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And that person is him. George is given the opportunity to cook one-on-one with any cheftestant—if he wins, they’re both safe, but if he loses, he’s out. I’m sure that every person in the room expects him to pick (BANG BANG BANG) Katsuji as his opponent, but no, George has a better idea. As payback for stealing the mackerel and sticking him with the clams, George picks his teammate Gregory.

When Padma gives them the signal, the two race around the kitchen to prepare their respective dishes. George is focused on doing one good mackerel dish, while Gregory wants to put together a seafood trio. I’m hearing alarm bells - on Top Chef, trios are almost never a good idea. Inevitably, there’s something on the plate that a judge dislikes or finds to be not well-prepared. Will Gregory fall victim to the same folly?

George eventually puts forth a pan-seared mackerel with fennel, orange, and kalamata olives. Greg serves up his seafood trio with oyster and yuzu, mackerel and mirin, and lobster with chilled coconut.

After tasting the dishes, Richard declares that George demonstrated elegance and knowledge of his ingredients, but failed to add enough heat. Gregory’s dish is dubbed bright and refreshing, but is warned against doing trios in the future, as they simply provide “two opportunities to fail.”

George needs to win to stay in, but he can’t. His nemesis Gregory comes away with the victory. His teammate Joy notes that George was “one to fear,” and thus his elimination makes clear that no one is safe. I’m thinking George’s problem was that he was revenge-minded instead of strategic. Had he picked Katsuji, he might still be in this thing. Instead, he walks off with his blood boiling. It’s over for him before it really started.

Onto the elimination challenge! The cheftestants will be working at the first-ever Top Chef Food Festival, serving up food at their own individual booths to 250 diners, alongside some of Boston’s best chefs, including Barbara Lynch, Todd English, and Ming Tsai. WOW. That’s an impressive lineup. Props to Top Chef for convincing such illustrious chefs to offer up their fine dining cuisine on plastic plates in makeshift booths. As for the theme of the event, the cheftestants are to serve an updated version of the first dish they remember cooking. This is quintessential Top Chef. It hits three frequently used chords - serve (1) an update of (2) a personal dish from your past that (3) tells us a story about you. Love it.

The chefs make the obligatory run around Whole Foods and head back to the kitchen, where they toil away for three hours. It’s pretty chaotic, as you’d expect - the chefs, after all, have never seen the kitchen before and thus aren’t sure where they should set up cooking stations, where the pots are, etc. Upon walking in, Tom Colicchio (in his first appearance this season) declares it to be “a war zone.” If he thought the environment was crazy, just wait 'til he gets a load of Katsuji’s dish, which sounds (to put it lightly) like an utter mess. Among the ingredients: shrimp, cheese, squid ink, chicharrones, cream, fried tortillas, saffron, couscous, cilantro, chipotle peppers, half-and-half, lemon peel, and serrano sauce. Tom looks on in disbelief. To me, it sounds like all of the ingredients in a single episode of Chopped put together onto one plate.

The chefs make it over to the food festival and all of a sudden, I (and other viewers, too, I’m sure) turn into a gawking, foodie fanboy. OMG THERE’S TOP CHEF WINNER KRISTIN! AND TODD ENGLISH! WHOA, BARBARA LYNCH! AAAUUUGHHH, MING TSAI! OMG OMG OMG TIFFANI FAISON. YOU DESERVED TO WIN TOP CHEF DUELS, TIFFANI!

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