Top Chef Power Rankings Week 6: Smoke My Whole Hog

Welcome to The Content Report, a newsletter by Vince Mancini. I’ve been writing about movies, culture, and food since the late aughts. Now I’m delivering it straight to you, with none of the autoplay videos, takeover ads, or chumboxes of the ad-ruined internet. Support my work and help me bring back the cool internet by subscribing, sharing, commenting, and keeping it real.

—

This week on Top Chef, for a second there, I thought things were about to get really interesting:

Wait, no. That was nothing sexual. That was just Duyen unbuttoning her pants because she ate too much hog. Wait, no! Damn this Freudian keyboard!

Yes, this week’s episode was the one everyone envisioned would happen during season set in the Carolinas, the one dedicated to whole hog barbecue. As a former porn copywriter, do you know how many times I have to hear the words “show us your hog” and “let me see that hog” and “come smoke this glistening hog” before I stop automatically turning into a sex thing in my head? Genuinely, I’m asking. It hasn’t happened yet and I’m wondering whether I should consult a trepanner.

So… we’re just gonna check that hog, pull it out, make sure it’s nice and tender…

Aaaaaannnyyyywaaaayyyyy….

As Top Chef host Kristin Kish introduced the challenge, “Because ActiveCash™ credit card users earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases, we are going to be all about twos in this challenge.”

As much as I love to make fun of Top Chef’s ridiculous product placement (Kristen Kish is one of the few people on Earth who could’ve delivered that line without cursing out the prompter guy), my stepson was watching this show called High Potential the other day where they actually solved a crime using Microsoft CoPilot. So, you know, could be worse, I guess.

“We’re all about twos,” meanwhile, translated to: two teams of five, competing head to head, in a five-round challenge. Each round emphasized different parts of the pig, including:

-Shoulder
-Loin
-Belly
-Ham
-Chopped

With whole hogs to smoke, that meant no time for a Quickfire Challenge. With no Quickfire Challenge, that meant more time for STORY. Such as Chef Anthony asking Chef Laurence “What’s your favorite race?”

Big yikes! Actually, it turns out they were just talking about Warhammer 5000.

[NERDS!!!! dot gif]

Phew, for a second there I thought Laurence was about to say “Puerto Ricans.” (ANTHONY: Really? But they’re so rambunctious…)

This was actually a decent lead-in, as it became foreshadowing for Anthony’s fine display of GAMESMANSHIP! Anthony was playing 10-dimensional chess this week, or 12-sided die or something.

The teams this week would be chosen by captains, schoolyard style. And since Anthony won last week’s challenge, he got to be the first captain, and could choose the second captain. Anthony chose Wife Guy Justin, er, Common Law Wife Guy Justin (they’re not actually married) as his opposing captain, knowing Justin would choose his life partner, Jennifer, who is also injured. (Did you guys remember Jennifer was injured or do we need 27 more minutes of screen time devoted to it?). Anthony clearly assumed Jennifer/Justin on the same team, plus injury, would give him an advantage in the challenge. In that, it seems he was correct. But we’ll get to that.

First, the show had to introduce this week’s Meat Sherpa, Sam Jones. I mention this as a shameless excuse to brag about having personally watched Sam Jones break down an entire hog, and for once I’m not talking about your mom.

Mmm, that was some good hog. What, you think I wasn’t going take this opportunity to name drop? Please. Anyway, that was eight years ago and Sam Jones and I are very close friends. Cool guy. Also I think he’s still wearing the same hat:

Jones took the gang all around the state of North Carolina to sample various smoked meats, from Eastern Carolina style (Whole Hot, vinegar-based sauce, features chopped BBQ and a blend of all meats) to Western Carolina style (Features exclusively chopped shoulder meat, ketchup-based sauce). It was like a Hog Vision Quest and before long everyone had the meat sleepies.

Also, Duyen looked like she was about to take off her pants for a second (see top image) which was very exciting.

The Team Break Down

RED TEAM (Captain Anthony): Laurence, Brandon, Sherry, Duyen.

GREY TEAM (Captain Justin): Jennifer, Sieger, Johnathan, Oscar.

With annoying Brandon as the unofficial pitmaster of the Red Team and snarky Sieger as the unofficial pitmaster of the Grey Team, both teams contrasted the logic and authenticity of their own approach vs. the blasphemous bastardry of the opposing team’s approach. In true barbecue fashion, none of the fighting much mattered and everything was pretty good.

