Seriously, Bravo? Why? Why do we need to go back here? You stuck a ham-handed reunion in the middle of This, Our Season Of Eternity, which amounted to little more than a clip show, and now this? Clearly the cheftestants feel the same way, because when Andy Cohen turns his grouper lips to them and welcomes them all back, their response is worse than lukewarm; it's room temperature. I think Brian and all the Malarkeys are really the only ones to respond with any sort of life. After Cohen introduces the judges -- Colicchio, Padma, Gail, and Ted -- he reminds everyone that by the end of the night, one of the cheftestants will be walking away with $10,000 after being voted fan favorite. The mention of cold, hard cash does manage to rouse the cheftestants from their food comas, and when Cohen asks who among them thinks they have a chance at the win, it looks like both Howie and Hung raise their hands. Hung guffaws at his own nerve, and Colicchio laughingly tells him, "My friend, you have NO shot!" Hung laughs harder and agrees. Cohen then congratulates Hung on his Top Chef win, and we waste even more time watching the tail end of last week's episode, which, if you tuned in two minutes early tonight for the reunion, you were lucky enough to catch againagainagainagainagain.
Cohen then brings us along on a Hung montage to show us how Hung got to where he is today. Most of the clips are familiar, but there are one or two with Hung saying how, at the fork-tender age of nine, he watched cooking shows instead of cartoons and would then go into his mother's kitchen and duplicate the dishes he saw on TV. Those clips might be new. Then we get some fairly intimate looks of Hung jumping out of bed in the morning -- check the Defamer analysis for the full Monte Cristo -- and doing push-ups. These scenes are interspersed with other cheftestants giving us their opinions of Hung. Again, nothing ground-breaking here. Hung is fast, Hung is furious, Hung is egomaniacal. One thing I don't recall seeing during the first airing of the episode is Hung calling the Bombay Sapphire guy "the British asshole" when the guy slammed Hung's cocktail/appetizer combo. Throughout all the examples of his own assholery, Hung is down in the corner screen laughing at himself. He laughs even harder when CJ is shown in a confessional saying that Hung is sort of an asshole. More clips, more Hung.
With that over, Cohen asks the room if the "right chef" won. There doesn't seem to be an immediate response, so Cohen asks for a show of hands, like they're all kindergarteners who are begging to be picked for nap mat monitor. Anyway, the show of hands reveals that most people thought the right chef won, and Sandee even adds that from the beginning, everyone knew Hung was the one to beat. However, Dale then gives this shiny, happy commentary about how everyone there deserved to win that year and how it was a toss-up between who won and who lost. Like, I know you're a nice guy, Dale, but no. Not everyone deserved to win. I know that's harsh, but Top Chef is a Highlander-esque competition and there are no Focker ribbons for 14th, 15th, and 16th coddles.
Cohen asks what Hung thinks about earning the asshole moniker, and Hung says it's definitely not him. Even though he proudly proclaimed himself the Certified Professional Asshole? Whatever, they aren't going to ask him to explain that temporal anomaly, so I'm moving on. Quickly. Hung says it was all about winning, and he didn't want to make friends because if he had to throw someone under the bus, he didn't want feelings involved. Dale then gets in his oar about how the competition is about being a chef and when you're a chef, you help the person to you. Dale wants to be evaluated for being a chef, which includes that helping thing. Didn't "help" you win, did it, Dale?
Gail explains that the final decision was so hard for the judges, they were up on that Aspen mountaintop until sunrise. Colicchio goes on about how the competition was head-to-head and how Dale screwed up that one lobster dish and seriously? SERIOUSLY?! We're doing this all again? No. This is so ridiculous. FINALLY moving on to a new-ish topic, Padma swears that the personalities of the cheftestants do not at all come into play when the judges are trying to decide. "People ask me all the time, 'Who's your favorite?' and I really don't have a favorite," Padma goes on. CJ begs to differ and says, "Aw, come on!" "Other than you, my love, my tall friend," Padma laughs back.
