I don't care who wins now and may not bother watching the finale.

OMG. How right you are. This is straight up bullshit.

I don't think I am going to watch. fuck it.

This is straight up bullshit.

You serve Eric Ripert a seafood dish he has problems with, I expect consequences. The fact that it was one of the only dishes that Bourdain had issues with kinda sealed the deal that Tiffany was toast. She had a bad night, and that alway kills with this show, so no matter how much I am meh on the other contestants, I don't think there was anything hinky about this.

Still, I bet Tom C must be seething that Angelo won with that ginger in the dish though.

(shrug) I still think it is bullshit. Ripert was mr. grumpy man - he didn't like Ed's dish all that much either, right and Bourdain argued with him.

This was a bad season, and this right here is the cherry on the sundae. I'm out.

This was a bad season

I can't argue with that.

I don't doubt that Tiffany's dish was the worst of the bunch that night - she knew it wasn't the dish she'd originally planned, and last-minute fixes are risky at this late stage in the game. BUT STILL.

Rotten luck for her to have a bad night when everyone else had a good one.

Sucks about Tiffany but you could see it was going that way.

Bourdain was thinking what I've been thinking - what the fuck crawled up Ripert's ass? The past couple of weeks it's been all "it's too complicated, too messy, too hard to eat." All pissy and negative and almost none of it about the food.

I would definitely pull for Angelo ahead of Kevin at this point. But did anyone catch last week that he's only met the fiance twice? Total mail-order.

Angelo strikes me as super slimy. ::shudders::

I am so bummed about Tiffany. And I guess rooting for Ed now, although I can't say I think he actually deserves the title. It's just insane to think about the level of talent last season compared to this one.

It was amusing that Bourdain seemed generally impressed with at least something about every dish. No room for snark!

S. and I were trying to remember what he called Mikey that season. The bastard love child of Betty Crocker and ... ?

Bourdain was thinking what I've been thinking - what the fuck crawled up Ripert's ass?

There's that, and I also think because they're pals he loves giving Ripert shit on camera when he can.

I loved the Ripper/Bourdain back and forth. The crits are always better when Bourdain is part of them. So much more amusing.

Yes, sometime in the midst of it all I started worrying about Tiffany. Well, she was the only one that had a major thing go wrong with her dish. I suppose the fact that she couldn't adapt to it well enough is a strike against her. (But she did have Ripert say that she cooked the fish well - she can definitely be proud of that. I'm not misremembering that, am I?)

Re: Angelo - long distance Russian fiancee! That's why the divorce info struck me funny - I just couldn't remember the fiancee thing. He is an odd duck and a douchnozzle but he can cook.

Kevin should have tried braising pork for his elimination dish - Bourdain would have loved him then.