Top Chef (with apologies to Earth, Wind, and Fire): Let's Groove Tonight/ the biggest Douche is Spike. . .

Unseasoned Mushrooms
And three turns in the bottom
Bye, main lesbian.

Oh, kittens. This is the episode that makes me suspect that Top Chef has finally achieved its long yearned for perfect storm of contestantry—Season 3 levels of talent combined with Season 2 levels of asshattery and camera whorishness.

* We begin with our usual morning montage: people waking up, working out, sharpening knives. Antonia and Zoi feel like they got “jacked” the previous night during the film challenge. Zoi’s lesbian girlfriend agrees, which is a real shocker. I know it may seem unfair that I refer to Jen as “Zoi’s lesbian girlfriend,” but not to Zoi as “Jen’s lesbian girlfriend,” but in the five episodes to date, we’ve seen Zoi talking about things other than Jen, whereas Jen’s sole topic of conversation is Zoi.

*Anyway. Ming Tsai of Blue Ginger and Simply Ming is the guest judge for this round, which is always nice. Ming is generally good for some fun commentary—I still remember his epic smack down of Marisa’s “hockey puck” lychee panna cotta in Season 2.

* The quickfire challenge is the semi ubiquitous blindfolded taste test, which Antonia interviews is her favorite quickfire in every season of Top Chef. Which is odd, because I only remember a blindfolded taste test happening in Season One (last season had a taste test, but not blindfolded). Maybe she has access to a top secret chef’s only feed of Top Chef.

Anyway, the twist this time around is that they’ll be given 2 variations on an item—a $2.99 maple syrup and an $8.99 maple syrup, for example—and asked to discern which one is the higher quality. There’s then a lot of footage of people tasting things with blindfolds on, and ultimately the loser is my girl Stephanie who scores a measly 6/15. Richard and Zoi’s Lesbian Girlfriend tie for second place with 11/15, and Antonia is the winner with 12/15. She gets immunity in the elimination challenge. . .

* . . .which is announced NOW!! They’ll be cooking for the Meals on Wheels Celebrity Chefs’ Ball. The TC-ers will be creating the first course while the celebrity chefs handle courses 2-4. The theme of the event is “The Four Elements,” which. . .meh. It’s no Season 2 “Seven Deadly Sins,” but it’ll do.

So they divide into 4 teams:

Earth: Antonia, Zoi, and Spikey McDouchfuck
Water: Richard, Andrew, and Mark.
Fire: Stephanie, Lisa, and Dale.
Air: Nikki, Ryan, and Zoi’s Lesbian Girlfriend.

* They’re given 15 minutes to plan and a $500 budget. Water and Air get along fine, easily deciding on fish and fowl respectively, but there are problems with Earth and Fire. At team Earth, Spike wants to do a squash soup which Antonia comes down kind of hard against. At Fire, they talk about fire techniques, and Dale suggests a beef wrapped deviled egg, which Stephanie loves but Lisa complains about.

* They go shopping and most of the teams continue to plan on the fly. Lisa wants to do Asian since they’re cooking for Ming Tsai, which seems kind of racist to me.

* Spike douchily talks about how Antonia is doing way too much for someone with immunity. Then—THEN—he expresses a desire to “strangle two women”—his teammates. Spike? FUCK. YOU.

Please enjoy this picture of Nikolas Cassadine while I take two minutes to make myself not punch something.

* Fire changes their mind another 97 times about what they’re doing. Lisa remains concerned, but eventually they reach a consensus.

* Prep time. They’re cooking at the old Marshall Field’s building. Mark interviews that the kitchen is absolutely HYOOGE, and hesitantly adds that they could probably fit Yankee Stadium in there. It’s so cute when he tries to be American.

* During the prep time, an interview chyron reveals that Zoi’s lesbian girlfriend’s last name is “Biesty.” That’s pretty good—if she ever develops her own Zoi independent personality, I’ll call her “Feisty Biesty.”

* Tom does his walkthrough, and Spike douchily tells him that he’s pleased to be working with two women. Interesting that he shows this pleasure by expressing a desire to strangle them. Tom gives his opinions on the various teams, including the fact that he thinks the Water team is being too cocky.

* Commercial! Oh, look—Made of Honor, starring Patrick Dempsey. It’s like My Best Friend’s Wedding, but with Julia Roberts’ part played by a dude. So it’s really just like My Best Friend’s Wedding.