Pouring the kosher salt in the wound, Cohen wants to know why Casey "fizzled out" in the finale. Casey explains that during their break before the Aspen finale, she went home and threw herself back into her restaurant work and when it came time to do Top Chef again, she just wasn't focused. Okay, I've come a long way to liking Casey -- so much that I was rooting for her to win -- but this really does sound like sour grapes. The whole "Really, I was just way more committed my real-life job than I was to some vanity-serving competition" thing is a little too passive-aggressive. Casey elaborates that she is also not the type of person who can come up with the Best Meal of Your Life menu in thirty minutes. She's a planner, a list-maker, and she's one who would think about her dishes, make them, and then retool them. Over and over again and repetitive and redundant and the same and NOTHING NEW! Uh. Right. So, then Colicchio backs Casey up, saying he knows a whole mess of chefs that are just like that. He admits that that neither method is better than the other. Gail wants us all to remember how Casey "killed" that first Aspen QF. Yes, we remember. And if we didn't, because we're STUPID with the attention span of AN AMOEBA, here's the CLIP to REMIND US! We come back to the studio and someone's clapping and yelling, "Yeah, you did!" to Casey, to which Gail inexplicably responds, "Don't be a hater!" Um, he wasn't? He was cheering her on? So, Gail, with the lingo you acquired by passing through a few websites? You look kinda stupid. ["And when did she pass through them -- 2003?" -- Sars]
Cohen asks if anyone has a few regrets. Howie does. He wishes he had handled some situations differently, especially now that he's gotten to know his fellow cheftestants better and on a different level. Aw, that's nice of him. Christ. Now we have to wade through these "Joe Blow from Anytown, State" questions that were "written in" to Bravo's site. Some chick wants to know about Howie's unique way of salting his food with the sweat of his brow and wonders if he's ever tried, you know, a bandana or some such. Howie defends himself by saying that in his normal work environment, he doesn't get that sweaty, so he really didn't expect that sort of bodily reaction just from working his tail off in a hot kitchen in a hot city in the middle of a hot summer. "The food was always seasoned!" Colicchio shouts, jokingly. Howie forces a smile. "You guys ate it!" Brian yells out, and someone asks if it was "extra salty." Colicchio shakes his head, smiling, and says it really wasn't. Another writer-inner wants to see some sex stuff happening between CJ and Casey, and asks if there's "any chance that these two Top Chefs would take a chance with romance." Are all these writer-inners addicted to small-town agony columns? Because the Seventeen magazine rhyming scheme really needs to go. And if that's actually Bravo trying to finesse the questions, just stop it. Casey makes a half-disgusted, half-shocked face and looks up at CJ. "Um," CJ says, "absolutely -- I mean, what do you think, babe, wanna go for this?" Ah, poetic romance. "You guys should make out!" Ted Allen screams. See, then Ted could use the distraction to sample Dale's decadence. With difficulty, Casey explains that the majority of the "tension" between her and CJ comes from him doing weird stuff like unbuttoning his shirt, posing around, and asking things like, "'So, what do you think for the show? Should I Hasselhoff it or not? What do you think? Am I hassling the Hoff?' and I'm like, 'Gross.'" Hee! "But like gross in a good way!" CJ insists, "Like, 'Heeeey, GROSS!'" Looking at him, Casey smiles, "No." And then she pats his leg apologetically. Awesome. I totally thought Casey wanted him, but clearly not. Meanwhile, I'd say it doesn't matter because CJ has Padma, but really, he can't afford Padma.This little exchange gives Cohen the perfect jumping off point for a CJ montage. We have comical CJ, cancer CJ, and tall CJ. Casey, in a confessional, says that CJ will probably be the one to walk away with a tee-shirt that says, "Oh, big time!" and then we go into an "Oh, big time!" montage. See, I don't really remember CJ saying it all that much. Maybe once? Twice? But of course there's a reason why Bravo is shoving "Oh, big time!" down our throats. Can you guess it? Yeah, they're trying to make it this year's "I'm not your bitch, bitch" and it's really not working. A post-season montage does not a catchphrase make. Padma babbles on about how she loves CJ's height because it allows her to wear high heels and still crane her neck at him. No, seriously. There's something about craning her neck that Padma loves, and I'm really not getting it. ["I think she was, like, a