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He heads back into the Stew Room and gives the sad news that the judges want to see Tim, Stephen, Tracy and Kevin. They head towards Judges Table with the enthusiasm of a parade of prisoners heading in front of a firing squad.

Stephen had done a sea bass wrapped in bacon and Gail found it totally unappealing; the bass was hard to cut and stringy on the inside. Tom hated that the bacon had no char on it, and roundly criticized the couscous for being greasy and flavorless.

Gail didn't care for Tim's vegetables. Tom notes that he had plenty of time to get flavor into his dish but didn't.

Padma calls Kevin's food the "safest Puerto Rican food I've ever had." Kevin retorts by saying that all the Puerto Rican people he knows cook that type of food.

"Are they chefs?" Gail asks.

"No," he admits.

"Exactly," Gail continues. "You ARE. Show us great Puerto Rican food that a a professional chef would make."

Lastly, we have Tracy, who admits that she's not surprised to be there. Jonathan wishes she had crushed the fennel in her Italian-style sausage sliders. Gail's slider was really pink - almost raw. Tom calls the slider insulting to Italians, of which he is one.

"I'm sorry," she says to him. Wow, Tracy really doesn't stand up for herself at al, she just agrees with all the judges' criticisms of her. I feel so bad for the girl.

Tracy walks back into the stew room and asks who will miss her when she's gone. Ouch, she is sure that she's going home.

The judges begin deliberation on who's getting eliminated. Tom says that Stephen made a bad choice, and Jonathan agrees, saying that the fish was inedible and the bacon was raw. Tom says that his couscous was worse.

With Tim, Jonathan points out that his dish was at least edible, and it sounds like he's off the hook.

With Tracy, Jonathan thinks that his 10-year old son could have made a comparable slider, saying that it did not look like a professional chef made that dish.

Finally, with Kevin, he grilled his meat properly. His downfall was the mediocre side dish of beans and rice. They were watered-down versions of Puerto Rican food.

So it sounds like the elimination will either be Tracy or Stephen. With Stephen, we have a good idea that wasn't edible. With Tracy, we have some elementary cooking that makes her look like she never even deserved to be on the show in the first place. Of those two errors, you gotta think Tracy's is worse.

And, indeed, it is. Tracy is going home. When Padma asks her to pack her knives, Tracy looks like she's about to burst into tears. I feel so horrible for her - I had actually begun to root for her since her Quickfire with Hot Angelo.

Tracy says that it's fair that she's going home, saying that she deserves it. She wishes that she had prepared herself better emotionally for the challenge of the show and says she's going home because she had a bad day. It's too bad, because she's a really likable person. But she was never going to be Top Chef.

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