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With so few remaining players, six, a Quickfire challenge such as this provides little drama. With Joshua and Lizzie out of the competition, the four remaining players each possess a 25% chance of winning, 33% once we remove Josie from the equation. Sheldon claims he does not have a lot of experience cooking sushi while Brooke states that she eats it every other day. Sheldon is complimented for his technique, albeit in an inscrutable way. Brooke is offered advice about how to prepare the fish better. Her dish is not easy to eat.

With most of the other chefs struggling, Stefan becomes the big fish in a small pond. He states an intention to impress Uechi, a fellow Los Angeles resident. Alas, he said the same thing last week of Danny Meyer, who actively despises Stefan after the Restaurant Wars service fiasco. In the Quickfire challenge, Stefan is up to the task, creating a delicious lobster dish. The outcome is a bit of a surprise since Stefan used a lot of ingredients (yellowtail with grilled shiitake & raw lobster with seaweed & unagi), but he triumphs by process of elimination.

The victory entitles Stefan to a $5,000 prize. This is the first victory of any sort for the man who claims to be the uncrowned champion of Season 5. With Stefan finally winning, there are oddly still two contestants who have never won anything this season. They are Joshua and Lizzie. Even Josie (!) has won a Quickfire challenge. With Kristen hogging so much of the glory, there have not been enough prizes to go around, though. I am amazed that half of the six remaining chefs had never won a single challenge prior to this Quickfire. Such a scenario is statistically improbable.

After the Quickfire ends, Tom Colicchio and David Chang of Momofuku noodle bar appear in the Top Chef kitchen. Colicchio informs the cheftestants that he is throwing a party at his rental home. A lot of famous guests will attend. The head judge wants to provide the best food possible for the party, and he has chosen fried chicken as the meal of choice. He then identifies some of the guests as Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck and Michelle Bernstein. The intimidation factor is high for tonight’s Elimination challenge.

All of the chefs sound confident about their dishes. Joshua believes that the misfortune he experienced in the sushi challenge has been counterbalanced by a specialty of his, fried chicken, being the critical dish for the elimination challenge. Josie brags about her southern heritage giving her a natural advantage in a chicken challenge. Josie, your cooking skill gives you a natural disadvantage in any Top Chef challenge so at best, the situation is a draw.

Several contestants decide to mix things up a bit. Brooke cuts the breasts off the chicken, planning to replicate the fried chicken flavor in a different way. Joshua is so horrified that he jokes that they may break up over this. I had missed the Work Spouse dynamic they have been building this season but now that it’s out in the open, it’s fairly obvious. Really, Joshua’s superpower is that everybody likes him. He is one of the most popular contestants I can ever recall on Top Chef.

A couple of the non-American chefs also take circuitous routes in their fried chicken preparation. Lizzie also removes the breasts and uses a family rub to create the same flavor. Stefan effectively ignores the instructions, instead choosing to craft a chicken cordon bleu meal instead. To the best of my knowledge, Kentucky Fried Chicken has never been in the business of serving chicken cordon bleu. Why? It is not fried chicken. At all. Thus far, Josie and Joshua are the only two chefs following the basic concept of the challenge. And since Josie is a horrible chef, I like Joshua’s chances to get off the schneid this week.

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