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Patty and Nicholas go with an autumnal theme rather than a Halloween specific one, which was not what the judges requested. Still, the two dishes appear divine. The first is butternut squash cannoli with ricotta salata. Patty, like everyone else, plays the arancini game. She delivers lemon arancini with smoked mozzarella. The visual of rice ball is outstanding but again not at all festive. Hugh Acheson grills her on the lack of fear factor. She cannot defend herself against the accusation because… people aren’t idiots.

The most disappointing team in terms of concept is the tandem of Brian and Bene. I just don’t know what they were thinking. Their idea is “spooky spa cuisine”. Err, what? Are spas spooky? I hadn’t heard that. Effectively, Brian and Bene came up with a couple of meals they wanted to prepare for Lea, and they didn’t care whether the food was thematic or not. As good as the Charlize Theron episode of Top Chef was, this episode has been exactly that disappointing on the downside. Brian delivers crispy quinoa salad & mushroom espuma. Bene offers heirloom tomato salad with wilted kale. Tom doesn’t like either dish, which means that these two are a mortal lock to finish on the bottom unless somebody else bombs even worse.

Right on cue, Michael and Nina are next. While Nina was a lousy teammate to the man she dislikes, her dish is impeccable. It is called Candy Corn, and it contains ricotta gnocchetti with kale pesto. Michael is the yin to her yang, delivering a Bloody Eye. The yellow arancini with saffron & tomato jam is every bit as amateurish as Nina had stated. The judges love Nina’s dish but the face Lea Michele makes when she tastes Michael’s food indicates he is the likely loser tonight. I think she’d spit it out if she were at her home.

One team does a better job with the Halloween theme than the rest. Carlos and Travis are not that team. Still, they celebrate Día de Los Muertos by using splashy colors in their dishes. The first bowl is a vegetable ceviche that is very well crafted. The plate by Carlos is a goat cheese fondue with fried zucchini. It looks like a body surrounded by a pool of blood, the closest thing to a real theme out of any of the dishes thus far.

Before Tom can sample the final duo’s food, a buzz has already been created. A few of the masked guests inform him of the “severed thumb." It stands out from the other dishes because, well, Louis and Shirley actually tried to create a spooky plate of food. The result is a braised quinoa & onions with potato purée. It does in fact look like a severed thumb. That alone should be reason enough for this team to avoid the bottom group because there have been some sorry efforts from the competition.

Shirley matches Louis in the creativity department when she presents Worm Salad, hand cut noodles & fresh daikon radish. The food on the plate looks like it’s moving, which is awesome because it’s not really. It’s less awesome when this happens for real, which is something that happened to me at a steakhouse once. Stuff crawled off my date’s burger. But I digress. The judges adore Shirley and Louis’s dishes, and I think they have a real chance to win the challenge right up until Lea Michele states that the dishes were too greasy for her.

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