Nonetheless, contrasts:

RED TEAM:

-Starting the fire, then putting the pig on the pre-heated grill.
-Pulling the loins early to keep them from drying out.

GREY TEAM:

-Putting the pig on cold grill and then adding the hot coals.
-Leaving the loins intact to respect the purity of “whole hog” barbecue.

Results:

R1: (shoulder) Sherry (Red) def. Justin (Grey) 4-1

R2 (loin): Laurence (Red) def. Sieger (Grey) 5-0.

R3 (belly): Brandon (Red) def. Jonathan (Grey) 5-0.

R4: (ham): Jennifer (GREY) def. Anthony (Red) 4-1.

R5: (chopped): SPLIT: Duyen (Red) wins the pitmaster vote, but Oscar (Grey) takes judges, 4-1.

Red Team (Anthony, Laurence*, Brandon, Sherry, Duyen) Wins.

(*Challenge Winner).

Eliminated: Sieger.

This week’s episode was by far the most entertaining of the season, and the best part was Brandon clearly believing he was about to be named the winner of the challenge only for the judges to say Laurence’s name instead.

Look at that dude’s face! You know he thought he was about to win. He was even standing a step closer than everyone, just to make it easier to soak up all the accolades. Big “confused Zoolander tries to steal award” energy.

Meanwhile, the show saved its biggest twist for Last Chance Kitchen, where we potentially have another David Murphy situation, the details of which we won’t find out until next week. A legitimate cliffhanger! God bless this show, it gives us so much.

Power Rankings (change from last week)

10. (-3) ((Eliminated)) Sieger Bayer

AKA: The Silver Bullet. SEO. Hansel.

Ranking History: 7, 8, 11, 11, 8.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Pork loin, crisp pig ear terrine, mustard-based carrot BBQ sauce.

Reviews: “Sieger I think your pork is a little on the dry side.” “That pig ear was definitely incredible.”

Notable Quote: “For me, I would not bastardize the tradition of whole hog barbecue in the Carolinas just for a win.”

Aw, poor Sieger. It seemed like he was finally giving us a taste of his personality these past few weeks (mean-funny) and I was really starting to appreciate it. He was giving “metrosexual David Spade.” Everyone knew the pork loin would be the highest degree of difficulty of any cut — Brandon even called it “a death sentence,” which is a funny thing to say when you’re trying to get one of your teammates to take it — but Sieger was so confident in his barbecue training that he took the loin anyway. He also refused to bastardize whole hog barbecue just for a stupid win.

Doctor, I can’t eat this! This is bastard pork!

Unfortunately this show is not about character or integrity, and so Sieger somewhat predictably went home for dry porn loin. C’mon, man! Should’ve taken shoulder or belly as the price for being the lead fire stoker.

I actually don’t believe it was the decision not to pull the loins early or anything his team actually did with the pig that doomed Sieger. More likely it was just the simple fact of him putting more energy towards cooking a beautiful hog for his team and much less towards conceptualizing a winning dish for himself — which is ultimately how they judge things on this show.

Admirable, perhaps. But also: how do you not know that this is how it works on this show yet? Anyone who ponders putting the team above themselves on this show needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and repeat “I’m not here to make friends” three times.

9. (+1) Justin

AKA: Dangle. Wife Guy. Panthro. Crazylegs. Quad City. Yoga Jack Black.

Ranking History: 10, 11, 10, 10, 12.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Milk bread barbecue sandwich with Alabama coleslaw, spicy pickles, and Western Carolina dipping sauce.

Reviews: “There wasn’t enough meat in there!”

Justin yet again proved himself to be a really supportive Common Law Husband while falling short as a competitor. Things were looking strong for Justin during prep, when he managed to bake his own beautiful buns from scratch (leave it to the short-shorts enthusiast to know a thing or two about beautiful buns).

I even liked his idea, to do a riff on a Chicago Italian Beef with pork shoulder (juicy tender meat sandwich with spicy pickles). Unfortunately he was matched against Sherry and came up a little short. That the vote wasn’t unanimous feels like a minor moral victory. Still, it didn’t seem like the judges had too many bad things to say about Justin’s, other than “not enough meat.”

