Brightest Young Things

Watching last night's part 1 finale of Top Chef was hard.
We've come to the end of the road and while it was easy as pie to see everyone (deservedly) leave all season we were now left with Kevin, Jen and The Voltaggios, all of whom are really good cooks and mostly really non-shitty people and frankly, on any season past I'd be happy to see any of them win (remember that Hosea dude? Didn't think so)
But it IS a competition (as Bravo loves reminding us) and someone has to win and someone has to go.
We meet our 4 heroes on an abandoned train station in Napa Valley, looking nervous and determined, like those little orphans Jim Carrey tortures in "A Series of Unfortunate Events".
You may as well turn away now, it's not going to get any easier.

And then the train arrives.
Out of the train bounces Padma, all pregnant and with glowy skin and blunt bangs and a figure hugging white sweater dress and with her is Michael Chiarello, TV whore and pioneer of Napa Valley cooking, who we last saw on "Top Chef Masters" being kind of cocky (I for one was so happy he did not win).
So, they have them board the train (Kevin is motionsick!) and give them 30 minutes to prepare something involving and celebrating the Napa Valley grapes.
What transpired were 4 plates so well thought out and delicately presented from Michael's scallop and grape kebab on top of a wine leaf to Jen's clam and liver dish that Chiarello said he'd steal (and he will, no doubt) that I almost shut the TV down because I didn't want to see any of them eliminated.
Michael V. won and got a Prius out of it and he looked as smug as only he can about it.

Onwards with the main challenge.
From what I understand there was a harvest festival and each of them was to make a vegetarian dish and a protein based dish and serve them to 150 people who, I'm assuming, make wine and live wonderful, picturesque lives in the Valley. Only local produce was to be used, which considering where they were should have been a breeze (lets try this challenge in Detroit and have them local produce up there, if we want to make it really interesting)
So, then they cooked.

And you can see they all know exactly what they're doing: the homemade pastas made with absolutely wonderful precision, the foie gras prepped with utter confidence, the on-the-feet problem solving when not everything goes to plan. This ain't Robin in the kitchen anymore (Thank God!)

Needless to say-the food was delicious.
(just thinking about it is making me hungry as I type this)
Everyone fawned over Kevin's extremely simple but amazing carrot/beet dish and loved his pumpkin polenta even if they felt the meat needed a little time.
Jen's "whole duck" was a hit and they loved the basil with the goat cheese even if they felt there was too much salt around.
Michael's soup with foie gras and a pear and a beet earned raves from everyone even if Padma decided his poached eggs were not cooked well enough (am I the only one who gets kind of upset when no one has anything bad to say but Padma? I mean, shouldn't Tom be the one to notice if something is REALLY wrong? On the upside at least Toby Young was nowhere to be found this week)
and
Bryan's pasta was everyone's favorite (those mushrooms on top I just wanted to pluck off the screen and put in my mouth) and he executed the ribs perfectly in a very short amount of time.

Then they sent them all back to drink some wine and wallow in their own performance anxiety (even if they all knew they did well, they all also knew someone had to go) and then in a sort of a sad judges' table decision process Jen was sent home (it was the obvious solution to the problem, I guess, since she is probably the most inconsistent out of the super consistent four, but it was still hard to see her go and fight back tears) and Bryan won his first elimination challenge.

So next week-sibling rivalry blooms into a giant self-destructing man-eating plant and Kevin maybe wins?
What did/do you think?