S02.E14/15: Made In America/Next Level Finale

[DanaK]

Quote

In Part I of the two-hour Season Two finale, each chef must select two different boxes, each representing a state and its local ingredients, then will have to conceive a dish that seamlessly infuses both into one unforgettable and inventive fusion dish. Then, in the second half of the finale, the final three chefs must create one dish on each level of the kitchen in just 90 minutes! It is up to the chefs to determine how much time they use on the bottom and middle levels, which will determine how much time they have to make their final dish on the top level. Eighteen chefs began the journey, three will cook in the finale, and only one will win the one-year mentorship, $250,000 and the title of Next Level Chef in the all-new "Made In America/Next Level Finale" two-hour Season Two finale episode of Next Level Chef airing Thursday, May 11 (8:00-10:00PM ET/PT) on FOX.
 

 

[DanaK]

The winner is Tucker. Chris and Pilar were the runner ups

Edited May 12, 2023 by DanaK

[SpottedCoachDog]

Pyet! She seems to be doing well.

I knew that when Tucker and Pilar advanced that Chris would win elimination simply to give everyone a team member in the finale. Which sucked because I hate Chris and couldn’t even pay attention because I was afraid his creepy ass would win.  I would have loved to have seen Pilar win, but no way was Team Arrington getting two in a row. Sigh. Hopefully Richard has someone likable next year.

[mertensia]

Figures it's Tucker. Her "tongue out while cooking" bit in the first episode had me hating her from the start.

...Did Omi deep fry an **arepa**? Did I get that right? Because you don't deep fry them. I wonder if she even had masarepa mix.

[cinsbythesea]

Nuri...broke my heart.  He's young and hopefully Gordon will see his potential and help him along.  Hoping its NOT Tucker who wins.

[DEL901]

Of course it was Chris winning the second round so each mentor could have someone in the finals.  I don’t mind Tucker winning but she has to remember this isn’t the bachelorette and to stop doing the handshake.  It is very unprofessional.  

[GHScorpiosRule]

UGH. For some reason, I just didn't like Tucker. And I'll be honest, those weird earrings kept distracting me. Like she only had half ears.

I was really hoping either Pilar or Omi would win. But I'm soooo not watching this again. I'll stick to MasterChef.

[milkyaqua]

Eh, I'm okay with Tucker winning.  The show annoyed me with every side interview of Pilar talking about doing this for her daughter.  Show, I don't care about family soap opera stories.  Just give me creative contestants who can actually cook.  Chris needs to never be on television again.  I also agree that the show obviously wanted a team member rep from each chef and hope that one of the chef's will help Nuri along his journey.

[GHScorpiosRule]

11 minutes ago, milkyaqua said:

Show, I don't care about family soap opera stories.  Just give me creative contestants who can actually cook.

👏👏

[wmdekooning]

Tucker was going to win because she was consistent every episode, easily succeeded in escaping her one time in elimination, and came up with good dishes each week. I kinda think she had a bit of a crush on Gordon, despite her not having the ♥️s in the eyes as did Chris when he met Pyet. 
 

Nuri, aka “Chef Mur’land” (Maryland) had me a little bummed with his crying. I get it, he put everything he had on the table. He needed the patented Gordon Ramsay “Young man, if only I had had your skills at just 19 years of age! Whatever you do, don't stop cooking." style speech. I myself had already graduated college at his age, and not only was I NOT well on my way to a desired career, I had really not much of an idea of a career to pursue.

Props to “Chef Mur’land”…

[Chicago Redshirt]

20 minutes ago, wmdekooning said:

Tucker was going to win because she was consistent every episode, easily succeeded in escaping her one time in elimination, and came up with good dishes each week. I kinda think she had a bit of a crush on Gordon, despite her not having the ♥️s in the eyes as did Chris when he met Pyet. 

I think Tucker is openly queer, so any crush she might have had on Gordon is a very platonic one, and nothing like Chris's feelings toward Pyet.

