Top Chef: Jimmy Fallon

The competition on Top Chef is getting tighter than a pair of Angelo's pants. We are down to eight chefs, and it's about that time when an extra pinch of salt or looking at Padma the wrong way can send you packing. This week's episode with Jimmy Fallon was a fun one, so without further ado, let me go all "New York Times reviewer up in this bitch."

The Good:

• The quickfire challenge. A fondue challenge! Fondue is, according to Fabio, "a pot of boiling something." Unless, of course, you're Richard Blais and fondue is actually a pot of liquid nitrogen. Either way, it was enjoyable to see what each chef came up with for their quickfire creation. Unfortunately the winning dish wasn't going to be a featured menu item at The Melting Pot or even served up at one of Richard's parents' naked fondue parties. No, the reward for the quickfire-gone-groovy was a Napa Valley Wine Weekend which had to be hard-fought from the claws of the other competitors/judges. The chefs ranked each other's fondue dishes, but the whole thing played out with a lot less drama than was probably expected. Aside from the usual disses during confessionals, the quickfire was relatively tame. Dale claimed the victory and, much to his chagrin, he will now be forced to take his girlfriend on a romantic trip.

• Carla's hat trick. My favorite Fraggle wins again -- how 'bout that? She humbly restrained herself when announcing her triumph to her competitors in the stew room, but Carla couldn't contain her excitement during her one-on-one interview after the challenge. She's practically won a trip around the world with all the elimination prizes she's racked up, but it's not like she doesn't deserve it. Carla's food is simple, relatable and made with heart. It's quite possible that this is the only woman in Top Chef history who can flap around the kitchen, clucking like a chicken and still manage to be likable. Though she reacted like Miley Cyrus on a bad salvia trip when she found out she would get to cook her beloved chicken pot pie, fate smiled upon Carla this week, and she took full advantage.
  

The Bad:

• Jimmy's vocabulary. I don't know what he wished for when he blew out his birthday candles, but it definitely wasn't a thesaurus. Jimmy may not like mushrooms, mayonnaise or eggplant, but he certainly likes baseball. It lacked laser beams, so Richard's meal was considered a bunt. Antonia was thrown a curve ball, but she swung for the fences. When he wasn't using baseball analogies, Jimmy used words like "doughiness" (okay) and "gravyness" to describe what he desired in a chicken-and-dumplings dish. I loved Jimmy's enthusiasm for the show, but his critiques were a little lacking in variety and complexity. Maybe that's why talk-show hosts don't write their own jokes.

• Fabio. Fabi-no! I had a feeling this was his swan song from the word "boarger," but I hate to see Fabio pack his knives and go. When it really comes down to it, I don't know how he made it this long. He often seemed out of his element when he couldn't fall back on Italian cooking techniques (hence his attempt to make a burger out of a meatball), but Fabio has too many great sound bites to let him go early on. You know in the credits of reality competition shows when it says that the judges consider input from the producers when making their decisions? I think maybe, just maybe, Fabio has eked out of so many tight spots because of his winning personality rather than his winning dishes. And you know what? I'm okay with that. I can't actually taste the food on Top Chef, so, as a viewer, I'd rather be entertained by a man who regales me with stories of walking his pet turtle on a leash than bored by better chefs with dull back stories.

The Ugly:

• Product placement. Nothing could be worse than the blatant touting of sponsor products in "Days of Our Lives," but the Buitoni commercial in the middle of this episode was pretty pathetic. Is anyone actually fooled into buying Buitoni's prepackaged pasta by watching the chefs cook and eat it on the show? While Antonia talked of cooking lobster and shrimp ravioli, they showed her opening a package of three-cheese tortellini. And when the chefs toasted to their dinner, one of the wine glasses in the shot was completely empty! I understand that reality shows cost money to make, and I'm sure Buitoni provides a large amount of funding, but I prefer my commercials to bookend show segments, not interrupt them.

Miscellaneous Tidbits:

• I found it strange that there were no shots of the chefs on the set of Jimmy Fallon's show simultaneously with the audience. We "heard" cheers and applause, and we saw shots of the audience alone, but do you think they were actually doing this in front of a live audience? I don't like it when television tries to trick me, and this just seemed fishy.
• Why is Tom's restaurant called Colicchio and Sons? Is he really old enough to have sons that can work in the restaurant, or is he just anticipating their future acceptance of the family business?