‘Top Chef: California’ episode 14 preview: The finale begins!

This season of “Top Chef” has certainly checked all of the boxes when it comes to being competitive and entertaining, but come Thursday night’s new episode, we’re going to start to see everything wind down. We’re just at that point where this sort of thing tends to happen, and we have to prepare for a winner to be crowned.

The sneak peek below is a great introduction to Las Vegas, which is our final destination this season. Jeremy, Isaac, and Marjorie each arrive with aspirations of winning it all, but as Isaac points out, there is one more threat who will be added to the equation courtesy of the “Last Chance Kitchen” winner. We don’t even know who that is yet, and there is no indication or hint in either the video or the synopsis below:

“The three remaining chefs head to the finals in Las Vegas and are joined by the reigning champion of Last Chance Kitchen who returns to the competition to battle it out in a high stakes challenge of cards and cuisine. While the winner of the first challenge gets whisked to the finale, the other three move on to cook for the Master of Illusion, Sin City’s headliner David Copperfield. The chefs must pull a winning dish out of their hats in order to secure the last spot in the finale.”

The one thing that we will say here is that we’re not much of a fan at all of the show going from four chefs to two, since that increases the odds dramatically of the “Last Chance Kitchen” being booted almost immediately. We’d much prefer just to end with a final three like in season 7, that way you keep more winner possibilities out there.

Want to get some other news when it comes to “Top Chef,” be sure to head over here to read our exclusive interview with Gail Simmons from earlier this week. Also, you can sign up over here to score some other tasty TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Bravo.)

[ot-video][/ot-video]