Tonight: RICK MOONEN IS TALKING TO YOU HERE.
(The previews were remarkably unhelpful, so I can’t provide any actual information here.)
Last Week: Tiffany swept the challenges. Angelo made Julia Child cry. Leon Panetta was the mack daddy. Alex got the hell off our television screens.
10:02: Ed is stealing Tiffany’s clothes. The infatuation moves to a new, disturbing level. He wants to inhabit her.
As a child, The Dropper literally prayed to an altar of top chefs, kinda like I pray to Paula Deen and the altar of best dishes. He’s more of a nutjob than even I thought.
10:04: Rick Moonen! And he’s not talking to us.
QUICKFIRE. Create a dish based on a food idiom, like “Big Cheese” or “Hide the Salami.” Winner gets their own frozen meal. It’s like Ratatouille come to life! But in a bad way.
10:06: LeahRedux: annoying talentless hack, or dark horse? I think we all know the answer to that. Angelo doesn’t.
10:07: Is The Dropper using a SnackMaster? If so, AWESOME.
10:09: Padma’s stylist is hitting the bottle again this week.
Rick Moonen is one poker faced judge. I kinda miss yell-y Moonen.
10:10: The botton: Kelly’s chicken didn’t sing. LeahRedux’s mac and cheese was a sledgehammer to the gut.
Whiny LeahRedux doing a purposely whiny voice makes me want to jam a spoon into my ear. Brian: “Is she always that irritating? Is that her thing?”
The top: Moonen wanted to lick Kevin’s plate, and that is not a euphemism. Ed’s plate was well thought out.
10:11: Winner: Ed. He’s so thrilled, he nearly makes a facial expression.
10:14: Commercials. Do people think the Siena mom is cute, or does everyone want to sock her one, and possibly put her kids into foster care?
Half the time we get commercials for terrible rom-coms, and then we get The Expendables? Does not compute.
10:16: ELIMINATION. Serve fancy pants concession stand food at the baseball stadium, working as a single team.
How can we have a cohesive team without the Alpha Beast? Surely, there is no way.
10:18: Whole Foods. The Dropper is talking to the sesame oil. The sesame oil is non-responsive. Even condiments are creeped out by Angelo.
10:19: Seeing sausage in such quantity makes me never want to eat sausage again, and if you know me you know how momentous that is.
10:21: Ed is now talking to himself as well. And is running around like a headless chicken. Shades of Angelo, which is unfortunate. One is enough.
Ed: “If I need three of these for 150 people…that’s 550!” Sure it is.
LeahRedux is getting WAY to much screen time. I don’t trust it.
10:22: Brian: “Is there anyone likable this season?”
Indeed, Brian, Indeed.
10:25: Commercials. The Housewives of New Jersey disgust me, until they start literally beating up on Andy Cohen. That, I can get behind.
10:27: <banging head against wall> They never thought about a system for taking a fulfilling orders. <banging head against wall>
10:28: Ed tries to make a joke. No one notices.
Baseball players are tall. And dumpy looking.
10:29: “This is like watching a monkey make sweet simian love to a football.” (via @JeffHouck) I’m not sure what that means or how it applies, but I like it.
10:31: Shockingly, baseball fans are not into tuna tartare.
10:33: One of the baseball players: “It’s like a caterpillar exploded in my mouth.” And from his tone, I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
10:34: Serving gray tuna to Moonen and Ripert? Should be an automatic fail, then we could end the episode and all get to bed early.
10:37: “Why would you come to a ballgame and order chicken?” Maybe because the alternative is rotting tuna? Though really, I think the ballpark rule is “Order the fried thing in the shape of a stick or a ball.”
10:40: Commercials. Brian has decided that Ed should be called “Sweaty Fritter.” Which is better than the spy name he gave himself, even if I can’t get totally behind it.
10:42: Pointless interlude. The Dropper chats with his mail order bride. They’ve only met a few times. It’s useful, because then she rarely runs into his boyfriend leaving the house at 4am.
10:43: It’s impossible to see Eli and NOT make a joke about him mom. Who I’m sure is a lovely woman, but still.
10:45: Everyone gets called in the judge’s table. I harbor the irrational hope that they’ll all be dismissed and we can start over with a better season.
10:46: Commence bus-throwing-under.
10:47: Tiffany: “If there’s no juice coming out, I’m not really enjoying it.” That’s what she said! Literally!
