‘Top Chef: Charleston’ episode 6 preview: How big of a concern is Sheldon’s injury?

If you look back “Top Chef” history, there’s really no doubt that Sheldon Simeon’s an amazing chef. The guy almost won his show the first time around, and based on what we’ve seen from his this time, there is a perfectly good chance that he could win it again.

If there is one thing standing in his way of the title, at the moment it may be his own health. We saw him get an MRI and receive some medical attention for his back on the last episode, and in the sneak peek below for Thursday’s installment, it looks as though this injury is getting the best of him in the kitchen … at the very least temporarily. He falls down during what is one of the more intense Quickfire Challenges of the season, which involves the remaining chefs having to run back to the kitchen in order to retrieve one ingredient at a time. As you would expect given the circumstances, this is not a particularly easy thing for anyone to do. For Sheldon, who is injured and per his own admission not in the best shape, it’s particularly challenging.

Sheldon’s not the only chef to struggle with it, as it appears that the judges have finally figured out a way to get Katsuji to not use 25 ingredients in a given dish. He’s now realizing that this is the time to do something simple. (Wouldn’t it be ironic if this ends up being his best dish his entire history on the show?) There are a couple of other chefs elsewhere, however, who seem to flourish in the environment.

We’ll say the same thing about Sheldon here that we did back when we first saw the injury last week, and that is that we hope he is okay first and foremost. Obviously, we want to see him stick around and compete, but his health comes first and that has to be the focus. Maybe he gets up and it’s almost like nothing even happened; if that’s the case, the network is really milking this one for every second that they can.

Want to get our most recent “Top Chef” episode review? Then be sure to head over to the link here, and tell us what you expect to see from this episode in the attached comments! (Photo: Bravo.)