Thursday, January 22, 2009

Top Chef Recap: Things We Lost in the War


So last night was rather exciting wasn’t it?
First the mysterious restaurateur appears and challenges the contestants to create a tasting of their best dish for him, in order to decide their fate in the upcoming Restaurant Wars, which have ALREADY HAPPENED. Radhika discovers the cast is caught in a time loop* where every 30 minutes their lives reset, and the accomplishments of the past challenges mean nothing to them. Sawyer wants to go back to the beach to find some fresh red snapper cause the stuff he has now is rancid, but wannabe Neil Patrick Harris/Daniel Faraday, with his notebook of secret recipes involving Dr. Pepper, insists there is no changing fate. The fish will remain spoiled. The Top Chef is already among us, and there is no changing the timeline no matter how many times you bang on the pantry door. Poor Radhika has no choice but to accept the leadership of her team, knowing that her fate is to be eliminated because the Man Who Doesn’t Age came and told her, she has to be eliminated in order to save the Top Chef, and in the process she must bring back the chefs who have left the island, to stop the time skip.

The Restaurant Wars went forward, and it was akin to watching a reenactment of a textbook, exciting in a way because we remember it from past seasons, but sorrowful and frustrating nonetheless, knowing the outcome as we did. Bittersweet since the players were aware of their fate. Of course the plane is going to crash and Radhika will be shot in the leg, and there were far too many Pier One metal giraffes being used. Faraday sees that Jamie has started to suffer the effects of prolonged exposure to the time loop, but tells no one since he doesn’t want to frighten them until he knows for certain. If I had to guess, I would say the first casualties of the brain scarring will be those who have ingested too much seafood (scallops), the mercury in their system acting as a poison magnified by the island’s wormhole.

Faraday alerts Fabio (trapped in the pantry by being unable to read the English exit sign) that he alone is special, and will need to go back to Italy to find his mother, who apparently knows more about time traveling cheese than anyone else. Years later Fabio will remember this as a bad dream, disguise himself as a spy, and try to lure Penny’s father into his trap, disguised as a generic restaurant with too many tea lights. However Penny’s father is too busy building an unholy alliance with Stefan, as they recognize their common enemy in Hosea. They recruit Leah as their serpent, to entice Hosea. to destroy his morality, and turn him to the Dark Side. Oh, then Leah and Hosea make out and it's gross and they totally act like twelve year olds about it.

The best chefs, the ones that have escaped and moved on to careers in New York (or mental institutions, or downward spirals), need to go back to the kitchen; this cycle will not stop unless Padma can get them back there to save the others, and themselves. Fate once again conspires to bring them together – Kate to save her child, Andrew to redeem his squirreliness, and the others just because all the bodies/actual talents need to be together at the even horizon, or Gladware** will discontinue their sponsorship since the viewing audience of this season is dropping like flies. Will Sayid kill them all with tricky kitchen appliances? And if they do not return, will the world end in 70 hours?

Probably. And the scallops will take over forever. Scallops are the new cockroaches.


*I'm sorry, did you NOT KNOW IT WAS A TIME MACHINE? ARE YOU THICK?
**Otherwise known as The Dharma Initiative, inventors of the scallop.

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