I do think that if one could put to the side egos and the gimmick of teams, Tucker's performance over the course of the season and in the finale probably earns her the win. Taking the judges at face value, they didn't seem to have any meaningful problems with her finale dishes. And seeing how I was on the ABC (Anybody but Chris) train for a while, I'm glad that we got to our final destination.

Chugga-chugga-chugga choo choo! 

[lgandkihei]

Punch my ticket on the "anybody but Chris" train, but I'm totally fine with Tucker.  Actually, she was my favorite from the git-go, and I don't quite understand the hate towards her, but I know we all look for and care about different things. On a side note, whenever I see people with those exaggerated ear piercings like she has, all I can do is wonder what they'll do when they're old and it's no longer hip or cool or trendy, and they're left with long dangling loopy earlobes.  Then again, I guess there'll be a whole generation of their peers who will have aged right along with them, so they'll all be in the same boat, and it won't seem strange.  It's sort of like the way heavy tattoos are so much more mainstream (especially on women) than they were back in my day.  I always picture some 85-year old grandma with full sleeves, and it just doesn't work in my head.  Yeah, I'm old, and times have changed, and I'm definitely not judging anyone for his personal choices.   I get it, and to each their own.  I'm a child of the sixties, and back in the day, I thought I was very cool, too.  Sigh....

I, too, get tired of the whole "I'm doing this for my blah blah blah" routine, but I'm pretty sure that the chefs are sort of forced into all that by the producers.  I'm going to assume that, anyway.

I know Gordon is supposed to be a dick, and I honestly don't know whether he truly is or if that's just his schtick, but I'll confess that I do enjoy watching him.  On the other hand, I was already over Blais way back the first time he showed his ridiculously-coiffed head on his first Top Chef appearance, and I definitely haven't ever softened to him over the years.  I was also never a fan of Nyesha, and I've always found her annoying, even though I can't specifically say why.  Yes, I'm a horrible shallow person.  Je suis guilty.

The editing on NLC is so obvious as to be ridiculous.  When Chris threw his salmon in without properly closing the oven doors, and they had to keep zeroing in on the doors hanging ajar, naturally we were supposed to fear the worst (or, in the case of all those who loathe him, hope for his undoing,) but surprise, everything was fine and the fish was perfect.  Nothing like the ever-popular manufactured fake drama, eh?  Same with the raw duck- - oh wait, it was superb!  Gee, editors, I was sooo fooled.  Not!

I know that the bottom line is that it's a TV show, and they want to throw in all kinds of stuff to round it out and increase the tension or whatever, but a simple honest taste-testing would suffice for me.  I don't need sob stories or fakety-fake drama to reel me in.

I also think it's weird the way Gordon, Blais and Nyesha head over to the corner to do their little "one-on-ones" to the camera, all while staring off to the side and acting so concerned/worried about their protege.  It just looks stupid to me, but I suppose it's "artsy."

As I mentioned, I'm shallow, so I'll admit to being way more interested in $250K than any so-called "mentorship."  Do any of us really assume that any of these three chefs is going to take Tucker under their wing and hang out with her all that much?  Call me cynical.  Pyet does seem successful, though, so winning the show obviously must provide a nice leg up in the cheffy biz.

 

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by lgandkihei
grammar

[wmdekooning]

3 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I think Tucker is openly queer, so any crush she might have had on Gordon is a very platonic one, and nothing like Chris's feelings toward Pyet.

I think she is too. But still…

[oliviabenson]

I hate tucker as much as I hate Tini… Tucker is so annoying and those stretched out ears. It’s at my cellular level how much I dislike both.

I wish Pilar won. Oh well. At least it wasn’t Chris. 
 

I do want to eat Chris’s tomahawk steak. It looked phenomenal.

[Chicago Redshirt]

44 minutes ago, oliviabenson said:

I hate tucker as much as I hate Tini… Tucker is so annoying and those stretched out ears. It’s at my cellular level how much I dislike both.

I wish Pilar won. Oh well. At least it wasn’t Chris. 
 

I do want to eat Chris’s tomahawk steak. It looked phenomenal.