(Sorry. That movie is where I really started hating Julia Roberts. There’s a difference between being a selfish bitch who doesn’t want to share your best friend with another person, and being in love with your best friend. I’m a selfish bitch who doesn’t like to share my friends with other people, but I don’t convince myself that I have the lesbian hots for them every time one gets married).

* Back to the show! The event begins! People start stressing! The salmon has scales! Spike thinks Zoi’s mushrooms are under seasoned.

* Service! Water group goes first, serving a sous vide poached salmon with the now ubiquitous faux caviar, parsnip puree and a watercress salad. Ming Tsai gets 5 scales. Tom says salmon should not be sous vide-ed.

Fire is next, and they present a grilled shrimp with pickled chili salad, deviled aioli, and smoked bacon. Ok, if I ate shrimp, I would eat that. Padma hearts it. Tom says it’s too spicy.

Air then serves a duck breast with a citrus salad and a pomegranate prosecco aperitif. The judges hate both the drink and the dish.

Finally Earth serves a beef carpaccio with mushroom salad and sunchoke aioli. Gail finds the rosemary taste overwhelming, and hates it. Everyone says it’s bland, and Tom says it’s insufficiently “earthy.” Which—whatever, but seriously? Unless you serve a mélange of root vegetables on top of a puree of root vegetables with a garnish of root vegetables, earth seems like it would be the hardest element to capture.

* Back to Judge’s table. Padma calls back team Fire only, and tells them they are the winners. After finding out who was responsible for which component of the dish, they’re told that the chef in charge of the best component will win a trip for 2 to spend 5 nights in Italy. And Lisa wins for BACON!!!!! Of course. Dale is pissed. Of course. Lisa is happy that she won for making Asian for an Asian chef. Still seems racist to me.

* The bottom groups are Earth and Water. The Water team had scales on half the salmon—lots of ‘em. Ming Tsai now says he had 6-8 scales on his piece. It’s funny how the number of scales increases in retrospect. Padma hated the texture. Tom found it mushy. After they finish beating on Richard for the salmon, Andrew gets dinged for the redux on the faux caviar, and for it’s lack of flavor; Mark gets called out for his purposeless parsnip.

Earth is told that every element of their dish was unseasoned. Zoi defends her palate for a really long time, Then Spike douchily brings up that he wanted to do soup. Antonia admits that she was anti-soup, and Padma points out that she had immunity. Antonia says that didn’t stop her from voicing her. . .and before she can even say “opinion,” Spike douchily interrupts that it “didn’t stop you at all, actually,” and gives what I can only suppose is meant to be a charming smile.

It is not.

Ming thinks that soup would’ve been great, but Tom points out that it’s the quality of the beef that landed them there, not the fact of it.

They’re sent back to the waiting room, which is where this charming exchange ensues:

Zoi's Lesbian Girlfriend: Wha’ happened?
Spike: (douchily) What happened? We shoulda made butternut squash soup is what happened.

Then he douches on douchily about what a nice guy he is.

You know what Nikolas Cassadine did yesterday? He hung out with a nice nurse, his son, and a horse. Please enjoy this picture of that for awhile while I go to my kitchen and throw plates in rage.

* The judges deliberate. They hated the salmon, but the audience rated the beef worse. Tom would like to get rid of Zoi and Spike, which sounds like the best idea Tom has ever had to me. Ultimately, Zoi is told to pack her knives and go.

* Back to the waiting room. Lesbian Girlfriend is devastated, and there’s a lot of kissing.

* Spike continues yelling at Antonia, then he turns his douchery on Lesbian Girlfriend because she has the temerity to be upset that her girlfriend went home rather than his filthy little misogynist ass. Then out of the clear blue nowhere, Dale begins yelling at Lisa for having the brass plated nerve to commit the utterly offensive act of beating him. Lesbian Girlfriend kicks a chair, and on that utterly pleasant sequence of events, we close for the evening.

* Next time: Lesbian Girlfriend says she will win it for Zoi! Dale continues yelling at Lisa! They will grill for Bears fans, and Spike will be dumb and douchey enough to ask one of them when the last time the Bears won the Super Bowl was.

And then mysterygirl! will leap through her television screen and choke a bitch dead.

Oh, and Spike and Mark will bathe together. And the sight of this will disgust me so much that I’ll stop wanting to snorggle Mark and start wanting to snorggle the cheftestant formerly known as Zoi’s Lesbian Girlfriend. Go Feisty Biesty!!