Top Chef All Stars: Reunited and It Feels So...Much Like Every Other Reunion

So let’s get some business out of the way first: I’m leaving voting on the Here Go Hell Come Haiku Happening open for another day, because it’s too close to call. I think I know who the winner is, but since one of the votes was essentially “I would vote for option B here but option D under other circumstances,” I don’t know how to count that. If it’s a vote for B, the count is tied. If it’s a vote for both, or if they cancel each other out and it’s a vote for neither, then D wins by one vote (a staggering 3 votes to 2). So if you haven’t voted, go do that. And if you have voted, vote again under a different name. I will never know.

And now, to the reunioning.

As I fell asleep last night in the middle of a Conan interview featuring a guy who smeared fish guts all over himself for the purpose of attracting vicious eels, I had one thought circling round my giant head: is it really worth it? Is this reunion really worth recapping?

And I was thinking the same thing when I woke up this morning, jolted out of a sound sleep and a pleasant dream about Hugh Laurie giving me a foot massage by the sound of my earlier-than-usual "get up and recap” alarm.

Putting aside questions about whether recapping of reality shows in general is a worthwhile endeavour, wasn’t this episode just spectacularly not worth it? This episode, which showed that Bravo has gotten too beholden to a particular script in terms of its Top Chef Reunions --and here be the judges’ outtakes montage; and here be the bromance montage; and here be the controversy-- and that it has wrapped itself so tightly in that format that it is all but impossible for anything authentic or spontaneous or interesting to happen?

This episode, which was so eaten up with getting in our quota of the things we expect from Top Chef Reunions – and here be the Fabio montage, and here be the Carla montage—that we heard from less than half the chefs, and Stephen and Tiffany particularly seem to have been invited along for the sole prospect of keeping quiet and providing hilarious reaction shots?

And my ultimate reaction was no, it’s probably not, and that I wouldn’t havemissed much if I hadn’t watched it, and you all wouldn’t miss much if I decided to roll over and get another 40 minutes of sleep.

But on the other hand. . .I had these notes, you see. And as much of a chump as I already felt for watching that hour long televised nap, I’d feel even more of a chump if I’d taken notes on it and didn’t use them.

So here we go – the quick and dirty, the barely edited . . .the Top Chef All Stars Reunion. (The Masters premiere will likely turn up tonight or tomorrow, depending on when this evening I get around to watching it).

Andy Cohen, who I alternate between thinking is a nice boy from Clayton and a human slime trail who should be fed to carnivorous shrimps, welcomes us and shows us that the non-Bourdain judges are all assembled, as are the Top Chefs of various levels of All-Stardom. The absence of Bourdain bothers me – as I recall, he (following hot on the heels of my secret baby daddy, Eric Ripert) last season was brought on to fill the Ted/Toby role of third regular judge in Gail’s absence. It’s one thing that neither of them have done as many episodes as Ted or Toby – between actual restaurant stuff and the fact that they both have other shows, they’ve probably got a fair slab more going on. But it’s not acceptable that they don’t even turn up for the reunion.

Andy inevitably begins his merciless slog down memory lane with Richard Blais, who says he was shocked to win and was ready to shake Mike’s hand. Mike still looks like a bloated sour frog who can’t get over not winning. Andy asks Blais if he would rather have won season four. Mike says he would rather Richard had won season four. And then he gives a high pitched giggle, and then he explains his own joke “because then he wouldn’t have been there” and then he gives a high pitched giggle again. Ulch, look, you festering pus boil. It wasn’t a great joke to begin with, but the fact that you laughed at your own joke with the laugh of an insane eunuch and then EXPLAINED it to us is what really killed it.

The judges talk some about how close it was, and we see a video of Richard’s journey. They show Mike looking like a sour bloated frog when he heard that Richard won, and there’s a picture-in-picture of him looking like a sour bloated frog at the reunion.

Andy brings up Richard’s promise to give Mike some money if he won. They talk about the possibility of Richard investing in Mike’s restaurant, and then blah blah blah they talk about Mike and Tom says something borderline brain dead about Mike having won more than anyone else in the room because he can cook Italian food again.

Already, I want to punch myself in the face for tuning into this mess instead of watching something else. Apparently Casey Novak was back on Law & Order: SVU last night. I’ve never been a Novak fan, but at this moment, I cannot, cannot, cannot believe that I missed Casey Novak in favor of watching Tom Colicchio soothe the ego of a human ass pimple like Mike.

Moving to Antonia, she says it’s easier to have lost on the basis of one bite than it would’ve been to lose in a landslide. Then we see a montage of Mike being disgusting and Antonia not liking it, because god forbid we don’t milk this cousin nonsense until the last possible second.

