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Did anyone notice Gordon and the other judges referring to the women as "Girls" a lot , or was that my imagination?  That's a big pet peeve of mine.  I hope I was just misinterpreting Gordon's accent.

Edited by Ms Blue Jay
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18 hours ago, Grrarrggh said:

Seriously? Entitlement and an "attitude"? I was educated to and do judge people for a living and I'm not sure where you're getting this. Neither of them have said or done anything that seems remotely horrible IMO. Can you give me a few specific examples?

I deleted my original response as it had quite a bit of attitude in it.  I appreciate that we can all have differing opinions on this site and base my comments on what I observe while watching various shows and how I interpret it according to my perspective.  Therefore, I will respectfully decline to respond to the request for specific examples as I included a specific example regarding Kelsey and will just leave it at that and not start a debate about whose observations are "more" valid as everyone's are valid. Sorry for taking space and time away from everyone's enjoyment of this thread.

Edited by seacliffsal
because I wanted to edit out my sarcasm and attitude
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On 9/2/2021 at 8:07 AM, Colorado David said:

Wow Autumn and the cut finger. Overreact much??? I get it, I am squeamish about seeing my OWN blood and others, but I can suck it up and at least keep functioning. She was almost having a meltdown.  Heaven help her if she ever has to deal with butchering anything.

Or having her period.... 🤷‍♂️

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On 9/3/2021 at 5:46 PM, seacliffsal said:

I think that Kelsey really expected to win the round with her French Onion Soup and looked mad when she did not win.  She seems to have a real sense of entitlement and has shown her true self when she didn't win the round and when her fish dish was in the bottom.  

I am glad that Michael went home as I never really cared for him and his attitude.

The only thing I think is wrong with Kelsey is that she doesn't have a good enough poker face for TV.  I'm not reading it as entitlement.  I think when women show such confidence in their performance and competitive natures they're often criticized as being too big for their britches, etc., when in men it's admired, and that tends to bug me.

I don't relate to the Michael attitude thing.  He seemed like a pretty sincere person to me.  Not my cup of tea in terms of superficial lifestyle (vegan etc.) but not someone whose attitude bugs.  At first I thought the show was trying to go with the stereotypical Jersey Shore Italian muscle guy (which as an Italian American is a stereotype I HATE because it's just sooooo prejudiced) but he seemed to transcend that or at least the show didn't try to make him look that way so it didn't bug me.

 

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23 hours ago, dovegrey said:

My SO and I were both really confused when Kelsey wasn't safe after round one. I haven't gone back and rewatched the instructions for the challenge, but we both thought that ANYONE who cooked a "delicious" dish would be safe from round two... but then it was actually only one person/the winner would be safe. Or Kelsey's first dish (that Ludos wanted to put on his menu) wasn't good enough? I had the same reaction that she had.

I do kinda wonder if Ramsay/production didn't somehow flub and Kelsey was blindsided when she had to cook for round two. (I heard once that Top Chef pauses filming and has producers come in to explicitly explain challenge parameters. I don't know if MC does that?)

A couple possibilities that come to mind for me:

The actual parameters of the challenge were that to earn the safety of the balcony, a contestant was supposed to wow the judges. Kelsey made a very good French onion soup. But it is not that complicated a dish. I bet with enough prep time, my non-cooking ass could figure out how to make a decent one in the time allotted. So the judges weighed in the ambition behind Alejandro's duck a l'orange in granting him safety even though there were things to nitpick about it, but not Kelsey's soup, even though it was as good as a soup could reasonably get.

Or, the producers were looking for drama and hoping that Kelsey would get thrown off her game by having to cook again. Or along similar lines, they wanted to obscure the notion that this has been Kelsey's competition to win all along and create a redemption arc for her. They had to suspect that there would pretty much be no way that Michael was going to outperform her, or anyone, in a cuisine that is about technique and finesse even before he put up raw chicken. So I wouldn't put it past them to have planned that it would have been Kelsey and Michael in the bottom two almost regardless of what the actual dishes were, and Michael was going home.

I think in Googling about Masterchef, I saw that someone (maybe Tosi, maybe a contestant) talk about how there is a similar pause where production goes over the ground rules to make sure that everyone gets it. 

19 hours ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

Did anyone notice Gordon and the other judges referring to the women as "Girls" a lot , or was that my imagination?  That's a big pet peeve of mine.  I hope I was just misinterpreting Gordon's accent.

I'm sure they did, but at least in the "girls vs. boys" episode I didn't get the same sense of sexism as when there were co-ed teams and the judges were like, "What, did Joseph let Anne keep his balls on a shelf?" and also "Anne is such a harpy for wanting to get the challenge done!" The most recent stuff was less sexist than I'd expected. Which might be damning with faint praise.

