Brightest Young Things

After a one-week hiatus, I'm back, and returning to what was in all respects an excellent episode. It had drama, pathos, Leah being petulant, a local woman continuing her comeback, laffs (Stefan making cookies and bananas! Ridiculous I say!), and even a shocking twist. What more can you ask for? Ok, maybe talented or telegenic chefs, but I think that ship has sailed.

As I've said before, this season has had some fantastic Quickfire challenges, and this week was no exception. (Though I hear I missed an oatmeal-crusted clunker last week. These shitty-looking shrimp brought to you by Quaker oats™!) I love these skills based challenges—they show us who actually has the technical skills, as well as who has the versatility to apply those skills in a number of contexts—in this case, filleting many different kinds of fish under extreme time pressure. For example, Hosea, who works at a fish restaurant, but doesn't work with small fish or eels. He squeaks into the finals of the Quickfire on the strength of Carla and Jaime collapsing under pressure, and an admittedly beautiful fillet of arctic char (Possible title of Hosea's restaurant: Hosea's Big Barn O' Cedar-Planked Salmon), before being predictably destroyed by Stefan in an eel-skinning challenge.

I've gotten this far, and I haven't even mentioned the guest judge for the week, the fantastic Eric Ripert. Eric is a frequent judge on the show, and on the whole a fantastic chef; in fact one of my favorite celebrity chefs out there. He isn't president of his own fan club (Hi Bobby Flay), his cooking is accessible without being dumb (a la Rachel Ray) and he doesn't wear orange Crocs around on teevee like that's some sort of OK thing to do (Mario Batali). Everyone should visit his excellent blog—aveceric.com—and cook his food, worship his gray-maned visage, &c.

Anyway, the elimination challenge this week was to recreate a series of seafood dishes served at Le Bernardin, after having only tasted them once. Everyone spends the tasting gushing (correctly) about Ripert's food, except for Jaime, who (BUM BUM BUM) is "not excited." At the time, however, I couldn't tell general petulance from foreshadowing.

Judges Table shakes out with Stefan, Fabio and Carla on top. Of course Stefan wins, but this gives Carla a chance to remind everyone that she is classically French trained, making her a force to be reckoned with over the remaining episodes (ignoring of course her insanity, or the fact that she has as much spine as a bowl of delicious Quaker oats™). "I think I've been underestimated," she says; of course, if you weren't singing "Hootie-Hoo" in the grocery store or making slushy froyo, no one would have done that, hon.

In the bottom: Hosea, whose "USA, USA!" chest-thumping of earlier couldn't cover his inability to COOK THE ONE DAMN THING HIS ENTIRE CUISINE IS BASED UPON; Leah, who spent the whole episode in a perpetual pout after "giving up" halfway through the Quickfire (god she might rival Lisa in general toxicity at this point); and Jaime, who actually cooked a nice piece of fish, but then put it on top of a salt-lick of braised celery. I think everyone in America was expecting Leah to get the boot, especially after Tom had his "do you really want to be here" discussion with her, but in a SHOCKING twist, it's Jaime who packs her knives and goes.

This sets up a race to the finale where the only cook who even occasionally equalled Stefan's brilliance has been eliminated. Crown him already. I can't even imagine the heights the remaining challenges are going to have to reach to maintain any level of suspense in the show.

In an important final note, it seems as though Toby's ridiculous analogies are finally catching up to him. The looks he got from Tom and Eric after launching into his usual shtick were priceless.

So what did you all think? Did Jaime deserve it? Would you scrap all the contestants and just have Eric Ripert compete in the rest of the challenges? Do you think that when Fabio told Hosea, "Waking up and seeing you is a lot worse than seeing my wife," he would have said the same thing to Stefan?