Top Chef: Texas Recap (Part One)
By David Mumpower
November 3, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The denouement of the most recent season of Top Chef is arguably the greatest in reality television history. The concept of Top Chef All-Stars was one we requested several seasons before it came to fruition. While there may have been heartbreaking disappointments along the way (Oh, Jen, how could you? Also, WTF, Jamie?), the overall competition was epic.
There was an episode where the closest loved ones of the remaining contestants were invited to join the judges at a meal and each chef raised their game to the point that no one’s dish was worthy of elimination. There was the revelation that two people who fought the body of the season were in fact cousins, which made their arguments a byproduct of their genetic code. There was a challenge to determine who would participate in the finale and its result was even closer than the 2011 World Series between St. Louis and Texas, the one that the losing team was a strike away from winning; the result is that one was eliminated because a single bite was chosen inferior by four out of seven judges, the narrowest of margins. And there was a finale wherein David faced off against Goliath or, perhaps more appropriately, Apollo Creed fought Rocky for the first time.
Richard Blais, the heavy favorite, redeemed himself after by his own description choking in a previous finale yet Mike Isabella, a chef who wasn’t one of the four best players on his own season, almost pulled an upset for the ages, shining brightly during his most important professional moment. In the end, Blais, the person we had expected to win from the moment he was announced as a participant, did just that and yet Mike Isabella ascended in a manner that fundamentally changed people’s perceptions of him, perhaps a greater accomplishment.
Fast forward seven months and the producers of Top Chef are left with a most difficult proposition. In the wake of the best competition ever as well as the one with the finest cooking talent yet assembled on the show, how do they sustain momentum? With the season premiere, we will find out as a group of 29 (!) new cheftestants travel to Texas in order to attempt to become the next Richard Blais.
Before the new participants are shown, a couple of key tidbits are revealed. The first is that none of the 29 chefs is aware of the fact that they are not already on the show, that they must earn one of the 16 spots. The second is that presumably due to the current unavailability of Anthony Bourdain, who now has two different shows of his own, the void of celebrity chef star power has been filled by none other than Emeril Lagasse. Since I know you would be disappointed in me if I didn’t say the magic word now but also disappointed in me if I did, let’s go a different way with this and think of Elzar from Futurama saying BAM! Lagasse has big shoes to fill not only from Bourdain but also in that Wolfgang Puck’s appearances on the show have been among its greatest highlights. In addition to standing judges Gail Simmons and Tom Colicchio, Top Chef Masters season three competitor Hugh Acheson, who somehow managed to be eliminated not once but twice, is also a judge. I guess that with his current record of Most Top Chef eliminations in 2011, he is deemed an expert in the field.
The episode begins with enough chefs to feed a thousand people making their way to the Alamo. All of them seem to realize through quick head counts that the math doesn’t check out. This is the same problem the editors of the episode face. Due to the volume of participants, it is all but impossible to give early face time to all of them. This causes us to monitor carefully every second of camera time a contestant is given. We figure that if they get too much focus early, they’re not long for Top Chef…unless they are simply inciteful/engaging. Anyone who has different hair, teary eyes or a strung out inflection is toast. In a single 43 minute episode, a lot is going to happen quickly and every clue will tell a lot of backstory. To make this first recap clearer, we will avoid describing individual dishes since 29 of them will bore you to tears and we will only discuss particular players if they get significant face time. We are operating under the assumption that face time is bad more often than not. We will see if our theory proves sound.
Padma shows up, sweet, luscious Padma and she drops the boom on the players. They are informed that nobody is on the show yet. There will be a competition to determine the 16 chefs who deserve the opportunity to become Top Chef. There will be three groups with a decision made for each one about which chefs have earned their coats, which ones are immediately eliminated and which ones will cook in a tiebreaker round.
At this point, we cut to what we believe is a cah-reepy 14-year-old husky-faced girl pretending to be a man. The she/he/it has teeth that would make a beaver envious and his (?) audition tape is immediately shown. We learn that this person is in fact 22 and named Tyler Stone. You do not have to be a reality show veteran observer to know that Tyler Stone is not long for this competition. This is good because TV’s Dexter would be wigged out by this man who we presume collects human heads he stores in a freezer. Please do not let us be wrong about his elimination.
After the groups are divided, we switch to the Top Chef kitchen where Tom and Emeril are awaiting the members of Group A. They introduce themselves and in an odd quirk of fate, two co-workers from the same Chicago restaurant, Moto, are not only in the competition but also in this first heat. Some of their time at Moto is documented with our suspicion being that this is done because it is cool/random rather than because neither one makes it. Their names are Chris Jones and Richie Farina. Jones is the taller one who wears geeky glasses. Farina is sporting a Mohawk-ish hairstyle that has exactly the same appearance as if he were a bald man who had purchased a curly toupee six sizes too large for his head. Based on hair alone, we are on Team CJ. Grab some scissors and you can sway our vote, Farina.
