After the Vietnamese food challenge, Sara and Travis are a bit downtrodden, especially Sara. Travis says he’s feeling "melancholy," so he talks to his mom on the phone and it becomes about being gay. Are we supposed to like Travis now? It’s not working.
Uh oh, it’s the aluminum foil challenge. When the chefs arrive in the kitchen, everything is wrapped in foil. Gail Simmons is standing to Padma to deliver the challenge, even though we all know what’s coming. Everything, even the pots, pans and kitchen tools are covered in Reynolds Wrap. Padma tries to make this about moms, but it’s a loose segue to introduce the mothers of Padma and Gail. The chefs are split into two teams and are tasked to create three dishes in 30 minutes. To make matters worse, the moms are shopping for their ingredients.
No offense to Padma’s mom, but Gail’s mom looks a little spryer and up to the task. The moms only have five minutes, which worries them both. Moms across the country may be using Reynolds Wrap, but they’re not unwrapping pots and spoons covered in it regularly. The teams have to use every single ingredient in the shopping cart. At least the winning team will split $10,000.
Lakshmi and Simmons Srs. are quickly throwing ingredients and foil-wrapped miscellany into their carts. Nobody has any idea what they’re doing, making this one of the dumbest challenges yet. The chefs start unwrapping to reveal some useful things like olive oil, and some awful things like mustard and baking soda. It’s almost too much food and too many options.
Nina, Bene and Brian are working on a course together and are working with canned beans, ginger, dried cherries, okra, strawberries and feta cheese. Sick. They decide to make a soup, hoping no one will notice all the bullshit that’s in it. The other teams have much more usable items, probably. Although I don’t know how to use ingredients outside of tortillas and cheese.
Carrie is trying to make a dish that requires a whisk without a whisk. Stephanie and Sara are stuck with lamb, which is OK, but they have to cover it with corn, onions, mushrooms and some very funky cheese. All in half an hour. That is so ridiculous. In the last moments Sara takes the lamb back to throw it on the grill longer and it almost doesn’t make it to the plate.
The moms return with their daughters, and all four of them try the weird dishes. Sara and Stephanie’s fonduta is up first. Gail’s mom says the lamb is not over-cooked. Michael and Justin team up to present a red snapper papillote, whatever that is! The dessert is a sabayon, which is the thing that needed a whisk but didn’t have one. It seems like it went OK for them.
Over on Team Lakshmi, they’re serving poached clams with a whatever sauce, snappers and another papillote, and that Baba Yaga soup Nina and Bene threw together. Now that I’ve heard of it twice in the course of five minutes, I have to look up what a papillote is. It’s a "method of cooking in which the food is put into a folded pouch or parcel, then baked." Can’t wait to try it at home with all the parcels I have lying around.
Gail and her mom say that they were impressed by how many ingredients Team Lakshmi was able to use without making anyone throw up. They are quite a bit more critical of Team Simmons, and even Padma’s mom says the lamb didn’t quite come together. In a surprising turn of events, Team Lakshmi wins the Quickfire and $10,000 with their crazy-quilt meal.
To introduce the elimination challenge, Padma tells the chefs that "Halloween is right around the corner," which is true for us as viewers, but not even remotely so for the chefs hearing the challenge. But whatever. New Orleans! Bring out Lea Michele!
Normally I find Lea Michele insufferable, but ever since Cory Monteith died I feel bad for her and maybe she has softened a bit? She seems like she is at least trying to act humble and darling. Padma tells the chefs that they will be catering Lea’s costume party. God, I bet she is always hosting a goddamn costume party.
The chefs will be working in teams of two, with each team responsible for two dishes. Nina and Michael are paired together, and Nina does not seem thrilled about it because Michael is kind of a dick. Padma gives the group 15 minutes to talk to Lea Michele to hear what she wants at her gala or about herself.
Lea Michele is vegan, of course. And she loves to live a "vegan lifestyle." But sometimes she goes on a break and allows herself to go vegetarian so she can eat cheese and wear leather and sacrifice a goat. She loves cheese and isn’t a big sweets person. She wants it to be spooky, fun, and loaded with cheese. The chefs ask her guiding questions, which confounds the vegan lifestyle even further. Lea Michele will not shut up about cheese, though.
The chefs hit Whole Foods and rush the cheese department. Louis and Shirley are paired up, as are Carrie and Stephanie, who choose the color black as their theme. Spooky food. Nina and Michael are not communicating well and she accuses his dish of being something a five-year old could make. I’m sure I couldn’t make it, though. When it comes to cooking, I am a baby: I eat what’s placed in front of me and prefer it mashed, flavorless and beige whenever possible.
Carlos and Travis are working together to do a Dia De Los Muertos theme. They have purple cauliflower going on, plus something using liquid nitrogen so maybe this will be when Carlos shines. Patty and Nicholas are paired together and are throwing "spooky" to the wind and going with fall flavors and dishes. The chefs are all putting so much cheese in their dishes that Lea Michele is going to have diarrhea for a week.
