S12.E10: The Final Countdown

[Drogo]

The final two recruits face off in the ultimate challenge -- cooking a 3-course, restaurant quality meal for a panel of culinary experts. Anne Burrell and Tyler Florence coach their recruits from the sidelines, but it all comes down to the skills that the recruits have learned over the past 10 weeks. Judges Paulette Goto, Jordan Andino and Michael Chernow taste the recruits' dishes in a blind taste test and determine the winner of the $25,000 prize.

[ivygirl]

Gah. Does Anne Burrell have it in her contract that she’ll win?

Steven’s food was absolutely beautiful; 100%, it was restaurant quality in appearance. Hazell’s food looked good, but not as high end. It sounds like her flavors were stronger, but as I can’t tell that for myself, I was going with visuals. 

[Psychobunny]

I really hate Tyler and I used to like him back on food 911. He doesn’t seem to be a very good teacher. He explains things once then yells when his recruits mess up. Several times it looked to me like his people went home because they didn’t understand what they were supposed to do. Anne on the other hand is a better teacher. When her recruits mess up she asks them questions to get them to think about what they are doing and how to fix it. She also seems to tailor the final menus to the recruits while I think Tyler sometimes just plans his menu in advance and tells the recruit what they will be making. Also what was the point of changing the menu at the last minute and making the cream be whipped by hand? Anyway, if I were on I would choose Anne’s team in a minute and I’m glad she won.

[Maya]

I knew Hazel would win as soon as she made pasta from scratch while Steven was poaching an egg. I know sometimes less is more, but not in a situation like this where they’re supposed to demonstrate how far they’ve come.

I am curious how they both made full sized cakes, baked them, cooled them and plated them in 30 minutes. Hmm. 

[justjen]

Do we think Steven has friends in the Worst Cooks editing team? He always seemed to have the funniest/corniest/sarcast-i-est talking head animations. Did anyone notice that? I was a little annoyed that none of the judges, after the cooks were revealed, realized Hazel's dessert and said "I see what you did there," it needed to be said.

 

[Unrelated to the particular episode but related to commercials during the episode (not sure where to put this comment): Looks like next celebrity season I will be obsessed over how unnatural Bronson Pinchot's face looks and that the work he appears to have had is inversely proportional to the entertainment work he has produced since the 80s.]

[jcbrown]

That finale was nearly unwatchable. I used to enjoy this show. Not sure if it is the casting, the editing, the annoying person Anne has become, or something else, but it is just bad now. The finale episode felt about three hours long. And if rumors are true and Robert Irvine returns next season, I'm out.

Edited to add that I think part of the problem is the insistence on making all the contestants into CHARACTERS rather than letting them just be people. 

Edited March 12, 2018 by jcbrown

[justjen]

I've been thinking about it a little more (slow day at work) and the finale was really, super boring. Maybe if I recognized the judges from anywhere else; maybe if someone had royally screwed up; maybe if they had given the judges crayons and paper menus while they waited it would have been interesting. But it was sooooooo boring. I am a non-cook/horrible cook and I did learn a few weeks ago from the show how folding is different from mixing, but nothing in the finale was compelling for me.

My boyfriend watched part of the mini-marathon Food Network was showing and he asked why I watched, so I had to explain to him what hate-watching is.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I also find the finales dull; they're like bad episodes of Chopped. I liked Hazel as a contestant, but in her talking heads, she was screaming and obviously reading from a script. 

Edited March 13, 2018 by Superclam

[theatremouse]

It seemed like between the practice run and the real thing, a lot of the components on Steven's were changed, not hugely changed but enough that I thought it was weird, and there was no explanation why. Usually if they decide based on the practice something else will work better, we see that as part of the episode. Maybe it just wasn't interesting enough, but I'd rather see a sentence explaining, you know, what's actually happening in the competition over one more snarky one-liner TH. Then again maybe I wasn't paying enough attention and missed it.

[grisgris]

I really didn't care who won. But ... I see that Anne stole a page from Rachael Ray's playbook from the "Worst Cooks -- Celebrity" finale menu selection. Rachael always listened to her recruit to determine what their "culinary roots" were and built the menu around that flavor profile. And guess what? She's squarely beaten Anne numerous times. So when Anne went with Hazell's Caribbean-themed rice, I was pretty confident she had the win.

Otherwise, the finale has really been toned down. There used to be way more tension and drama and serious mistakes. Now, it seems like near disasters are no big deal and all of the cooking comes off flawlessly. Anne and Tyler are actually nice to the recruits during the cooking.

I don't like Tyler's approach to teaching, especially when he paces around the kitchen and nitpicks the recruits to death. However, I'd rather see that than Robert Irvine.

Congrats to Hazell! 

P.S.: I wonder if Steven and Sharon keep in touch and hang out?

[mlp]

I had to watch a 3 hour ANW so I taped this show.  Then I switched back to FN just in time to catch the last few seconds accidentally and see that  Hazell won.  I couldn't stand to listen to her terrible grammar and, after reading the comments, I think I'm going to delete the show unwatched.  Sorry Steven.

