Totale

Once again, they trot out 20+ pounds/$100+ worth of fish per contestant for them to hack away at like toddlers to try to extract a 4 oz portion that the judges barely taste if they do at all.

I immediately tried to conceptualize anger on a plate.

"Snot on a rock" is strictly Top Chef territory.

Opera Singer and Man of 1000 Voices are going to wear out my mute button.

Someone left those cakes out in the rain. I don't think that I can take it.

Yes, by "the powers vested in him". He didn't say by who.

We thought Blacksmith got screwed, but at least we got to see Tombstone lose which is always a good time.

Aside from maybe minor tweaks to the coating there's very little you can do to make a real (not "clam strip") clam roll better, aside from piling on more clams and making sure there is plenty of tartar sauce. Round brioche bun, chilis in the tartar sauce? Just no. And did Bobby even shuck real live clams? We saw the challenger doing it, but I don't remember Flay doing so. It's time consuming, sloppy and a real pain in the ass, and I'll bet he had them done for him ahead of time.

Look at the bright side. If he's doing this he's not doing (Next) Food Network Star.

Jeeze, I got over seeing Tonya on TV a decade ago, watching "World's Dumbest..." I still enjoy watching those reruns on occasion when my DVR suggests it My wife likes this show (WCinA) more than I do. The civilian ones can be fun for a while, but I think this was the first time I actually got all the way to the end of a Celebrity edition. Never made it past (or maybe through) one episode before. No big surprises past the second episode for me this season, though. I was calling it from a mile away every week.

I enjoyed the first double episode, though none of the fights were especially thrilling. Is the pink haired judge the one that used to drive the bots that looked like bugs and always got beat, maybe Lisa? She should be sympathetic, anyway, but I wish she was on the floor asking questions rather than the new BotBunny. Glad it was DVRed so I could skip through the long long long trash talk/hard look into the camera buildup to the final match.

Fantastic article from Vulture/New York on the taping of the finale: https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/veep-series-finale.html

And all because Selina gave chocolate to the dog.

Unusual for FN shows, to me it looked authentic that she walked off (and probably said "Go ahead and sue me" on the way out). I was wondering if she was vegan or something and thought she could handle it. She was uncomfortable handling some formerly living product the first week and had to work next to a jabbering asshole, I think chicken feet just went too far.

Doesn't Jonah announcing he was born in Canada trigger some "natural born citizen" issue with his Presidential campaign?

While you watch Selina climb in the polls, just remember the show's original title sequence.

I only knew her from "The Americans", too - but I have looked up some of Joan McCracken's appearances on YT, and maybe she'll recreate one of those in a flashback. The real McCracken presents as shorter and more powerfully built than Misner, though.

Like most sane people I FF through TV commercials, but I could have sworn I saw a flash of Christina Tosi in the first break, too. And the Web page for Ed Lee's flagship doesn't mention TC, but does mention that he is currently a guest judge on Masterchef. Perhaps they are all blending into one.

My guess was that (like ATK) she considers both the actual "tin" cans and the processed refrigerated crab meat in the little tubs found in many supermarkets to be "canned".

Nice shots of the garden, BTW, considering they were filming for like two months. I think either they found something even more miraculous than Miracle-Gro or they came back a few months later to take some shots. They're running out of time to use the garden in a challenge, maybe that was just another idea that didn't pan out. I also noticed that once again they didn't use any footage of civilians reacting to the food.

I thought this episode sucked and Eddie was robbed. I hatewatch Food Network Star for making their chefs bend their cooking to fit a story, because I only care about the food and don't give a FF on a RD about the story. They've done plenty of stupid things but I always thought of TC as above that until this season. Then they doubled down on it on LCK.

That was Dick Gregory, but it's still cool that they are going to the Ali center, one of the major attractions in Louisville.

This sat on my DVR until last night when we finally had 3 hours to sit and watch it. I hadn't kept up so didn't know it was the dress rehearsal until the first break. I don't regret watching it at all - all the snipes above may be valid but I got into it over the course of the show. I was mostly disappointed at the American Idoling of some of the songs and the audience's reaction to it. The sound design was super-spotty and I was glad I had CC on. But I for one really liked the overall stage design and camera work - I thought it was a refreshing take on the only other version I've seen (the OC film).

All of the top level was empty, there were people in sections 32-34 and 13-11 below, plus all the sections in the grey lower level behind the area marked Stage below. The judges were to the front of the Stage area

I was one of the few people in the stands, what you missed is that there was a small line of connected folks who got fed, and everybody in the 2/3 empty stands kind of sat in silence most of the cooking time, unless the contestants were riling them up or a half hearted wave made the rounds. They sent cameras around to talk to those few civilians about the food, but apparently didn't use any of it, maybe they weren't articulate. They took lots of shots of Eddie talking, too, but we couldn't hear what he was saying and they didn't use it. We didn't know he was a contestant, I thought he must have been a concession manager for the arena or something. As the natives got more restless chefs on both sides started flinging bits of food up into the stands which people started grabbing for like home run balls. I knew Fine Dining Tom wasn't going to let that get on the air, although there was one fleeting shot of it in a montage early in the season. It was really interesting to see the video on the Jumbotrons, TC has a very recognizable video style and it starts right at the camera, those people know their jobs. The director strutted around during set-up in a douchey hat like Spike used to wear, I meant to look at the credits to see if it was actually Spike but I forgot. I remember Tom saying Sara's chicken was far better than Adrienne's and the ideal dish would have been S's meat with A's waffle. The description of the burger as a Juicy Lucy topped with pork belly cooked in duck fat sounded like a parody of what wins on food shows and big surprise, it did.