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The cheftestants head back to the stew room and Kevin, fresh from dinner, comes to join them. They press him for details on what the judges thought but he declines to say anything definitive.

Padma enters the room and asks for Bryan, Mike, Jennifer and Michael. No surprises here. They were clearly the two best dishes. Standing in front of the judges, the four of them don't even smile - they're not surprised, they knew they were on top.

The judges begin to question the trout team as to their inspiration and Pompous Mike basically takes half of the credit for the sauce and the concept of the dish, which is totally unfair since it was entirely Bryan's idea and Bryan's recipe for the sauce. I hate Mike.

Jennifer and Michael had a great time cooking together, you can tell. They compliment each other and it feels genuine. Tom, in particular, compliments Jennifer's sauce.

As much as I'd like to see the win go to Jennifer, I know that the judges will see through Mike's lies and reward Bryan for the win, giving credit to him for his innovative dish and sauce. And they do. Bryan wins his second elimination challenge so far and cements his place as one of the true contenders for this title.

As for the four losers, they certainly don't look like Top Chef material at this point. We have Mattin, Ashley, Hector and Ash. Surprising to see three men in the bottom four but hey, it's about time.

Ashley and Mattin go first and Gail nails them for their dried out poussin. Daniel follows it up with by calling their velote sauce more like gravy than velote and Tom chimes in by criticizing the heavy use of bacon. Mattin admits that he was heavy-handed with the bacon but shifts the blame entirely when the judges point out that the asparagus didn't add anything to the dish because they weren't integrated into the sauce. Ashley mumbles something about the fact that she had broached the idea of making the velote more asparagus-y but Mattin promptly denies it. Lord.

As for the Chateaubriand and sauce de pauvre dish, the first thing the judges want to know is where the sauce was. Ash explains that Hector's timing issue with the meat left him with no time to sauce the dish, so then the judges go after Hector for completely overcooking the meat and hacking it to bits when slicing it. Hector blames the overcooked meat on the fact that he'd used a thermometer to cook the dish and said that it left him with only two minutes to cut it up.

"What did you use to cut it with?" asks Gail.

"A knife," answers Hector.

"Was it sharp?" she responds. Clearly, Gail cannot believe the horrible butchery job on her meat.

The four chefs stomp back to the stew room and Ash immediately proclaims that being in the bottom four is the "most unpleasant thing in the world. It's painful because they're right. They're dead on, balls-to-the-walls right." At least he respects their opinion.

Padma says that a case can be made for sending them ALL home. Tom immediately attacks the way Hector cooked his meat, adding that any buffet line cook in Vegas could have cut it better. He also exonerates Ash by saying, "a great sauce could not hide the fact that the beef was incorrectly cooked." I'm thinking that Hector is DEFINITELY going home.

As for the other team, the judge seem most surprised that Ashley didn't take any type of responsibility for the flavorless poussin. Daniel suggests that it's because she had let Mattin lead the dish and Tom agrees that she probably wanted to throw him under the bus, but also criticizes Mattin for not delivering a true velote sauce, saying that it should have been his moment to shine.
I agree with Tom but I know that Hector will go home because he made the most elementary mistakes tonight . . . and in the early parts of any Top Chef season, the chef that makes the dumbest mistake (i.e. the one who doesn't seem like they should even be on the show) will usually go home.

The four chefs come back out and Tom delivers the final verdict. The poussin dish of Mattin and Ashley could have been great but it fell short. The chateaubriand dish of Ash and Hector was marred by both the cooking of the protein and the lack of sauce. There was no harmony.

With that, Padma stares Hector down and asks him to leave. He turns around without a word and strides out of the kitchen. He's pretty upset that he's going home, chiding himself for having changed his cooking style to fit judges, to fit time constraints, etc. He ends by inviting us viewers to come eat at his restaurant to taste "his food." If "his food" includes deep fried steaks, I think I'll pass.

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