Now we get to see clips of Jenn in episode 2 having some manic moments in the episode and then truly losing it at the judges table, and then just imploding as the door shut behind her. Oh, god, how uncomfortable. She looks beautiful at the reunion, though – her hair is longer and absolutely lush, and I want to know what Bravo used on it to make it so shiny -- and says she was disappointed in herself. Gail says she’s been saying for years that she’s shocked no one had ever gotten that mad at them because she knows the passion they all bring to their work. She thought it was “extraordinary” that Jenn finally did. Commercial.

Back. Andy shares listener questions. Someone named Carmen from Tennessee asks if the guys have stylists, and calls out Angelo’s tight pants. We see a montage of Angelo wearing tight pants. “How would you describe your style?” Andy asks him at the end. “Aquaman?” Dale T. responds. Yayyyyyy, I love Dale. Sadly, we will not see him much during this episode – as he wasn’t in a “bromance” with anyone and doesn’t have a “curse” on him and isn’t “charming,” we’re going to ignore him, and his un-montage friendly personal growth storyline (besides, Tiffani has much the same storyline and will sum it up for both of them in a 45 second speech), and just count on him for occasional hilarious one-liners.

Someone named Lucy from Texas asks Gail if she’d rather go on a date with Angelo, Fabio, or Spike. She opts for Spike since she’s known him for longest “and we have a Canadian connection. As I do with my HUSBAND.” Padma says she’d go out with Elia or Casey “or I could motorboat Antonia.” Everyone laughs hilariously, uncomfortably, and/or hornily. “I just learned that word, and I couldn’t wait to use it,” she giggles.

We see a montage of Jamie not having her heart in it, which includes Blais’ brilliant assessment that Jamie is like "an octopus, 'cuz you know. You never see 'em. Something that just comes out once in awhile, cooks some chick peas, crawls back in their hole. It’s still one of the best things about the season. Jamie tells us she stopped watching the show because it was painful for her to watch. “I have a very small thumb,” she whines when called out on leaving to get two stitches, “I’m a very small person.” She says she doesn’t have any regrets about doing the show again and came in to do the best she could.

Tiffani says she was “an asshole and not handling things well” during her season. At this point, they cut to Stephen nodding – which is HILARIOUS, as he could’ve intended it to mean “yeah, me too,” but it comes across as “yeah, girl, you were AWFUL.” And this is all we will see of Stephen during the reunion, so it’s good that it was well used .

Anyway, Tiffani continues: “and I did a bunch of stupid shit…I wrote the manual on how not to do this, basically.” She says that had she won, it would’ve been the worst thing that could happen to her, because she would’ve been validated for her bullshit.

Ladies and gentlemen, I love Tiffani Faison. If you’d told me back during season one that I’d ever say that, I would’ve punched you in the face, because I super uber hated her. But as I’ve said before, she and Dale are the best thing about this season to me because they’ve both shown so much growth and so much self awareness.

Andy asks how many of them would come back for a third shot at it. A bunch of people raise their hands. Mike says it would depend on who was competing, and he’d rather be on Masters. Tiffany gives him a priceless “bish please” look, which just sums it up entirely. You, you stupid chunk of festering fish taint? You think you belong on Top Chef Masters? Where’s your restaurant empire? Where’s your thirty year resume? What, exactly, have you accomplished so far aside from making tiny plates for Jose Andres for years, and losing Top Chef twice? Yeah, that’s what I thought, you lard nugget. I hope if you ever do manage to get your restaurant open, it’s shut down by the health inspector for having a disgusting pollutant in the kitchen (please note: that pollutant is you, Isabella. I know you need jokes explained to you).

Seriously, if that stinkhole ever launches I will go for the sole purpose of putting the evil eye on him.

Curtis Stone then comes in via X-box and asks who they’d send to Masters if they could. It’s a nothing segment designed solely to pitch Masters and work in an X-box commercial.

Now we have the inevitable bromance montage about how Fabio and Richard and Mike and Angelo were all in love with each other. Why do we have to have a bromance montage ever season? Why is there never a montage about female friendships? Where is the girl crush montage, Andy Cohen? After all these years, at long last, where is the girl crush montage?

Commercial.

Back. Andy asks how many of them think Antonia really has a curse. “Slammed my ass,” Dale L. says as we cut to a Black Hammer montage. As it plays (on the X-box, mind you), you can hear that one of the chefs in the studio is helpfully reading the captions –Humbly Hammered, Doubly Hammered Bitterly Hammered –aloud. They do not read F***ing Hammered. She insists that it’s a coincidence, not a curse, even after Tiffany points out that everyone in her room was eliminated and none of the other girls would move in with her.

