A shock of Hindenburg-like proportions struck at 10:55 last night when, just as we were preparing to see the last of Lisa “The Gorgon” Fernandes, the Top Chef judges veered from what seemed to be an inevitable verdict and kicked Antonia out instead. The episode, which involved cooking a pork-based banquet for a Puerto Rican garden party, was handled pretty well by all four cheftestants, but Lisa’s food was clearly the least popular, and her ousting seemed imminent. We stumbled toward the computer, where an equally appalled Adam Platt waited.
Ozersky: How could this happen??
Platt: They chopped off the Gorgon’s hair, and still she didn’t die.
Ozersky: Hercules knew that you had to sear each snake with torches after cutting them. Or maybe that was the Hydra.
Platt: The Gorgon will never die, Cutty. In this case, however, her cause was greatly helped by poor Antonia’s shitty pigeon pea dish.
Ozersky: They made the point that everybody hated her food! Her table was empty! It was time for her to go!
Platt: I know, Cutty!!!
Platt: Who was that mystery chef?! He looked like Don Colicchio on horse steroids.
Ozersky: I found that very disturbing. It was like there were two Toms. [Note: It was Wilo Benet, who’s big in San Juan.]
Platt: I liked Padma’s gown, though. She looked like a Greek goddess, drenched in antifreeze.
Ozersky: Gail was a fitting handmaiden.
Platt: Gail’s dress was a little over-the-top. It looked like she fashioned it from her mother’s seventies-era suburban curtains.
Ozersky: Forget the fashions. The best thing was at the end, when even the other cheftestants were visibly devastated that the Gorgon was still there. And then she complained that they didn’t congratulate her! There’s only one Gorgon. She is Legend.
Platt: She’s indescribably ghastly. I’d like to salute Antonia, though. She is classy, sensitive, and proper. She is not your normal kitchen slave. She is the anti-Gorgon, in other words.
Ozersky: Here’s my question, Platty. What if the unthinkable happens?
Platt: It won’t. Sharkface and Stephanie are too good. They will turn on her and beat her to a pulp. And if they don’t, Don Colicchio will. Although I think he’s afraid of her … just like you’d be.
Ozersky: Any thoughts on next week, before we fall into our troubled slumbers?
Platt: I want the judges to wear better clothes on the next episode. And I don’t want the kitchen slaves to wear undershirts. And I want the Gorgon to shuffle off to the glue factory, where she belongs.
Update: Gail Simmons writes in to tell us that, far from being made from 70s curtains, her dress was from Diane von Furstenberg’s current collection. Which just proves that Adam Platt is no Mr. Blackwell.
