Last week: Shots! Breeders marrying each other! Wet, topless chefs!
How many viewers have hearts so cold and cynical that they cannot be simultaneously broken and warmed by the sight of the men and women who fight for our country? The Top Chef cheftestants cooked for America in episode three and America was obediently impressed.
It has been clear from the beginning of this season that Jennifer Carroll is a front runner for the win. She has consistently been one of the top performers. She is totally calm, totally professional and as we saw on Wednesday she rules a kitchen with ruthless competence. We have seen that she will not be intimidated into passivity. She doesn't need to be sweet. She's not coy or coquettish or flirtatious. During the bachelor/ette challenge, she voiced clear disdain for the
division of the contestants by gender, saying it shouldn't matter if
you're a girl or a boy. If she wins, the show will make a big deal of her being female but she never will. She is a woman in a man's world acting as though she is a woman in an equal world. It is a thing of beauty.
Other top contender Kevin Gillespie is still cute and likable, managing to succeed without being cocky or snobbish. For heaven's sake, it looked like he was going to cry over the effect his potato salad had on the Colonel. His respect for the military added suitable gravity to the virtuous task of cooking for America.
From episode one the producers have been shoving sibling rivalry down the viewers' throats but until now it has seemed forced. This is the first episode to make the brothers Michael and Bryan Voltaggio compelling. Bryan is the older brother and Michael is the one with the issues about having an older, seemingly more successful brother. Michael said early on that Bryan has already accomplished the owner/chef triumph, whereas Michael still has something to prove. To himself and apparently to the universe. Both of the brothers are good-looking in a shiny white boy kind of way but have different styles. Bryan is preppy and respectable, Michael has a nearly full tattoo sleeve. By the way, Bravo has a gallery of chef'testant tattoos here. In their talking head interviews the brothers frame their performances in the challenges in relation to the success or failure of the other. Despite the rivalry, when the chef'testants had to pair off on Wednesday, Bryan was disappointed when someone else claimed Michael for a partner. Just that moment in his talking head interview, his throwaway comment about since he couldn't work with his brother he had to make a second choice, broke through the iron walls of cynicism erected over time to prevent caring about reality television. That, and the bro handshake they shared when Michael won the challenge. They are adorable. They love each other.
So while Top Chef succeeded in playing our heartstrings with brotherly love and love for our country, they ruined it all by turning Padma's bitch loose. One thing we learned from Top Chef Masters is that masters do not turn on each other. Now that we're back to watching struggling chefs, Padma getting pissy at Preeti and Laurine because neither would throw the other under the bus seems disingenuous and generally lame. There will be plenty of organic drama as the season progresses. Michael Isabella was throwing drama right in front of the judges at the time. It was ridiculous to try to manufacture it by asking the losing partners to turn on each other.
Next week: The chef'testants run around! They bicker! They cook quickly and for important judges! Even Jennifer is nervous!
