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As some point, Katasuji - who was in the process of making a chili sauce - gets bumped by some female chef… I think it was Katie? The sauce gets all over him and all over the floor. He swears up a storm in Spanish.

Meanwhile, a bunch of female cheftestants are standing around the sea table, waiting for the two lanterns to go off. They’ve already been forced to pick two land ingredients and they’re hankering for some seafood. They pace nervously. I’m reminded of that old Mervyn’s commercial from the early ‘90s where a bunch of women wait for the store to open. “Open, open, open, open.”

Finally, two lanterns light up and everyone except Adam grab their seafood. Adam is oblivious and is left with “dried crab snack.” He’s nonplussed. He thinks it could add a crunchy element to his dish. I think he might be wrong.

One lantern lights up again and it’s starting to be slim pickings on the land table. Joy reluctantly grabs some veal. Katsuji is, of course, thrilled with the opportunity to add more ingredients, but at least this time his eagerness is reasonable. He selects hot pepper jelly, which will replace the chili sauce that is currently adding a little spice to the Top Chef Kitchen floor.

The 14 chefs serve up their 14 dishes and frankly they all look pretty good. So far, it’s seeming like we have a very solid cast of cheftestants, which makes it a more enjoyable experience for viewers and judges alike, I’m sure. If nothing else, fewer bottles of Pepto-Bismol should be needed on set.

On the bottom, we have Joy and Stacy. Todd wasn’t crazy about Joy’s pairing of beef and veal, while Stacy’s dish was neither seasoned properly nor cooked properly. I’m sure they are both thanking their lucky stars that this was not a Sudden Death Quickfire.

On top, we have a bit of a surprise. There’s Katsuji (!!!), who made a very nice sauce and deftly incorporated uni into his dish, and non-shirtless James, who masterfully incorporated wild boar bacon into his mussels dish. As much as Katsuji would have loved to get a bit of redemption, it’s James who ends up on top. Noting his background growing up with a single mom in a trailer park, James says that his $5,000 is much appreciated.

On to the Elimination Challenge. The cheftestants will be cooking dishes today for “the heroic men and women of Boston’s finest” (I’m pretty sure this rules out the Harvard Law School community). And indeed, in walk the Commissioners of Boston’s fire and police department. They introduce themselves and their roles. I am thrilled by the awesome-yet-super-stereotypical Boston accents that they’re spouting. He’s the Commissioner of the fi-YAH de-PAWT-ment. Love it.

Just as Boston firemen and policemen must respond to whatever situation may arise, the chefs will do the same. They’ll be organized into five groups, each of which must work together to create a single, cohesive dish. There will be five boxes of ingredients available for the teams to pick from - the chefs must respond to whatever ingredients are in the box they select.

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