11 hours ago, Yeah No said:

The only thing I think is wrong with Kelsey is that she doesn't have a good enough poker face for TV.  I'm not reading it as entitlement.  I think when women show such confidence in their performance and competitive natures they're often criticized as being too big for their britches, etc., when in men it's admired, and that tends to bug me.

I don't relate to the Michael attitude thing.  He seemed like a pretty sincere person to me.  Not my cup of tea in terms of superficial lifestyle (vegan etc.) but not someone whose attitude bugs.  At first I thought the show was trying to go with the stereotypical Jersey Shore Italian muscle guy (which as an Italian American is a stereotype I HATE because it's just sooooo prejudiced) but he seemed to transcend that or at least the show didn't try to make him look that way so it didn't bug me.

 

I have watched an unhealthy amount of reality TV, among it most if not all of Masterchef, Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, the Amazing Race, and about half of Survivor. In all my watching, I have never disliked a contestant as much as Kelsey. I don't know if I can explain fully why. Certainly there have been candidates who have been smug or teacher's pets or gotten winner's edits or are humorless and have bland personalities. But it's rare that someone is all these things at once, and Kelsey IMO is.  She is the first contestant on any of the above shows I am actively rooting against not because of anything she's done, but just because of how she is. I don't think this is a sexist thing, but rather an anti-Kelsey thing.

Edited by Chicago Redshirt
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2 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I have watched an unhealthy amount of reality TV, among it most if not all of Masterchef, Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, the Amazing Race, and about half of Survivor. In all my watching, I have never disliked a contestant as much as Kelsey. I don't know if I can explain fully why. Certainly there have been candidates who have been smug or teacher's pets or gotten winner's edits or are humorless and have bland personalities. But it's rare that someone is all these things at once, and Kelsey IMO is.  She is the first contestant on any of the above shows I am actively rooting against not because of anything she's done, but just because of how she is. I don't think this is a sexist thing, but rather an anti-Kelsey thing.

I've watched most of those going back a long time plus more and wow, I can't believe someone would ever say that about of all people, Kelsey.  She doesn't even register on my (or my husband's) meter at all.  I could probably make a list of 30 people that have annoyed me much, much more over the past 20 years of watching these kinds of shows.

Personally, though, I tend to not like it when people just don't like someone based on nothing but very nebulous feelings, because I have been a victim of that many times in my life, you know people not liking me for no good reason despite me trying to be my nicest, best self.  Most of this dislike has come from other women, BTW, and brings up a lot of my baggage at having been bullied as a child by "mean girls".

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On 9/3/2021 at 11:11 PM, mlp said:

I didn't blame Kelsey a bit for being upset.  I do think she should have covered it up better.  The judges heaped praise on her onion soup.   I don't recall a single criticism.  I was as shocked as she was when they gave the win to a dish they admitted was flawed.  That made no sense.

I just chalked it up to French Onion soup being so incredibly basic in concept, any novice with almost zero cooking skills can make it: 

    Cook some onions, add stock, cook a while longer, cover with bread & cheese.  Done. 

I think at this point, more technique and finesse is what they expect, especially as they know she can rise above a simple soup. 

And they have to screw with people's heads at this point and can't let anybody get comfortable!  *LOL*

And I say the worst of the worst in ANY TV cooking show was Penny Davidi.  And she made the rounds of ALL of them, unfortunately. 

Edited by leighdear
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43 minutes ago, leighdear said:

And I say the worst of the worst in ANY TV cooking show was Penny Davidi.  And she made the rounds of ALL of them, unfortunately. 

Oh for sure, although she was never on this show!  To a lesser degree from Masterchef alone I'd include Lexi from this season as well as Courtney from season 5 and Krissi.  Also Claudia wasn't my favorite either.  And that's just the women. There were men I didn't like either but none are springing to mind at the moment. 

Edited by Yeah No
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On 9/5/2021 at 1:23 PM, leighdear said:

I just chalked it up to French Onion soup being so incredibly basic in concept, any novice with almost zero cooking skills can make it: 

    Cook some onions, add stock, cook a while longer, cover with bread & cheese.  Done. 

I think at this point, more technique and finesse is what they expect, especially as they know she can rise above a simple soup.

