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RSS'Top Chef: Chicago' reunion: Bromance, fights and fan faves
The folks of Top Chef: Chicago gather to reopen old wounds, confirm or deny reputations for nastiness, revel in bromance, and crown the fan favorite. Look, reunion shows can be a bit lame -- lots of rehash, not much new stuff. At least the Top Chef crew had plenty of hash to reheat, and a couple of people surprised me.
These spoilers, like Gail, nap during breaks.
The important bit, of course, was the revelation of who won fan favorite -- or, as host Andy put it, who "won the hearts of America and $10,000." For once, I actually agree with the voting -- Stephanie wins it. It looks like she's not only a great chef, she's also America's sweetheart. Go, Stephanie!
The rest of the show was trivia -- but some of it was amusing trivia. Here's the round-up:
Richard was noticeably absent, but he had an excuse -- his wife was fixin' to pop out a baby at any moment. Still, Richard joined via satellite, and was presented with an adorable Top Chef onesie for the sprog. Awwwww.
The Top Chef house may have featured a lesbian couple, but all the real action happened on the bromance front. We already knew about Mark and Spike's joint bubble bath, but that was just scratching the surface. We'd missed footage of Dale lubing himself up with lotion, and Richard commenting on the process: "You have gorgeous nipples! I mean, what's wrong with admiring something so beautiful?" Later on, Richard talked about dreaming that Mark walked in on Richard and his wife at an intimate moment. Mark was popular, wasn't he? Alas for all the Mark-lusters -- the Kiwi got hitched three weeks before the reunion show. Spike is going to have to console himself with Andrew, it seems.
Speaking of that lesbian couple: Jen and Zoi were cagey about their current relationship status. "We've gone through some bumps and we're, um..." Zoi broke in, saying they've shared quite enough about their personal life, and they're not going to talk about it any more. OK, I guess, but you went on a reality show as a couple, so you can't be surprised or offended when people want to examine the relationship.
Spike got a montage of some of his devious moments, which reminded me why I didn't like the guy. "I didn't lie, but I just kind of stretched the truth a little bit," he says in one clip. Then, of course, we see him lying, and then deliberately messing with the other chefs. Feh. Stephanie once again showed why I kind of love her -- Spike says that Stephanie hated him at the beginning. Stephanie says she's over it: "I've worked with a lot of cocky assholes..." Heh. To her credit, she didn't elbow Dale when she said it.
Dale! Dale surprised me. When they talked about the butterscotch scallops dish, he took responsibility. It was a lousy dish, and I deserved to go home for it, he said. Wow. I wouldn't have expected him to ever admit he was at fault. Go, Dale! But poor Dale's mom -- apparently she was mortified when he swore and ranted throughout the show, and rationalized it to herself that "they" made him do it because it was TV.
Dale did feature in three of the top five fights this season. Lisa was the other frequent offender. And they did get kind of amusing talking about the Rumble in the Stew Room -- Jen talked about how she was spoiling for a fight after Zoi got kicked off, and then she was surprised when Dale jumped in with his own grievances. "I was very bitter than I had not gotten a trip to Italy," Dale quipped. When people tried to pin the origin of the fight on Antonia, she spoke up for herself: "If you want to get technical, Ming Tsai started it." Hee!
Antonia had a reputation for being the Kiss of Death at the beginning of the show. "The Black Hammer" and "The Merchant of Death" were just two of the names she got tagged with. Valerie said she did feel like Antonia threw her to the wolves when Antonia said she'd pick Stephanie to work with, but hey, since Stephanie won, we can only say that Antonia's got decent instincts.
The talk at the judging table tended to go on for a long, long time... and the chefs would get punchy. Mark featured strongly in the hijinks -- at one point, he donned plastic-wrap armor, and in another instance, he jumped inside one of the holding cabinets while Andrew intoned "You have one hour to cook a hobbit." Hee!
Andrew got his own whacked-out montage of weirdness, so we got to see him growl, caper, and basically act like Andrew. Choice quote: "People talk about ADD and me, and I haven't played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in years." Plus, "I have a culinary boner" was immortalized on a t-shirt.