foot taller than Rushdie, which might explain it." -- Sars] She demos this by craning her neck all sort of contortedly and says, "Because I can still go like this [neck crane, chin lift, hair shake] and for me it's a pleasure I don't get often, so it's nice [neck crane, chin lift, hair shake]." She's so high. CJ growls arousedly at her, and Padma laughs, fanning her neck, begging CJ to come. Come to her neck. Neckland is where all the pleasure is. In Neckland, you can neck and be nekkid. And just when things were getting interestingly bizarre, Cohen brings all the fun to a screeching halt when he reaches around and pulls out a huge white tee-shirt that reads -- you guessed it -- "Oh, big time." But that's not all, ladies and gentlemen! You can BUY that shirt on Bravo's website! That's right: for $22, you can wear the shirt and advertise something you didn't even know was a "thing" before tonight! Because that's…cool? Cohen, still sticking with CJ, has a viewer question about CJ being all excited when Padma woke him up. They want to know what that's all about. What's it all about when a hetero guy is woken up by a supermodel and is excited about it? Really? Are these writer-inners shut-ins? CJ jokes, "Well, that's not how the dream normally goes for me, but the wake-up was fine." Sandee bemoans the fact that she was already gone for that particular challenge. Do we care about the straw poll Cohen takes to find out how many think CJ is going to be fan favorite? Me neither. Except that Padma raised her hand and none of the other judges did.
Chow's Meredith and I were dishing smack about how annoying Andy Cohen is and she compared him to Ryan Seacrest, but the thing is, Cohen's SO annoying, Seacrest would be a pleasure by comparison. I mean, I saw Knocked Up and Seacrest was funny enough that I actually have some respect for him now. Not so much for the guy who talks about how the beauty of the beach in the Hamptons makes him want to pee in the sea.Calling it "the most controversial decision of the season," Cohen -- and a lot of his writer-inners, apparently -- want to talk about Tre being sent home after "Restaurant Wars." Did Tre think it was justified? Yes, he did. He was the executive chef and he thinks it was right to send him home. Colicchio weighs in that the judges all know that Tre's a great guy, and Colicchio himself respects the restaurant Tre works in, but the deal is, that night, Tre didn't step up. Tre admits, "I had a bad day," and adds it was a humbling experience. Colicchio chimes back in that most people don't know how hard it is to be on the show, and that the chefs who are watching from home going, "Oh, I could do that!" really can't.
A writer-inner wants to know if Colicchio would ever consider a cook-off between himself and one of the cheftestants. Colicchio laughs and says, "Anytime." "OHHHHWEEEOOOHHHH! BIG TIME!" Brian bellows, having just experienced a Brian changeover. Which cheftestant would Colicchio choose to cook against? The winner, of course. Would the other judges ever want to participate in a similar event? Padma would, especially because there were so many QFs she had ideas for. Padma, satisfying the munchies wouldn't necessarily net you a QF win. Camille announces that she would pay for Padma and Clay to go up against each other. I'm certain that's insulting to one of them, but the problem is, I'm not exactly sure who should be more offended. Camille qualifies her comment by saying that Padma could cook her way through the cheftestants all the way up to Hung. Yeah, but then Hung would make another Froot Loop Fairyland and Padma would have a paranoid freak-out and hide in the corner until someone ate all the purple things on the plate.
Cohen awkwardly segues into a "the judges are big meanies!" clip show, followed by a montage of the cheftestants standing by their dishes a la Tammy Wynette. Or Hillary. It all ends with the clip of Colicchio telling CJ that his broccolini was the most awfullest, worsest thing in the entire universe of bad food you don't ever want to eat even if you had a towel. Back on the set, Colicchio comically recoils at how mean he sounded. Cohen wants to know if the cheftestants were feistier this year, or if the judges were just meaner. Colicchio thinks it was all the cheftestants, starting with Howie throwing Bourdain's own words back in his face. And then we watch the clip. Colicchio says that when Howie did that, he was clapping under the table. No one can come to a consensus on which cheftestant took the worst beating at Judges' Table, though. Colicchio thinks that because this year's crop was so talented, the judges expected a lot more out of them. Therefore, when they failed, the judges came down on them. Hard.