Then, to be fair, Autumn's creme brulee shouldn't have been anything to rave about, and she should have been in the bottom for making something so incredibly basic. I make creme brulee almost every weekend in my dinky oven, and, trust me, I'm no chef. It's suuuuuuper simple and hard to mess up, except, sure, it can take a few hours to set. It seems like the judges were super impressed by Autumn's ability to use a blast chiller to set custard; stunning! In any event, I don't recall anything about these dishes needing to be anything except delicious French bistro dishes, which, by description, are going to be basic, traditional, and inherently simple. It seems like the judges possibly knocked Kelsey for doing that (off camera) but then praised the hell out of Autumn for making the most basic dish of the night.

This season is so incredibly boring, that a French onion soup is a point of contention! And the contestants are so forgettable that I really almost posted this about someone named Aubrey instead of Kelsey LOL.

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I think it's likely that Kelsey made a traditional French onion soup, which uses water instead of stock and is therefore a little harder to make if you want something really flavorful. I have no way of knowing, but the reason I think she didn't use stock is because in the short amount of time that she had she would have had to use canned stock, and Gordon will almost always chide them over using something canned or frozen, even if the end result is good. It's pretty impressive to me if she made a soup good enough for Chef Ludo to say he'd serve in his restaurant out of primarily water and onions.

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7 hours ago, dovegrey said:

Then, to be fair, Autumn's creme brulee shouldn't have been anything to rave about, and she should have been in the bottom for making something so incredibly basic. I make creme brulee almost every weekend in my dinky oven, and, trust me, I'm no chef. It's suuuuuuper simple and hard to mess up, except, sure, it can take a few hours to set. It seems like the judges were super impressed by Autumn's ability to use a blast chiller to set custard; stunning! In any event, I don't recall anything about these dishes needing to be anything except delicious French bistro dishes, which, by description, are going to be basic, traditional, and inherently simple. It seems like the judges possibly knocked Kelsey for doing that (off camera) but then praised the hell out of Autumn for making the most basic dish of the night.

There's a difference between cooking something good enough to wow a judge and cooking something that's good enough to beat the worst dishes in the competition. 

I am guessing if Autumn had flipped her dishes and served the creme brulee first, she wouldn't have been deemed safe for it for the same reason why Kelsey's soup wasn't enough to make her safe.

The judging standards that they seem to use for Masterchef go something like:

An ambitious dish well executed>a simple dish well executed>an ambitious dish with minor flaws>a simple dish with minor flaws>a dish with serious flaws>a dish with raw pork or chicken. The latter is the kiss of death as far as I've seen.

Amber's simple dish had no issues with it. 

Kelsey messed up the butter for her sauce, which led to it seeming more like cafeteria food. 

 

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On 9/5/2021 at 2:05 PM, Yeah No said:

There were men I didn't like either but none are springing to mind at the moment. 

There was that dude with the hat - Shaun? He won Season 7, I think.

As for Kelsey: it looked like she had some kind of broth, but it wasn't specified.

For me, it was the faces she was making. She is so used to the judges kissing her butt that she was sulking like a toddler when they didn't.

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On 9/7/2021 at 1:08 AM, Such A Flirt said:

There was that dude with the hat - Shaun? He won Season 7, I think.

Oh yeah, him, he's definitely on the list!  There was a guy named Cutter on season 5 that always makes the most hated lists - I have to admit I don't remember him but that doesn't mean I wouldn't agree.

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Wow it is amazing watching Chefy Nyesha cook. I  will be fascinated to see how she prepares those Joel Robouchon whipped potoatoes.  She was always one of my favorites.  As I recall she was eliminate criminally early in the Texas season which, in retrospect, had a lot of assholes.

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I think this was a little unfair to Suu. English is clearly not her native language and I think sometimes listening watching and doing overwhelmed her.

 

ETA Add Alejandro to this as he grew up in Cuba.

Edited by mertensia
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I thought it was kind of rude for Aaron to be shouting instructions to the chefs during their sessions.  It was such a pressure cooker situation that hearing/responding to one voice seemed important to their success.  

The only question going into tonight for me was would he cut Suu or Alejandro?  Admittedly I was a little surprised that he opted for 3 women, but if anyone but Kelsey wins next week, I will be floored.  Yawn.

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12 hours ago, susannot said:

OK, seeing Chef Nyesha make, and the contestants try to make, Joel Robuchon potatoes, I think my whipped potatoes with plenty of butter and cream are just fine.  I have never bothered to dehydrate them first.

I'd never heard of these so I did some Googling. So you basically cook them, drain them, pass them through a sieve, dehydrate them, and add a shit ton of butter? Except for the dehydration part that's how we've been making them in my neck of the woods since the last century. Adding butter to emulsify the dehydrated potatoes makes me think of instant ones. I like my potatoes creamy (no lumps) but I prefer them fluffier. 

They should've called this season "Master Purees." 

