‘Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen’ finale: Carlos Gaytan, Louis Maldonado battle to return
Let us start off this review of the “Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen” finale by saying this: The entire twist of this last challenge was completely flawed and quite possibly unfair.
When the producers sat around and tried to conceive a great little component to add to this last episode, we are sure that someone thought it was a great idea to actually force the final three contestants to serve as judges for this last cook-off before the two-part finale begins. Unfortunately, the problem that comes with that is that there seemed to be no consideration made for the fact that the contestants may not get along with their former competitors, and be somewhat biased in their voting strategy. Were there some precautions for that? Sure, at least in that they didn’t know who cooked what between Carlos Gaytan and Louis Maldonado.
Here is the problem: If Carlos makes a Mexican-themed dish, it’s clear as day it is his. You may as well just be putting a name card in front of it … and you know already that Nicholas Elmi is one of the judges, and he felt like Carlos was the culinary devil at times. Note that we are not questioning Nicholas’ integrity in any way in this; but whether it is him, Shirley Chung, or Nina Compton, any one of them could have a subconscious bias. It’s unfair to even ask them to sit there and try to differentiate between two contestants that they lived with when there are so many strategic factors that could be at play in their votes.
Personally, we feel like Louis did enough regardless to get his way into the finale. He cooked his heart out in this show, and also seemed to only have one problem in his fish being overcooked. While this may be a somewhat larger problem than anything with Carlos, he had multiple components that were off somewhat in regards to seasoning. We have to grade this “review” an incomplete grade, just because we don’t know the outcome yet. But let it be said that this is still not a good way to judge who makes it into the first part of the finale.
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Photo: Bravo
bvukirk
January 27, 2014 @ 9:18 pm
I agree. Also, why would the three contestants vote for the best dish? If they were strategic they would vote for the worse dish… thinking that it would be the weaker Chef they could beat. So, the best Chef does not move to the final, but the one that is less of a threat.
Jackieblue2005
January 23, 2014 @ 8:12 pm
I want Carlos to stay gone. First off he threw Nicholas under the bus saying to the judges that someone stole his oven. Come on is he 5 or what? Loius went home way to early and he has earned his way back to the final 4. I’m rooting for Nicholas to take it all.
Uzarate
January 28, 2014 @ 8:03 pm
LOL…you think it’s ok for a professional chef to hog an oven at a university cafeteria to “warm his plates?” Nicholas is a whiner with anger management issues and should have been eliminated long ago!
Kim D Ermeus
January 23, 2014 @ 5:38 am
I agree that it was rather obvious which dish Carlos prepared and therefore left room for subjectivity and bias to over rule judging the dish with integrity. That said, it is still a matter of opinion and taste btw under seasoned or overcooked. I am routing for Louis simply because he went home too soon and proved his self a tremendous threat in LCK. The twist is that if bias against Carlos was the basis of the chef’s decision, then choosing Louis could kick them in the butt in the long run. Louis is also very easy on the eyes and fun to watch cook.