesomes. Now that's some seafood sausage.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Or beef. Or anything other than seafood. I really can't believe a blatant one-trick pony has made it so far, and if he makes the final four off of a seafood-dependent repertoire, he'd better have something amazing up his sleeve, like "black tiger shrimp in orgasm sauce with secret o' happiness salad".
CJ
AMUSED DOUCHE: Had testicular cancer a couple years back and lost a ball to the neighbors yard. Is tall. Like, Thurston Moore tall.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: CJ has a snarky sense of humor that brooks no loyalties. During the first RW judges table, he gleefully cosigned disparaging remarks against teammate Brian while in the same room with him. Overcompensation? Or is CJ the ultimate free spirit? Is losing a testicle a gateway to true contentment in this chaotic universe?
YOU NEED MORE BACON: "Cruel Jerk" and "Cuntish Jackoff" are just two of the things "CJ" stands for, according to the Interweb's many Tre supporters. See, it's become conventional wisdom that CJ just stood by in the second Restaurant Wars and let his boy Tre get smashed by a Greyhound to save his own underwhelming self. Never mind that Tre was the exec chef and he cooked bullshit food, or that he was resolute that he could handle the pressure. Oh no, he couldn't be culpable, let's name CJ the douche.
Mind you, I can't defend Solo Ball too much. When the guest judge demanded to know why CJ--as team assembler and sous chef--didn't have Tre's back as their kitchen basically was falling into the crapper, CJ could not actually respond but rather look over to his right and (way) down at Casey for--what, exactly? How can she pretend to speak for you? Bitch cuts onions like a heavily-sedated widow and you want her to construct some fantastic Robert E. Lee backstory for you on the spot? One Ball, please!
But in the end...CJ is a genius. If Tre cooked to his potential, their team would have won and minna tanoshiku. And if, by some unimaginable tear in the space/salmon continuum Tre blew it, well, he is the executive chef. Ya see?
SARA MAIR
AMUSED DOUCHE: Makes her own cheese. Like anything else matters after finding that out.
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Went from hated to celebrated after winning the "Restaurant Wars", namely for keeping nemesis Howie and fireplug Hung in line in the kitchen. While Casey and the other Sara were whining about not getting to party and having to make food whilst decked out in they skimpies, Sara M. was shown on camera saying, "Who gives a shit?" Meanwhile she's wearing a dress that would allow her breasts to crush ants if the need arose.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Leadership in abundance, but inconsistent with the dish selection. Hampered also in her quest to be named Top Chef by that whole "peeing while sitting" thing.
DALE
AMUSED DOUCHE: Gay chef from Chicago. Like the dearly departed Sandee, insists on rocking the fauxhawk. Doesn't have time to "dick around with a conch".
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: Deep into the season, Dale soundbites are like finding the Hershey Special Darks in the candy bowl: scintillating treats with unusual (and addictive) flavor that leaves you digging for more. And more there will be, 'cause man cannot live by the Mr. Goodbar wisdom of Howie alone.
Has the good sense to offset the fauxhawk with a red bandana. Great color and keeps him from sweating into the food. As far as his cooking, has yet to win a big one (um, shush) but aside from his questionable leadership in the dessert team fiasco (he got Camille booted and he knew it), his offerings have looked very tasty. Who can forget Dale using instant mashed potatos and rotisserie chicken for his dumplings?
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Dale is fun, funny, and talented but he also frets too much and takes things immediately, wrenchingly to heart. But he is smart enough to know when and what he needs to improve. Case in point: as front-of-house for his restaurant, he did little in the kitchen and concentrated on making the interior design decisions. This led to the unbelievably ill-advised placing of scented candles at the tables, among other sins. When he escaped what he felt was a certain elimination, he resolved to take a more active role in the kitchen as well as maintain a friendly FOH presence.
Of all the chefs remaining, he is the only one I see without a fatal flaw. Do not be shocked to see him win it all.
HOWIE
AMUSED DOUCHE: Understand this, Howie isn't here to make friends, and if he's gotta be an insufferable prick, he will be an insufferable prick. He's a fat bald sweaty stubborn bull in that kitchen, and you either respect the Howie train or get off the tracks!
WHO YOU CALLIN' SUCCOTASH?: With two Elimination Challenge victories, he is the only one of the remaining chefs with more than one under his belt. So clearly, there's some talent there.
YOU NEED MORE BACON: Until the Restaurant Wars, no team with Howie as a member was the winning team. Remember that. This man is such a cancer I don't doubt he has CJ's ball hidden away somewhere, the bastard! The many transgressions of Howie don't stop with lack of team spirit, oh no. He also: sweats into his food; especially doesn't like girls being let into the clubhouse; looks like an especially sinister turtle whenever he deigns to smile.
But the event that cemented Howie as number one Season 3 douchesack was during the Sara N. elimination. Already it was obvious as soon as the losing team came before the judges that Sara was going home, as soon as she opened her mouth and said that cooking in her "party" clothes left her feeling "demoralized". As soon as Sara said that, the sight of her exiting the kitchen with her knives packed one last time actually flashed in my head minutes before it actually appeared on screen.
But when Sara started to implicate Howie as a factor in her lack of assertiveness, he immediately went on the offensive, referring to her as "the baby of the house" and standing by unapologetically as the tears flowed even more copiously. That's called "twisting the knife", and it takes a real self-absorbed assclown to do it with such relish. To top it all off, when a sniffling Sara, sitting with the other chefs awating her fate, proclaimed, "Apparently I'm the baby of the house", Howie tried to cover by saying, ""If that's how I came across, that's not what I was saying". I love when reality show participants forget that they are being filmed pretty much fucking always, and this "I was taken out of context" shit won't fly.
Howie knew enough not to even get up from his seat when Sara said her goodbyes, and I somehow sense he'll get a similar treatment when he's told to pack his knives or even better stick one in his forehead. Which hopefully will be tonight. Please, Jebus, tonight.
Top Chef
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