Top Chef Weirdness: Why Isn't Sieger Bayer on Last Chance Kitchen?
Two years after David Murphy, something weird has happened on Last Chance Kitchen once again.
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A little more than two years ago, the first episode of Top Chef Wisconsin aired. Chef David Murphy, a guy who was long on personal style (hipster cowboy!) but arguably short on common sense (from insulting Tom Colicchio’s hats to saying “I hate pasta” during a pasta challenge) got booted in episode one. After episode two, everyone sort of expected Murphy to be there for the Top Chef after-show, Last Chance Kitchen, competing against the second eliminated chef that season, as per usual.
Instead, Murphy was gone, replaced by an alternate named Soo Ahn. Confusion over how and why that happened is probably most of the reason my post about it is still one of the most trafficked on this newsletter (I’ve won $0 in the Google sweepstakes!). In the end, Colicchio said that because the first episode that season had a two-part elimination challenge, that Murphy had already had his second chance, therefore negating his need to compete on LCK. (I don’t know if I entirely follow that logic; I choose to believe Tom Colicchio had him murdered over the hat insult).
Presumably in the hopes of eliminating that kind of confusion this time around, the show announced at the outset that Last Chance Kitchen wouldn’t commence until after episode three (which meant tough luck for week 1 and 2 eliminated contestants Jassi and Day).
And yet!
Best laid plans have apparently gone awry! Something weird has happened with Last Chance Kitchen yet again!
[TOP CHEF AND LAST CHANCE KITCHEN SPOILERS TO FOLLOW, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]
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After Sieger Bayer was eliminated following last night’s episode (dry pork loin), this week’s episode of Last Chance Kitchen began with a montage of cameramen scurrying around, producers talking into radios, and the competitors looking confused. Finally (really, about 25 seconds of screen time, but the editors really sold the “weird delay” storyline) Tom Colicchio emerged from his Colicchacoon to make an announcement.
“As you can see, this week’s eliminated chef is not here. Something really unusual happened during the competition so there’s no chef walking through this door right now.”
Colicchio went on to say that all will be made clear next week, in the meantime giving the current Last Chance Kitchen competitors the chance to compete in a non-elimination challenge for $5,000.
That one saw a three-way competition between Rhoda (current LCK leader) Nana and Brittany in a Bizarre Foods-style challenge to cook with some weird ingredients that the remaining chefs had chosen earlier from the Asian specialty market, not knowing what they were for (duck heads, durien fruit, that kind of stuff). Nana ended up winning, which is great for her, though with no stakes it was a little anti-climactic.
Talk about a cliffhanger!
Where that leaves us now is that we have a full week with nothing to do but speculate, so I thought I’d open the thread.