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11 hours ago, susannot said:

Gordon Ramsay cooking is like watching poetry in motion.  But it is really unbelievable to expect amateur chefs to keep up.

Watching the first two famous (although I had never heard of them) chefs cook was interesting.

Watching Gordon Ramsay speed-run his way through highly complex steps with difficult ingredients? All I could think was "OH MY FUCKING GOD is he good." It was like watching a Buddy Rich drum solo or David Copperfield at his peak doing sleight-of-hand or Larry Bird take over a basketball game by making every shot: the simple knowledge that neither I nor anyone I know will ever be this good at anything. I've always respected Ramsay as a chef, but had no idea he was on this level.

As for the contestants: Alejandro is a nice guy but simply was not the same level as the other three.

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5 minutes ago, Sir RaiderDuck OMS said:

Watching Gordon Ramsay speed-run his way through highly complex steps with difficult ingredients? All I could think was "OH MY FUCKING GOD is he good." It was like watching a Buddy Rich drum solo or David Copperfield at his peak doing sleight-of-hand or Larry Bird take over a basketball game by making every shot: the simple knowledge that neither I nor anyone I know will ever be this good at anything. I've always respected Ramsay as a chef, but had no idea he was on this level.

This is why I think I put up with his assholery on television shows. I've always said, it's one of my dreams to have him come to my home and just cook one dish or two for me and I would be in heaven.

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11 hours ago, leocadia said:

I thought it was kind of rude for Aaron to be shouting instructions to the chefs during their sessions.  It was such a pressure cooker situation that hearing/responding to one voice seemed important to their success.  

The only question going into tonight for me was would he cut Suu or Alejandro?  Admittedly I was a little surprised that he opted for 3 women, but if anyone but Kelsey wins next week, I will be floored.  Yawn.

Yes, it really does seem like kelsey can screw something up, but the judges opt to focus on what she got right, and give her a pass. The others don't get that benefit, they are eliminated for the same,  or at least equal, mistakes.  

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All four of the contestants were good enough to keep up with the chefs, so as far as I'm concerned they're all worthy of the MC title, but I agreed with the choices in each round. Even so, when it was down to Alejandro and Suu, I was thinking it probably didn't matter which of them got into the semis, since I can't see either of them beating Kelsey or Autumn. I love Suu, and her food (when they've actually shown it to us, which wasn't until later in the season) is what I'd want to eat over the others' dishes, but she does tend to get flustered as does Alejandro. I wonder if Alejandro draining his squid over hers affected her final dish; they did say her squid wasn't seasoned that well.

"Once the chef has completed her dish, you will have 10 seconds to finish plating your dish" is pure evil.

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I have a hunch, and it is only a hunch:  Autumn will win.  It is has been edited and portrayed that Kelsey is the shoo in but I don't know.......I just have a feeling.  Autumn pulled some out  some pretty impressive meals that wowed the judges.

50 minutes ago, tinkerbell said:

Yes, it really does seem like kelsey can screw something up, but the judges opt to focus on what she got right, and give her a pass.

I noticed this too.  As a special education teacher it bugs me when neurotypical kids are praised for behaviors that my non neurotypical kids are criticized for.

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I wonder if Suzette Gresham replaced Joe's mom Lidia Bastianich as the "legend" this episode.  If this was filmed post-Covid perhaps Lidia might have backed out.  No disrespect to Suzette but I would consider Lidia more of a culinary legend than she is.  Her name was only vaguely familiar to me going into this episode and I've been around a long time following the culinary world.  

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On 9/5/2021 at 10:23 AM, leighdear said:

And I say the worst of the worst in ANY TV cooking show was Penny Davidi.  And she made the rounds of ALL of them, unfortunately. 

NEVER type or say that name, she's just like Bloody Mary or Candyman, someone says her name 3 times & she appears, that's why she was on so many shows. 😱 😱 😱

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On 9/4/2021 at 11:09 PM, Yeah No said:

 

I don't relate to the Michael attitude thing.  He seemed like a pretty sincere person to me.  Not my cup of tea in terms of superficial lifestyle (vegan etc.) but not someone whose attitude bugs.  At first I thought the show was trying to go with the stereotypical Jersey Shore Italian muscle guy (which as an Italian American is a stereotype I HATE because it's just sooooo prejudiced) but he seemed to transcend that or at least the show didn't try to make him look that way so it didn't bug me.

 

Can you explain what is superficial about being vegan?

 

 

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Since when was Nyesha "legendary", Gordon?  Maybe since she butchered the English language by saying "The sauce was a delicious flavor profile."  And "Albeit the broken potatoes."