My hot take? I don’t think milk bread was the right choice. With a Chicago Italian Beef you need kind of a crusty roll to stand up to all the juice without falling apart. Milk bread sounds too delicate, which meant he probably had to use less meat, leading to the poor meat-to-bun ratio the judges latched onto. Anyway, I have many other sandwich takes, just send me a self-addressed stamped envelope and I’ll add you to my Sandwich Thoughts™ Mailing list.

It wasn’t a tough choice to leave Justin on the bottom of these rankings, but it’s also true that he once again never seemed in danger of going home.

8. (+1) Jennifer

AKA: Hi Y’all. Bon Voyage. Husband Gal. Fishbait. Slinger.

Ranking History: 9, 10, 9, 9, 11.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Ham steak, black eyed pea purée, hushpuppies, smoked grapes, and pickled collard green stems.

While Anthony scheming to get both Justin and Jennifer on the opposite team was probably the correct choice, conceptually, his assumption that Jennifer would be the weakest link on account of her shoulder seems off-base with the benefit of hindsight. Bum shoulder or not, if you can assume one thing about Jennifer it’s probably that this lady knows her way around some ham.

She ended up defeating Anthony in one of the toughest rounds of the week and easily stayed in the competition. And thank God, if I go more than 10 minutes without hearing about Jennifer’s shoulder I might die.

7. (+1) Johnathan

AKA: Big Twin. Thicc Twin. Meat. Brawnathan. H Bomb. GLP-2. Spuma.

Ranking History: 8, 9, 8, 8, 5.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Pork Belly, chicharrón, succotash, and pimento cheese.

Reviews: “That pimento cheese was terrible.”

Johnathan has cemented his place both as the more likeable of the Dearden twins, but also as the slightly weaker competitor, much as it saddens me to say. His dish looked pretty fantastic this week, and the judges loved almost everything about it, with the exception of the pimento cheese spuma (great description of your mom’s cellulite). Tom rightly pointed out that the whole point of pimento cheese is the texture, and so if you purée it all into a froth, you’re kind of removing its best qualities. Not to mention that adding cheese to smoky pork and crunchy chicharrón kind of just neutralizes the bright acidic notes with more fat. It’s pork belly. Probably the last thing it needs is dairy.

That being said it still looked good as hell and I would’ve eaten a bucket of it.

6. (even) Brandon

AKA: GLP-1. Broccoli Twin. Slim. B-Train. New Danny. Shh.

Ranking History: 6, 6, 7, 7, 3.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Smoked BBQ pork belly, mac n cheese, collard greens, and mustard onions.

One thing influencers love is being corny and speaking in sportsy clichés. This week, Brandon got to show off his tattoo of a pig with bandages on its belly (because Brandon loves pork belly, see) and brag about how experienced he is at barbecue. “Once I switch on that barbecue light, I mean it’s game over, this is my wheelhouse.”

Did I mention Brandon has socks that say “BACON” on them? Yeah.

Yet for as much as Brandon seems like an obnoxious hang, he’s great TV, and watching him swell with pride over his expected victory only to be deflated when they called Laurence’s name instead of his was priceless. The show kind of did him dirty cutting that solo reaction shot in there just before the announcement:

I might even feel bad for him if he didn’t spend the whole episode showing why he deserved it. Brandon competed against his own twin brother during his round. Johnathan made a controversial move, choosing to buy pork skin from the store to make his chicharrón rather than using the skin from the barbecued hog. Naturally, Brandon took the opportunity to dime him out before the judges had even opened their mouths. Say what you will about instantly snitching on your own twin brother, Scumbag Brandon is great TV.

5. (even) Oscar

AKA: Twice In Legal Minute?! DJ Buenos Dias. Milky. 311. Chaggy.

Ranking History: 5, 4, 6, 3, 7.

Elimination Challenge Dish: Pig face stuffed tamal, curtido, and salsa ahogada BBQ sauce.

If Brandon is great TV and seems like an annoying hang, Oscar is also solid TV and seems like a great hang. He’s such a lovable stoner that he got chosen last for the challenge this week and it didn’t seem to bother him at all. I don’t know what they were thinking choosing him last, so it was nice to Oscar prove the haters wrong.

Oscar had me at “pig face.” I don’t know much in this world, but I know enough to know that if a Mexican ever tries to serve you something that involves a dead animal’s face, you absolutely are going to want to order that.

Also, if I wanted to see a pig face get stuffed I’d call— no, no, I promised myself no more mom jokes this week. Restraint!