Tom stops in to the kitchen to discover Justin making pasta with beets to have it looking like blood even though Lea Michele hates beets. She loves all vegetables except for beets and loves to be vegan except for cheese. Actresses, man.
Nina and Nicholas are both preparing a gnocchi, which makes Nicholas nervous enough to change his mind and prepare a butternut squash cannoli. Brian and Bene are working together doing "spooky spa cuisine," and I don’t know what that means. Apparently they mean that it’s light and meatless. Back to Nina and Michael fighting loudly and making everyone uncomfortable.
Some of the chefs go to check out the nursing home behind the house after the prep day. They walk around with flashlights and it is even less eventful than an episode of Ghost Hunters.
This party is at Mardis Gras World, where it is almost always Halloween or so we are made to believe. Louis and Shirley are working well together, keeping the peace and making each other laugh. Nina and Michael are just doing their best to keep from screaming, even with Michael calling Nina "boo boo." My god.
Time’s up and the guests arrive, but no one is allowed to look as sexy as Lea Michele, who is just barely dressed as a cat. It’s really an ass-tight pencil skirt and corset top with cat ears. Hugh Acheson is dressed as a full-on prince, and Padma is… Mother Earth? She’s wearing a magnificent feathered headdress. Tom is dressed as the guy who got kicked out of the barbershop quartet, I guess. Terrible fake-Halloween costumes all around.
Carrie and Stephanie present to the judges first with their black-themed dishes. They created a charred chicory puree and a "freaky leeky" covered in something meant to look like ashes. The yellow team, Patty and Nicholas, made that butternut squash cannoli, which is hard to eat, and a lemon arancini. It doesn’t go well. Up is the green team: Bene and Brian. Their spa food consists of a crispy quinoa salad and a magical salad. Lea says it’s a bit heavy, even though these portions are the smallest ever.
Travis and Carlos have magical feta for Padma and she tells them she’s dressed as a voodoo priestess. That’s cool, and theme-appropriate. Nina and Michael are judged , with their candy corn-inspired gnocchi and Michael’s "bloody eye" arancini. It goes over well with Lea. Back to Travis and Carlos and their Day of the Dead dishes. Travis made a ceviche, naturally, and Carlos made a fondue with fried zucchini. Cheese! Padma likes that the dishes were both very spicy.
Someone at Lea’s party got too drunk and starts growling at Padma about how he bows to her. She doesn’t know these people, really. Back to the food, Louis made a "severed thumb" dish that has people talking and Shirley made a "worm salad" noodle dish. Up , it’s the moment of truth for Justin, who put beets in his pasta. Lea Michele is like, "I don’t like beets and I told you!" but god, it’s in fucking pasta. It’s not enough to turn your shit red. Sara made an eyeball-themed arancini. So much arancini.
Everyone has fun at the party and eats all the cheese and arancini. Lea Michele bullshits about "acidity" with Tom Colicchio, who is dressed as "The Great Gatsby," not-obviously. Then everyone goes home before they shit their costumes from all that cheese.
In the stew room, Michael tells Nina that she needed him in the beginning. He has learned nothing except how to be a bigger egomaniac. The watch as Lea Michele talks about the foods she liked and Padma tries to sneak in that there were far too many arancini in the house. Lea liked Patty’s the best. Lea did not like Justin’s pasta because she found out there were beets in it. They also liked Carlos’s spicy dish and Travis’s ceviche. Many of the teams had one good dish and one bad one. Brian and Bene had two bad salads. Spooky Spa fail.
Nicholas, Patty, Carlos and Travis face the judges to hear who emerged victorious. They liked how well Carlos and Travis worked together as a team. Travis takes credit for his success due to growing up in Southeast Colorado with a 60% Latino community. Bravo is learning how to do these polls, having far fewer during the episode, then asking about which team should win. Carlos and Travis get the win, then return to the stew room to send in Michael and Nina and Brian and Bene.
Brian and Bene say they felt good about their spa cuisine dishes and Tom asks Lea, "did you ask for spa cuisine?" and Lea says, "I wanted the opposite of spa cuisine," and I wish people would stop talking like they knew what that even was all along. Lea is disappointed that they treated the challenge like vegetarians only eat quinoa. There were big problems with Michael’s dish and Nina is chastised for not tasting his. That’s dumb.
Going into the deliberation, Lea Michele acts like choosing who to eliminate isn’t her favorite part. They agree that Nina’s dish was good and Michael’s was amateur (which is what Nina said). Lea points out that at least there was cheese in Michael’s dish, while Bene and Brian did two bullshit salads when she specifically asked for cheese. But you have to keep the client happy. In the end, only Michael is sent packing for putting a god damn olive on the worst arancini of the bunch. One last thing: papillote.
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