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As for Grayson, her problem according to Tom was that she made a “nice little salad that she could whip up on a Sunday afternoon without thinking.”

“Those green beans died for nothing,” Ludo notes with aplomb.

“I didn’t feel passionate, I didn’t love [cooking vegan],” Grayson says.

“You’re not here always going to be cooking the food you like to be cooking,” Gail responds. Maybe Grayson’s attitude is getting on Gail’s nerves as much as she is on mine.

As for Renee, Gail thought she had a good dish conceptually with the dandelion sauce, but there wasn’t enough of it and thus the dish “ate dry.” Ludo repeats his criticism of the dish as “very mushy.”

As for Phillip, Padma wanted more flavor and inspiration. Phillip takes offense. He says that his team, forced to cook vegan, “didn’t have the opportunity to give most of the ingredients that other people did, and that played into some if it.”

“Not at all,” Padma flatly disagrees. “In my mind, your group had the easiest task, you could have gone anywhere, just omitting animal products.” Gail further notes that Phillip’s dish just felt fussy, employing my favorite new adjective: “tweezified.”

The cheftestants head back to the stew room and Phillip immediately congratulates Team Mexico for “dodging a bullet.” He fails to note, however, that if Team Mexico saved themselves from last place by having one great dish, he could have done the same for his own team.

Back at Judges Table, Frances seems safe. Padma notes that Frances’s dish at least had a lot of flavor, though Tom still grumbles about her use of canned chickpeas. Padma couldn’t get past the lack of flavor in Renee’s dish, and Tom agrees, “the thing in the center was just terrible.” Padma calls Phillip safe, and Tom agrees - it was pretty good, just too involved with the appearance. Gail says that Grayson’s dish “just confounded me,” calling it an “average” dish that needed acid and inspiration.

The four bottom chefs return to Judges Table for the verdict. If judged on a two-episode arc, I would think the judges would send Grayson home for her utter lack of interest in actually cooking like she’s on Top Chef. If, however, judged simply on the basis of this episode… I still predict Grayson’s lackadaisical, mediocre-to-a-fault dish sends her home.

Tom says that making a successful vegan pop-up restaurant requires “special” food, but that none of the four dishes hit that mark. There was no show of love and little evidence that the chefs even enjoyed what they were doing. Which leads to the departure of… Renee. Wow. Tom says the dish “just didn’t eat well at all, didn’t have a lot of flavor, and that paste - we just couldn’t get past it.” Ugh.

In her closing remarks, Renee expresses her surprise at being out so soon. From this experience, she’s learned that she’s simply not good at cooking under time constraints but is proud she did the best she could. She arrived sassy and is leaving even sassier.

Hopefully, that sass serves her well in Last Chance Kitchen.

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