Cohen, who refuses to choke on a sweaty sock no matter how many I ball up and throw at the television, now announces, "Well, it wasn't just the judges that drove all of you crazy, it seems that the Stew Room led to some pretty outrageous behavior [the cheftestants start laughing in agreement, so Cohen has to raise his voice to make sure everyone I mean everyone hears him] and maybe it should have been nicknamed [needlessly dramatic pause for the bon NOT that followed] THE NUTHOUSE!" What follows is a parade of previously-unseen footage. Clearly there was a lot of drinking, sleeping, and, in some cases, dancing going on in the Stew Room (I like that name, by the way, Bravo, and I'll use it. Giving due credit, of course). CJ rambles some odd song about sitting in the Stew Room (tm Bravo), waiting for their demise. Oh, and I forgot about this little tidbit! We have a shot of Brian stretching out on some cardboard and getting all comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that he reaches down and yanks at his junk. I assume he was doing some "rearranging," but it looked painful. Back in the studio, CJ sees that clip and screams with laughter. Back in the Stew Room, Joey wakes up from a brief snooze to catch Brian imitating his nodding-off motion. Joey slaps at him good-naturedly. Someone else was saying "banana hammock" right at that moment and I really don't understand what they were talking about, but I'm dying to find out! Someone -- Hung, I think -- blew up a latex glove and the cheftestants started batting it around the room. "It's a chicken -- no, it's a turkey," Hung laughs. "Yeah, the Chicken Cordon Blow?" Dale snarks. Hysterical. Sara N. gets up and does an awkward dance-y thing that makes Elaine Benes look like Kevin Bacon in that scene from Footloose. The clip show ends with the cheftestants laughing hysterically, and Brian choking on water as MALARKEY! tries to drown him yet again.In the studio, Padma notes that it looks like they had a lot of fun back there. Brian says that what we just saw was only a few minutes out of the many hours of horror they experienced. Cohen asks how long they spent in the Stew Room on average, and Sara M. claims six, but others say it was more like four to five. Padma points out that the judges had to suffer just as much, since they were having to do all that judge-y stuff. Yeah, but you weren't sweating out whether you were losing out on $100,000 or not. Cohen now wants Sara N. and M. to demo their awesome dance moves. The moves we saw in the clip show. So, we saw the clip show and now were going to re-see it in real time because redundancy is an anti-oxidant, and so Sara N. gets up and dances again and it's awkward and stupid and weird and MOVE ALONG HOME! Before we go to commercial, Cohen reminds us that we haven't yet heard who the fan favorite is, so we still have to wade through all this crap to get to that dubious pay-off.
After commercials, Cohen wants to know what the cheftestants' favorite challenge was. "Clay?" he asks singles out meanly. Seriously, so mean, but also, so not surprising coming from this guy. Clay makes a disgusted face as the other cheftestants laugh, and Howie says, "So, so wrong!" Cohen notes that he was only teasing and directs the question at the cheftestants who actually had staying power. Brian liked the seafood, the barbecue, and the ghetto grocery store. Dale liked the Bombay Sapphire cocktail and the finale. Hung liked Le Cirque. This devolves into them all talking about Le Cirque and how crazy it was and how uncomfortable it was to be walking into the kitchens like they were interns. Padma really liked that challenge because it showed her what they looked like in their natural habitat. Colicchio liked the French Culinary Institute challenge because he got to introduce Andre Soltner. Ted notes that Colicchio actually looked intimidated during that whole thing. "I actually walked off and had a moment," Colicchio admits. I'm really curious as to what sort of "moment" Colicchio would have. After the obligatory clip of Colicchio introducing the chefs from FCI, Colicchio says that when he was just a cook, Andre Soltner was "the guy" in the industry, so he was so honored to introduce him.