"She's moving at a rampant pace".  Thanks Aaron for this previously unknown use of rampant.

Edited by Leeds
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34 minutes ago, Persnickety1 said:

I think these will be the two finalists, and I'm looking forward to seeing what both of them bring.

From what I've read, and I could be wrong, I think all three will be competing for the top prize in the two part finale.

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1 minute ago, preeya said:

From what I've read, and I could be wrong, I think all three will be competing for the top prize in the two part finale.

Oh, that's new, isn't it?  I thought out of the final 3, there was an elimination round and then the top 2 went head to head.  

Seeing all 3 of them compete for the title would be good.  

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21 minutes ago, Persnickety1 said:

Oh, that's new, isn't it?  I thought out of the final 3, there was an elimination round and then the top 2 went head to head.  

Seeing all 3 of them compete for the title would be good.  

 

26 minutes ago, Persnickety1 said:

Oh, that's new, isn't it?  I thought out of the final 3, there was an elimination round and then the top 2 went head to head.  

Seeing all 3 of them compete for the title would be good.  

Of the previous 10 seasons, six had a finale with three finalists.

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I thought the last two episodes were just unfair to the contestants. Of course they need to make elevated food but to have to closely watch a chef while doing the same thing is very difficult for anyone. Then have Aaron yelling at them on top of it was too much. In real restaurants dishes don’t always come out right and the chefs can redo or fix. I know this is a competition with timing elements but I’m not enjoying the level of difficulty. 

Edited by Madding crowd
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23 minutes ago, Madding crowd said:

I thought the last two episodes were just unfair to the contestants. 

I SO agree.  It's totally unfair to put amateurs up - step for step - up against professionals who have been doing these dishes for YEARS.  The pros not only know that they are working with ingredients with which THEY are familiar, they know the steps ahead of time.  Given the difficulty of the challenges, I thought ALL of the home cooks did a pretty good job.

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5 hours ago, Leeds said:

"She's moving at a rampant pace".  Thanks Aaron for this previously unknown use of rampant.

Joe is this show's primary perpetrator of crimes against the English language, but Aaron is a close second. I find Joe far more more annoying though, because his mistakes often come when he's trying to show how learned and erudite he is. Such a pompous ass.

 

Edited by bluepiano
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I’ve made the Robuchon potatoes…they’re not that hard, you just have to follow the steps.  And they are delicious!!  I make sure my potatoes are dry when I make regular mashed potatoes now, they do seem to be fluffier.  I just drain them, and throw them back in the pot for a few minutes until I can see that the water is gone.

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On 9/9/2021 at 10:15 AM, tinkerbell said:

Yes, it really does seem like kelsey can screw something up, but the judges opt to focus on what she got right, and give her a pass. The others don't get that benefit, they are eliminated for the same,  or at least equal, mistakes.  

Even as someone who is triggered by Kelsey (see rant above), I have to admit that she has not really been shown to screw things up, Last week was the only time I can think of where she was shown to have gotten anything substantially wrong, and even that IMO was a stretch. The butter for her sole was not browned. Big whup, as we used to say. It was according to the judges her worst dish of the competition, but that doesn't mean it was an actually bad dish.

She has yet to have been shown to make an actual mistake that would be worthy of sending someone home as far as I can recall. And you can take it to the bank that if she had, I'd remember and have posted about how they were playing favorites by letting her stay on. 

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On 9/9/2021 at 11:07 AM, Mrs. Hanson said:

I have a hunch, and it is only a hunch:  Autumn will win.  It is has been edited and portrayed that Kelsey is the shoo in but I don't know.......I just have a feeling.  Autumn pulled some out  some pretty impressive meals that wowed the judges.

I will be doing virtual somersaults like Jake Blues in the Blues Brothers if she or Suu wins. But I'm pretty sure that there's no chance.

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I think normally on this show we'd expect that someone screwing up something like with the broken potatoes would totally get reamed for it. When I saw it I immediately thought "well, she's toast". However, as it happened, she screwed up exactly one part of the dish, and it still tasted good. While the others all screwed up at least 2, and in some cases all the things on the plate. So in the end it was not surprising to me that she was on top. It wasn't even like a situation where everyone was horrible and everyone gets reamed and the least bad wins. It seemed like it was a genuine situation of "her was good but for one mistake" but the others were piles of mistakes.

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well adding my dumb two cents. you bring on these great chefs, each a diff episode. you expect these contestants to live up to EACH of these, much less one in a season.  it's a multi athalon of greatness, and god help those chefs trying to live up to each different chef's expectations.  and beyond the trifecta of the usual chefs.  jeezus i could not fathom attempting that sh*t.  

 

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