I kind of feel like taking a tomahawk steak off the bone is a crime. 

[DanaK]

4 hours ago, lgandkihei said:

I also think it's weird the way Gordon, Blais and Nyesha head over to the corner to do their little "one-on-ones" to the camera, all while staring off to the side and acting so concerned/worried about their protege.  It just looks stupid to me, but I suppose it's "artsy."

It certainly bothers me lol

[milkyaqua]

49 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I kind of feel like taking a tomahawk steak off the bone is a crime. 

Wasn't there a grill in that kitchen and I find it hard to believe there wasn't a bigger pan...

[Kaycee]

It looked like the duck was Chris's downfall at the basement level leaving Tucker and Pilar to battle it out in the next two rounds. Both Tucker and Pilar are talented chefs, at the end of the day Tuckers dishes just appealed to me more. I'm okay with Tucker winning, liked her positive attitude throughout the competition. 

[DEL901]

I think starting after the others was actually a plus for Tucker.  It gave her time to consider the ingredients and plan instead of rushing to decide on a dish.  

[Diana Berry]

I was fooled by the talking heads.  Chris was so over the top excited figured he won.  Guess they gave him no credit for taking the harder choices of food.

Tucker had a good poker face during her talking heads.  Never guessed it.

[blackwing]

On 5/12/2023 at 11:37 AM, wmdekooning said:

Tucker was going to win because she was consistent every episode, easily succeeded in escaping her one time in elimination, and came up with good dishes each week.

On 5/12/2023 at 12:00 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

I do think that if one could put to the side egos and the gimmick of teams, Tucker's performance over the course of the season and in the finale probably earns her the win. Taking the judges at face value, they didn't seem to have any meaningful problems with her finale dishes. And seeing how I was on the ABC (Anybody but Chris) train for a while, I'm glad that we got to our final destination.

I wanted Pilar to win, but I really didn't want Chris to win.  I assumed that Pilar wasn't eligible to win because Nyesha's team won last year.  So a Tucker win is... OK I suppose.  She was indeed consistent each week, but my issue with her food is that I don't think she had any cohesiveness to her menu.  Pilar seemed to have some kind of Cajun/Asian fusion element to each of her three dishes.  Tucker didn't seem to have any.   And as she admitted, her dishes throughout the competition have been all about the meat.

My big question about her is, what does her mentorship look like?  Is she going to try and open her own restaurant?  I just don't know what it would look like since she doesn't seem to have a style or a cuisine other than meat.

I was surprised that Chris didn't get more criticism for the duck breast appetizer.  Never mind that one slice was raw.  I just don't think of duck breast as an appetizer.  The way he prepared it, that could easily have been an entree.  And why didn't he get any criticism for taking the bone off of the tomahawk?  To me one of the big appeals of having a tomahawk is seeing the thing in its full glory, bone attached and being able to pick it up by the bone.

I cannot remember, but was the final round set up the same way?  Where based on how much time the contestant had remaining, the ones with more time got a head start?  It seemed odd to me that Chris got his first pick of the platform with none of the others around.  If it were up to me, I'd have all three pick at the same time, and then they are responsible for keeping track of their own time, instead of all three finishing at the same time, they would be done with cooking based on their remaining time.  But then I guess we don't get the dramatic three-way all finishing at the same time.

I've been wondering about Pyet, so it was nice to see her.  It sounds like she has her own pop-up restaurant "Pyet's Place"?  How often does it pop up?

Happy to see that this show has been renewed for two additional seasons!  But I feel like next season's winner will already be pre-determined to be a man from Richard Blais' team.  Ugh.  I hope the show proves me wrong.

Edited May 15, 2023 by blackwing

[blackwing]

Opps

Edited May 15, 2023 by blackwing

[Such A Flirt]

Glad Tucker won. Not that I was a fan, but she earned it. I had disliked Pilar since she used her pin against her, plus Nyesha was clearly favoring her. And I can't even believe Creepy Chris made Top 3; only because Blais had to have someone in the finale, for sure.

P.S. I hope Pyet got a restraining order.