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The elimination challenge tonight will be judged by John Besh, a New Orleans native. He represents the Greater New Orleans Foundation, an organization devoted to aiding those food providers negatively impacted by the Gulf Oil Spill. A benefit is being held for which the chefs will produce food for 300 people. At this point, Besh reveals that the remaining chefs will be aided by the following returning players: Spike, Marcel, Angelo, Tiffani, Fabio and Tre.

In order to make some of the chefs more attractive (read: Marcel), they are paired with a serving entrée. So, Marcel is packaged with delicious white shrimp (mmm, metaphorical), which appears to be the best ingredient there. Mike, who gets to pick first as an additional reward for stealing the challenge, even comments that Marcel’s dish is the most appealing, but he instead chooses Tiffani’s black shrimp in order to avoid working with a nightmare of a human being. Richard comments that he is more concerned about his working relationship than the dish; he ignores Angelo since the most recently eliminated player may not have his head in the game quite yet. Instead, Richard picks Fabio and his snapper (NOT metaphorical, at least not as far as I know).

Carla picks Tre and his red grouper. Tiffany, who does not pick last, bites the bullet by selecting the white shrimp. Moments later, she realizes she left Marcel out of the discussion, which diminishes the already wildly insecure brat. Their meal is off to a shaky start and they haven’t even turned on the oven yet. Antonia either gets in a brilliant dig or has a huge slip of the tongue when she offers the following, “I’ll take Spike and his crabs.” Someone will be needing a few trips to the pharmacy this week. Angelo (and his amberjack) is last picked, probably for the reason Richard mentioned, as he goes to Dale. In terms of pure cooking ability, however, this is probably the most impressive tandem of the sextet of teams.

Most of the preparations go swimmingly. The cooks are familiar with one another and have almost all worked together on previous challenges. Since the eliminated chefs know their designated roles, most of them attempt to complement the remaining competitors as much as possible. Then, there is Marcel. The egomaniacal jerk has forgotten that he was eliminated four episodes ago and had been a total bust in almost every other episode prior to that. Unwilling to show any deference whatsoever to Tiffany, he is militant to the point of being mutinous about her menu choices. I’m half surprised he doesn’t suggest that she make a foam. At this moment, Tiffany appears likely to be eliminated this episode. The only good news I have for her is that Carla was in the same situation last week, but somehow survived when other contestant screwed up even worse. Then again, Carla was cooking by herself rather than stuck with Marcel.

The meals are a struggle for all of the chefs. Not one of them is in the habit of serving 300 people consecutively. Even by Top Chef standards, this is a swarm of diners. The constant need to produce food has all of them in various stages of panic. Fabio tells Richard Blais that he hasn’t cooked this much in seven years. That puts the whole thing into perspective. When the judges arrive, the chefs are unable to painstakingly prepare their dishes the way they ordinarily would. As such, there is a rawness to their output, not in terms of meat preparation, but rather emotional strife.

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