The chefs are asked to introduce themselves, which leads to a lot of pedigrees mentioned, awards, discussed, and insecurities created. Someone named Sarah Grueneberg is particularly impressed by others, but she has the same hair and no sign of tears during her camera time afterward. In fact, she comes across as remarkably poised. Grayson Schmitz, on the other hand, has her hair tied back and seems quite composed during the introductions. During the monologue afterward, she is dressed up, her hair has been done well and she has clearly been crying. We are worried about the prospects of Grayson Schmitz. But at least she doesn’t have creepy beaver teeth or the world’s curliest Mohawk.
Group A’s challenge involves a pig that has been broken down to its primal cuts. As Emeril states, there is a cut of meat for each of the ten participants. A negotiation session ensues wherein people negotiate for various cuts. Grayson describes her thought process that pork tenderloin would be the quickest to prepare, which seems like strong decision making in the face of chaotic circumstances. One of the chefs realizes that the meats still require butchering. Tyler the Strange volunteers to perform this task with his logic being that even though he doesn’t do this as a rule, he can still handle the assignment better than anyone else, through the process of osmosis, we guess. Tyler is working waaaaaay too hard to come across as impressive.
Grayson details her process in preparing other foods while a complete stranger determines her fate by butchering her protein. She had been so decisive earlier that we are caught off guard by this sudden turn into passiveness. Then again, the environment is so chaotic and the surprise of 29 chefs competing rather than 16 probably has almost everyone reacting more than planning. In this manner, the elimination round from 29 to 16 is a brilliant way to determine pure cooking talent. Everything we will see today is reflexive.
Perhaps no chef involved in Group A is in a stranger situation than Colin Patterson, a 37-year-old Seattle chef who has cooked solely vegan food for the past 10 years. We think it was naïve of him to believe that he could go without cooking meat for the body of the competition. If he did not practice this after he found out he was cast on the show, he deserves elimination. That’s poor planning, pure and simple. He seems like a very nice man, though.
Team CJ looks like the winner when Chris Jones politely shoves Colin aside and begins to demonstrate marvelous butchering skill. Conversely, Tyler approaches his cut of meat with a saw the same way that a gorilla would play a violin. Heavily tattooed Simon Pantet, who strikes us as a fascinating contestant thus far due to his outsider style and lack of formal training, is seething about the fact that Tyler took the pork chop Simon wanted. Watching Tyler butcher it in the figurative sense while trying to butcher it in the literal sense is driving him crazy. And he is not the only one.
Tom Colicchio comes over and discusses butchering with Tyler. What follows is one of those moments when someone who has no idea what they are doing tries to fake something in front of someone else who happens to be an expert in the field. Tyler is clearly in the way of smooth talking his way out of troublesome situation by pumping up his chest and exhibiting extreme false bravado. He has found that claiming tremendous expertise at something is enough to make most people believe that he is in fact an expert. We do not need to see any more to realize that Tyler the Strange is a fraud.
Moments later, Tyler starts to, well, beat his meat. Coincidentally, Grayson chooses this moment to shout, “Who’s got the tenderloin?” She is in for a big surprise when she looks across the room and realizes the person she has made responsible for her initial Top Chef dish has exactly the same butchering ability as a fifth grader. He has given up the pretense of expertise as frustration has set in.
At this point, Grayson and Tom both arrive at his table to inspect the damage from his butchering. You know the phrase, “Nobody wants to see how the sausage gets made?” What Tyler has done is so appalling that we briefly consider joining Colin in vegan-dom. He has not only destroyed his pork chop but also Grayson’s tenderloin in a way that makes Tom vacillate between humor and outrage. Colicchio has taught enough cooking classes to recognize a student failing their first project. That is fine in and of itself but Tyler’s ineptitude has created collateral damage for Grayson, who made the faulty presumption that someone who says they can butcher meat can in fact do so. In Grayson’s words, she has a “three ounce piece of meat to work with”. We suddenly understand why she has been crying during her monologue.
At this point, at the 11 minute mark of the first episode, Tom Colicchio steps in and does something completely unexpected. He eliminates Tyler the Strange right then and there. The pork chop he has cut is in such terrible shape that there isn’t any point in giving him the rest of the hour to create an edible dish from the remnants. Even worse, his false assertion of expertise has endangered another chef and that is a huge no-no. If this were a cooking class, everyone could laugh about the situation. In a competition that makes careers, however, Grayson finds nothing funny about Tyler the Eliminated.
Come back tomorrow for part two of the recap.
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