Cohen then gives us some clips he calls "Top Chef Leftovers." I wish Cohen were leftover. Left…over there. At least these are clips we haven't seen. We have things like Brian licking a spoon Sara N. was holding in the air as time ran out on a QF, Padma telling herself, "Boobies up, shoulders back," as she stands to Govind Armstrong, and Colicchio shoving something -- a lime wedge? -- in his mouth and asking his fellow judges if he has anything in his teeth. Okay, that was cute. In fact, I found all the Colicchio clips surprisingly endearing. Gail is making a proclamation about something or other and forgets a cheftestant's name. Padma is shown sampling lots of Bombay Sapphire cocktails, after which she says, "So, now that we're all good and sloshed, let me tell you about the Elimination Challenge." There's another clip of Padma announcing and demonstrating how she's going to be leaning a lot after all those cocktails. We get a mini-montage of the cheftestants flubbing their way through confessionals, and one in particular of Howie being twice interrupted by a fire alarm and looking comically irritated by it. The best series shows Gail and Padma repeatedly reminding Colicchio to keep his hands away from his mouth. Finally when both Padma and Gail push his hand down, Colicchio snaps, "You don't gotta hit me!" all hen-pecked and crabby. In another scene, Colicchio's mic is getting fixed and he agrees, "Sure, I'll take a cocktail!" Gail does a tiny tongue stick-out that is really quite cute, and the cheftestants slip and fall around the kitchens. In one of the Rav-4s, the cameraman asks CJ and Howie to move closer together. "We don't gotta snuggle up, do we?" Howie asks with tired annoyance. Then he and CJ lean in, back to back, with Howie copping a Beastie Boys arm-fold pose.
Back in the studio, Cohen notes that Colicchio looked "legitimately pissed off." Colicchio laughs and admits that he was "cranky," and Gail says they were actually scared of him. Colicchio says it was about three or four in the morning and he doesn't do well with altitude, so he wasn't real happy. Well, everybody had the same conditions. , we get a montage about how cruel the cheftestants were about each others' dishes. We've seen them all; if you want a description, read every recap I ever wrote. One thing we didn't originally see is Hung saying, "That tasted like my puke," and then laughing, recanting it, and saying, "That's bad, I don't wanna say that bullshit." Then we get a reaction montage to Hung's Froot Loop fantasy, and Brian commenting that he saw Frank do the 'Shroom Town thing last season, but Hung's rendition was way more freaktastic than that. Back in the studio, Cohen orders, "Hung, defend that dish!" Awesomely, Hung says, "There's nothing to defend, I was just having fun. Just having fun." After Dale notes that they all freaked out during that QF, Padma admits that the difficulty with the QF was less about the aisles and more about being constrained to a ten-dollar budget. Howie starts to say something -- and I think he was agreeing that ten dollars was a ridiculous budget -- but Padma interrupts him with, "Howie, you're going to protest? Because you didn't even do anything!" SNAP! And we get that clip of Howie serving nothing, which is sort of unfair, because again, I think Howie was agreeing with her.
Because Gail got engaged recently, a writer-inner wants to know which cheftestant she would chose to cater her wedding. Gail opts for all the ladies, telling them to bring it on. To bore us further, Cohen shoves us into some clips of Brian and Howie being one-noters with their seafood and pork fanaticism, and Hung sous-videing everything except Padma's fried toe. In the studio, Hung attempts to defend his sous-vide technique by saying that just like using sauté pans, sous-vide is simply another way of cooking something. I don't really see why the other cheftestants are making such big deal about it -- Hung's right. It's just a cooking method, one that usually ensures a sealing-in of flavor and moisture. While it experienced a resurgence at the same time the foams and gelees hit the scene, it's really not the same thing as molecular gastronomy. Someone -- maybe MALARKEY! -- leans over and says that Hung won, so he doesn't need to defend anything.
Cohen asks if the competition has helped the cheftestants' culinary repertoire. Yes. They learned stuff. Stuff that makes them cook. MALARKEY! gets into it, pounding his chest for emphasis (he's wearing that weird blood-spattered argyle vest again): "This group of people -- all we wanna do is talk about food. All we wanna talk about is where we traveled, where we ate, what we ate, what we're cooking, what we're doing, and seriously, we sat around saying, 'No one gets tired talking about food!'" Point is, they learned from each other and they learned from the judges' critiques.