FN seems to be resurrecting the loathesome Robert Irvine.  He's been on GGG and he was also on an episode of Bakers vs. Fakers - in a polo shirt instead of a black t-shirt no less.  If they bring him back to this show, I probably won't bother with it.  

[backformore]

11 hours ago, jcbrown said:

That finale was nearly unwatchable. I used to enjoy this show. Not sure if it is the casting, the editing, the annoying person Anne has become, or something else, but it is just bad now. The finale episode felt about three hours long. And if rumors are true and Robert Irvine returns next season, I'm out.

Edited to add that I think part of the problem is the insistence on making all the contestants into CHARACTERS rather than letting them just be people. 

I agree with all of this.   This show used to be somewhat amusing.  It's turned into a giant BORE because the contestants are supposed to be characters.  It's not believable, and, really if someone can't cook at all - teach them simple stuff.  that weird poached egg yolk in the shell is not something many people are going to do, with or without the bacon-infused whipped cream.  

Since the first episode, I haven't believed in the show.  I think they are all coached to pretend they can't cook anything at all at the beginning.  Remember Asaf, doing something like a carrot in a soup can with lettuce tied around it?    He played it like he was on a sitcom, over-acting the "I'm not even sure what a kitchen is for"  schtick.   - then later, he spoke with some knowledge of cooking and flavors. (I also think his accent was exaggerated for effect) 

And the twins who connected every task to their boy scout merit badges?  That had to be producer influenced. They are adults.  "former boy scout"  is not an occupation.

  Why can't they just have people who can't cook, and then TEACH them to make simple dishes? this season was so boring because they worked so hard at selling the "wacky character"  aspect.   I think I might be done with this show.  

[Amarsir]

I feel like if FN saw this feedback they'd still take the wrong message. "People thought our finale was too boring. That must mean we need even wackier characters!"

It always seemed to me they're trying to balance two disparate shows, neither of which is all that great. The first half is "World's Wackiest Kitchen Disasters" and the latter is "My Fair Chef". In between I believe they're probably teaching real skills to real people, but it seems that's off-camera.

What really bothers me is this fear that ratings-wise they might be right. Maybe as audiences we do like the easily-classified characters over the multidimensional humans. Steven had lots of talking heads but was still easily confused with Sharon for most of the season, and Hazel was easily forgotten for the first few episodes amongst the bigger personalities. Now perhaps the problem is that the others are too big rather than these being too small. But I'm afraid I'm not going to remember either of them.

I'd like to see a show with real people getting real lessons and then picking their own dishes for the end. All-Star Academy came closer to that (speaking of Irvine) but FN doesn't seem all that interested in keeping it alive. Whereas this show gets like 5 seasons a year. So maybe that speaks to the actual viewership more than what we want.

[Mondrianyone]

Apropos of nothing, I'd really like to see what would happen if either Hazell or Steven actually showed up to apply for the job that one of those restaurant owners offered.  It seems as if that's an annual thing:  "You could come work for me!"  Except these are people who can do one menu at most, with a coach standing beside them, not trained line cooks.  I'd watch that show for sure!

[HappyDancex2]

I thought Steven looked attractive in a plain black T-shirt.  I never realized that his bow tie schtick was such a huge detriment.

this show would make more sense if the 2 recruits cooked the finale themselves and the mentors were part of the judging panel.  Having someone shout out the order and measurements and walking them through things verbally is not cooking.  It would lead to far more epic fails which would be interesting as a viewer and then they would have to rely less on casting stereotypes.

[phantom]

On ‎3‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 2:11 AM, backformore said:

I agree with all of this.   This show used to be somewhat amusing.  It's turned into a giant BORE because the contestants are supposed to be characters.  It's not believable, and, really if someone can't cook at all - teach them simple stuff.  that weird poached egg yolk in the shell is not something many people are going to do, with or without the bacon-infused whipped cream.  

Since the first episode, I haven't believed in the show.  I think they are all coached to pretend they can't cook anything at all at the beginning.  Remember Asaf, doing something like a carrot in a soup can with lettuce tied around it?    He played it like he was on a sitcom, over-acting the "I'm not even sure what a kitchen is for"  schtick.   - then later, he spoke with some knowledge of cooking and flavors. (I also think his accent was exaggerated for effect) 

And the twins who connected every task to their boy scout merit badges?  That had to be producer influenced. They are adults.  "former boy scout"  is not an occupation.

  Why can't they just have people who can't cook, and then TEACH them to make simple dishes? this season was so boring because they worked so hard at selling the "wacky character"  aspect.   I think I might be done with this show.  

This show was never believable - you are looking for people who are a)openly admit they are terrible cooks who b)have the time to take off from life to be on TV and c) WANT to be on TV.  And the characters suddenly can make pasta from scratch after a few lessons? Right. That said, I enjoy watching Anne teach - she is able to steer the cooks so they can figure things out on their own as they progress. Tyler can lead his cooks by the nose step-by-step, but they don't really learn why or what they are doing to produce the results. So Anne's students have less sophisticated food, but are more confident in the preparation.

Sharon was my favorite - I can't believe with the show's emphasis on wacky characters they never had him do a challenge as his drag alter ego. I found Steven insufferable from the twee bow ties to the constant digs at his ex-girlfriend.