Tabitha in Reno asks Dale T. if his girlfriend has the ring he said she deserved. “I’m still waitin’ on the check, man,” Dale says. Then Andy spouts some bullshit statistic about how “97% of our female viewers wrote in” and asked if Fabio had a girlfriend. No. I don’t think that is an accurate statistic, Andy Cohen. I think you made that up out of your ass. Then we have a montage of Fabio being “charming,” which you all know I’m well and truly sick of.

Mary from Boston wants to know what Antonia thinks is the biggest difference between cooking for kids and cooking for adults. Antonia says she doesn’t think there is one, and that children’s menus infuriate her because they treat kids like idiots. Then we get a Sesame Street montage, which I thoroughly enjoy because we get to see the Muppets using their Muppet voices, but behaving in ways that are totally out of character. “How nasty can we get?” Telly asks at one point. Richard tells us his daughter gets an ear-to-ear smile every time she sees Elmo give her the “Elmo loves you” shout out.

We cut back to the “Night at the Museum” challenge to hear everyone complain about cooking for kids. In unaired footage, Dale L. reads Padma’s reaction as seeing “the next 10 years of her life flash in front of her face.” Commercial.

Fake back. It’s the “world premiere” of Marcel’s “Put it on a Plate” remix. Sigh. It's simultaneously a stupid waste of time and more interesting than the rest of the episode. Is not that strange?

Back. We see video of Mike snaking Richard’s chicken/oyster idea. “There’s no such thing as stealing an idea, period, when it comes to food,” Mike says snidely. Richard says there was some inappropriateness under the circumstances. Which is exactly what I said at the time (see point #2 in my list of reasons for why what Mike did sucked), so thank you Richard.

Now we get the fun stuff – the judges' outtake montage. Padma seems to be nodding off at table one time, and then admits ‘I had twooooo gins an’ tonics” squifully another. Eric Ripert talks about “my breasts,” and Lorraine Bracco complains about an audio tech’s freezing hands on her “nice big fat tits.” Bourdain cracks up. Padma tells Tom to shut up. Paula agrees to “take mah fuckin’ knives and go.” “Pack your fuckin’ knives,” John Besh corrects her. I bet they'd all been wanting to say that to her all episode.

Someone asks Padma if Tre was her favorite since she seemed more upset at his elimination than others. She admits to having a sweet spot for Tre, but says she’s always upset when anyone has to go.

The judges are asked about their favorite dishes from the season. Padma picks Dale’s soup at Wylie Dufresne’s restaurant. Tom has three: Carla’s pot pie, Richard’s himachi and sweet bread, and Mike’s conch in the banana leaf.

Andy reviews Elia’s rant to the press after getting eliminated, which you can find hyah. She talks a bit about how someone at Craft told her that they’re only serving corn fed beef. Andy wants to know why Elia said Tom’s a sellout. She says he shouldn’t have done the Diet Coke commercial. Tom says smugly “who sells Diet Coke in their restaurants?” He tries to get her to tell him which chef at Craft in Las Vegas told her they only served corn fed beef.

It’s just an awkward segment – it’s an off screen controversy so it seems stupid to spend this much time on it, and Tom seems really defensive, and Elia seems to be struggling with English in a way she hadn’t seemed to be previously. And Dale L. seems to be trying to smooth things over by pointing out that they all look up to Tom and have expectations of him at his level to uphold what he really believes in, and Tom rides rampant over him and just seems like a bully.

It also feels artificial, because the whole sell out thing would’ve been a GREAT point at which to bring up that Mr. “I support more small farmers than you will in your LIFE” shared a judges’ table with Smithfield Factory Farms spokesperson Paula Deen, but you just know there’s no way that would ever make the final cut.

Tom says that he’s been to many of their restaurants and eaten their food off show and never commented to the press about it. Ugh – it’s like he’s trying to enforce some sort of chefly omerta or some bullshit. Andy asks Elia if she regrets what she said. “Elia, you don’t have to answer,” Padma says hastily. But Elia sticks to her guns and says she doesn’t regret it. Damn, girl. Commercial.

Back. Judging montage where we relive the harsh comments of the season. Andy asks if they were tougher on these guys because it was their second time around. Padma says it’s a curve. Someone from Detroit asks why Carla doesn’t Hootie-Hoo anymore. We see a montage of Carla, which is the most fun we’ve had all hour. She sings! She dances! She ululates! She makes pot pie! She’s going to Amsterdam, Italy, and Tokyo!

Andy says if she gives them one more Hootie-Hoo, they all get gifts. She obliges, and they all get Top Chef fleeces from Bravo.com. I bet they’re all totally excited about that.

And thus another season of Top Chef draws at long last to a merciful close. Thank goodness. Let’s hope Masters doesn’t drag on this interminably, or I may just lose my will to live.