We move on to what is most certainly the best montage of the whole stupid hour. Going on about how two cheftestants made a love connection that year, Cohen tells us to watch. The clip show starts with a silent movie title of "Meet Howie & Joey," and defining clips of Howie and Joey follow. Howie's a "bulldog," and Joey wears a big Italia jersey and is from New York. Then we get the clips of Howie and Joey fighting in the Stew Room during the barbecue challenge. we get the title, "There's a thin line between love & hate," and we see Joey apologizing to Howie and shaking his hand. We definitely never saw that before. come clips of Howie and Joey getting along, being complimentary of each other's food, all of which finally conclude with Howie wanting to share his wine with Joey. Then comes the title, "But cruel fate forces them apart," and Joey is sent home and he's crying and he's hugging Howie. As Joey sobs in the clips, we see Howie and Joey totally cracking up in the studio. We go back to the studio and though he's laughing, Howie is totally wiping his eyes. The cheftestants and judges applaud, and Howie and Joey hug and grab hands. "Hug it out!" Ted Allen shouts. "Ahhh, hug it out!" Padma's neck parrots. Cohen wants to know if Joey and Howie have seen each other since the show ended, but Joey says this is the first they've talked. Cohen's all aghast: "Did something happen?!" Howie explains that after the way he acted on the show, he wasn't sure who would even want to talk to him, so he kept his distance. However, he admits, since all the cheftestants have been pretty great to him, it's brought out new emotions in him. "Is that a tear in your eye?" Cohen singsongs. Howie nods mutely, and all the cheftestants cheer. Aw.
Casey announces, "Howie is completely different this time around!" Upon being further pressed, though, Howie says he was laughing so hard and that's why he's tearing up. "It's the riiiight answeeeer," Padma drawls, holding her arm in front of her and clapping elaborately. She is so baked. Howie then says that it's easier for him to hear bad things about himself than to hear good things, so when people compliment him, he gets emotional. Case in point, just saying that choked Howie up. CJ reaches across Joey to pat Howie fondly. Cohen says he has a question for Howie's "better half," and asks about Joey's new tattoo. Joey then gets up and shows it off. The tattoo is on the side of his calf, and it's a chef's knife with "Pickles" written on the blade and a ribbon reading "Top Chef 3" winding around it. There are also the obligatory Chinese characters on either side of the knife. "Was it a decision between a Top Chef logo and a heart with Howie's name in it?" Cohen wonders. Dude, the joke has been slammed into the ground. By you. You've killed it. Joey says that particular tattoo is going on his other leg.
, we go into a montage that Cohen deems "the frightening implications" of being friends with Casey. You guessed it: here we have all the times Casey claimed a close friendship with a cheftestant who was then quickly sent home. The clip that represents Casey's friendship with CJ is a bit of a stretch. Back in the studio, Cohen asks Casey if she's the black widow of Top Chef 3. "I was her roommate," Sandee offers hysterically. Meanwhile, all this leads into a Dale montage. All of which we've seen. Back in the studio, Dale cracks, "I've always wanted a montage." The judges give Dale lots of props, and Cohen says that Dale has become a "mohawked sex symbol" and reads something from a writer-inner, who wants to know what if Dale's single and what his type is. Dale says, "Beauty's only a light switch away." Everyone laughs, particularly Colicchio. Dale adds, "I like men because they're men. And that's my type." Dale also admits that he's "very" single.
After the commercials, Cohen FINALLY announces that the fan favorite wins ten thousand dollars and a full range of Calphalon cookware. He then pulls out the check and announces, "Casey Thompson." The cameras zoom in for a close-up of the check, and Cohen is idiotically holding his finger over Casey's name. It's clearly her name, but still, that's just clumsy. Casey is flattered and happy, and now we get to dive into a Casey montage with many of the cheftestants saying how gorgeous she is, but also what a good chef she is. After the montage, Casey says she would love to go to Thailand with her newfound wealth, and of the current cast, she would love to take Lia with her. Hung's Andy Cohen-prompted advice for year's cheftestants is that they should cook from the heart, take criticism better than he did, and have fun with it. Other cheftestants chime in about having fun, listening to the rules of the challenges, and not holding back. And also? Memorize some freaking pastry recipes, okay?!
And we're done. Really, finally, truly done with Season Three.