Ted talked about Stephanie's adorable nerves at the judging table: "You always looked like you were terrified, like you were about to be killed -- like Padma was going to shoot you with a laser or something." Next season, they definitely need to equip Padma with a laser. She'd make a great Cylon.
When Stephanie won fan favorite, she looked almost embarrassed -- "I'm definitely buying dinner tonight, and drinks." I had a certain moment of schadenfreudelicious glee when it looked like Spike was quite peevish that he didn't win. Perhaps I imagined that.
Best news of all: Stephanie is at work opening another restaurant in Chicago. I can't wait!
What did you think? Did anything surprise you? Did Stephanie deserve the dual title or Top Chef and Fan Favorite? Were you hoping they'd address the frozen scallops issue again? Was this the most talent group ever? Talk!
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Zap2it Twitter Talk 
You didn't mention anything about how people emailed complaints about their foul language on the show with their continual stream of F-bombs. What was amazing was some actually defended it. Jen tried to rationalize it by saying football and basketball players swear while in competition. Tom was quick to point out that they do not swear during interviews and that was where most of the swearing took place. He threw in that if this a time where impressions could be made and one had to ask oneself, is this the impression I want to give?
I was surprised that Stephanie won fan favorite, not because she's not awesome (she is), but:
a) I didn't think most people would think she was as awesome as I think she is, and
b) She won the big prize, I'm surprised she was allowed to win the smaller prize as well.
As for the swearing on the show, they're in a competitive environment, and I don't think it's much of a secret how much swearing goes on in a kitchen to begin with...it's a reality show, you have to deal with it. If that's not the type of programming, you want to watch, then don't watch it.
I liked Dale's explaination of why so much swearing took place in the confessionals. I think alot of the chefs viewed that place as safe and somewhere to be honest and vent. I think the chefs are smart enough to know not to talk like that in an actual interview.
I was actually sort of impressed by Lisa. She didn't get defensive and acknowledged some of her behavior was uncalled for. Maybe pressure brings out an ugly side of her.
I have a bit of a potty mouth myself (think drunken Tourettes-ridden British sailor who just dropped an anchor on his foot), so the BLEEPing didn't really register with me. Sorry. And I agree, the cheftestants were thinking of the confessionals as somewhere for them to blow off steam, not a place to present themselves to the public.
I guess Lisa didn't get all defensive, but she still bugs me.
I've really enjoyed these blogs, Sarah. Thanks. Stephanie is a cl*** act and a great chef. The fact that she won fan favorite reinforces the fact that she managed to avoid the vast majority of the drama that went on. Good for her! I'd love to eat at her restaurant sometime. I wonder what kind of vegetarian dishes she could come up with. :-)
I don't understand why they needed a seperate host for the reunion show. I think it'd be better to let Padma do it. I'd rather listen to her for an hour then the non-descript guy they used. Even the queer eye guy may have been better. It reminds me of Survivor reunions that used to feature Greg Gumbel until they started letting Jeff Probst do it. They are so much better now.
As such the reunion was really kind of boring with no real interesting information revealed except that maybe Gail has the hots for Andrew.
The defense of using foul language in the confessionals because it's a place to "blow off steam" doesn't wash. The confessionals ARE interviews, intended for public consumption. Did they think the tapes were going to be locked away in a vault? In fact, the f-word was dropped last night (and I believe it was by Stephanie). What part of that show was not an "actual" interview? At this time in our cultural history, anyone who signs on for a reality show thinking that any part of their participation is going to be private is naive at best.
I do disagree with sac that the reunion was boring. I thought it was one of the better reality reunion shows I've seen. That may be because I don't necessarily look to them for information. What I enjoy is the gossipy stuff, the outtakes, seeing more of the camaraderie and friendships that developed during the season. There were several times where I laughed out loud, and I found the show to be highly entertaining.
I'm thrilled that Stephanie won both "Top Chef" and "Fan Favorite!" I REALLY loved it when Tom said that he could pretty much guarantee that Lisa wouldn't win "Fan Favorite."
I didn't think it was quite accurate when Tom said the competition was Richard's to lose . I thought the he and Stephanie were pretty much neck to neck to winning Top Chef and that it would come down to the final challenge.To Say it was Richard's to lose really diminishes what she accomplished. That was a lame comment.