10:48: The top: Ed, who is praised for being “tidy.” Tiffany, whose dish wasn’t tidy but tasted good. Winner: Ed! He sweeps the day.
He wins a trip to Australia. This is the second time in 24 hours he nearly makes an expression. He’s going to be sore tomorrow.
10:50: Kelly respected the crab, so we know she’ll be sticking around.
Did no one think to take the chicken OFF THE SKEWER before trying to eat it? Is it really stab yourself in the gums or nothing?
10:53: Ripert was offended by the color of the tuna. Tartaring the day before: DISRESPECT.
10:55: Commercials. “You flew last minute, on points…and Chevy Chase was in first class?”
10:57: Kelly, you didn’t suck nearly as badly as everyone else. Amanda, you tried to kill us with tuna. Kevin, soggy fries never won anyone Top Chef. Angelo, you own a sandwich shop, but fucked up a sandwich.
10:58: Amanda, pack your knives.
Huzzah!
Next Week: Buzz Aldrin. Outer space cooking.
Night all!
Thursday Night Smackdown 
Oh, I forgot about Debbie Downer! Wah wah.
So Angelo had a chef shrine. Creepy.
Rick Moonen is smiling at them creepily here!
Angelo reads Robbins? Why, oh why doesn’t that surprise me?
Can I say goodbye to NuLeah now? Please?
GO HOME AMANDA.
I really, really hope this isn’t a winner’s edit. D:
Angelo is talking here! To himself.
Bacon froth? Urgh.
The idiom Padma’s dress is based on is “really bad idea.”
Oh, I hate NuLeah. SO MUCH.
This is totally a winner’s edit. Noooo.
Do you think Angelo also had a creepy baseball player shrine when he was growing up?
Amanda is whacked on the junk. Currently. Or residually.
Commercial response: I think that Siena mom looks like she has pigtails, and that’s not cute on a college student’s mom. Just sayin’.
I hate all these people. And I don’t mean that idiomatically.
Man, Tiffany’s hopefully got this made. It’s the only dish I want at a ballpark.
She’s also my fav.
Is anyone else really, really bothered by the concept of a minivan equipped with televisions for each individual so they never ever have to actually communicate?
Angelo’s thinking about how to incorporate those players into his shrine.
Hopefully Amanda is getting all this screen time because she’s going hoooome? *ALL FINGERS AND TOES CROSSED*
I’m scared because NuLeah seems too happy. Eff.
Yes, NuLeah, you liked the flavor of your mac and cheese, too, but it crushed Moonen’s gut.
The judges like caterpillars!
Funny, I listen to Angelo’s voice after five or six seconds…and I can’t stand it.
All of you! Take that, bitches!
That’s right, Tiffany. No one said, “Angelo, take the lead.” Jackass.
Do you think Ed will take Tiffany to Australia with him? I mean, he’ll take his girlfriend, right?
Kelly’s respectful of the crab. And Moonen uses big words: “textural integration.” Interesting.
See ya, NuLeah! Actually, I hope to not. Two weeks in a row where I actually yelled “yay!” and threw my arms up in the air.
FINALLY. SHEESH.
Amanda thinks the competition is very fierce? She would’ve been the first one cut last season. Delusional!
Tiffany is my favorite. I live in Dallas, and I want to visit her restaurant, but I’m cheap.
my son sat in for a few minutes at the beginning, and his only comment was “no one picked hide the salami!?” (I was a little surprised too, that one seemed FUN!)
YES!!!! I hate that stupid Siena commercial. Oh perky blonde Mom, how we love that the oilfields are pumping out as much as they ever will so you can relax and be cute in a car that seats 7 that you bought shuttling around your two kids. How many batteries do you waste watching movies with the car parked in the driveway? Are your kids so ADD that not only do they need to watch DVDs in the car, but they also can’t watch the same program? GRRRRRRRR
While I think that Amanda was clearly in over her head from day one in this competition…
No, that’s all.
Oh, wait, forgive me, but I actually think she’s pretty cute. Of course, I thought Leah was cute and look where that got us.
Cheers to all of you for being snarky opinionated sob’s. There is hope for our world after all.
Can’t they just give Tiffany the win and move on?
I can’t BELIEVE I missed the That’s What She Said at 10:47!!! I am so ashamed.