Top Chef Texas episode 16: Fire & Ice finale

by Teresa Gubbins

• Tweet
• Email
• Print
• 12 Comments

This thing will never end.

Lindsay, Sarah, and Paul: Top Chef Texas finalists

Top Chef Texas got into Part 2 of its 3-part finale, and love is in the air. Finalists Sarah, Paul, and Lindsay are so cozy, they must pinch themselves to remember that this is a competition and not a pajama party.

They show the three chef-pals drinking wine, hanging out, speculating on what the judges must be thinking. "How are they gonna choose?" Sarah says. "I tried hard," says Lindsay. "We all tried hard," says Paul. "Whoever stays, needs to [expletive] whoop some ass," Sarah says. "That's for sure," Paul says.

Beverly, please come back. On prior seasons, it's been irritating when the producers manufacture conflict to create drama, but this season makes you realize that it's worse when they don't.

For the quickfire, the trio pairs with three Asian chefs to make Asian dishes. Sarah forms her mouth into an O that matches the shape of her head and covers the little O with her hand, foaming when she sees D-list chef Takashi Yagahashi because she loves him soooo much. Paul gets him instead. Paul is grumpy because everyone expects him to win this Asian thing just because he's Asian. Sarah wins, as she executes crab with curry sauce conceived by partner chef Floyd Cardoz.

The finale takes a theme of "Fire & Ice," which is romantic for proms but complicated for cooking competitions. Do they mean hot & cold, or do they mean spicy & cool? Lindsay frets. She notices that Paul and Sarah are being all literal and gimmicky with frozen elements, but she's just going to cook who she is. Gotta be true to yourself, even if yourself is someone who doesn't have the first clue on how to execute a fire-and-ice theme. She decides to cook halibut, even though halibut brings back awful memories of that awful Beverly, who did such a lousy job cooking Lindsay's halibut.

They pay with pretty Canadian money and head to the kitchen, where they use Morton salt and drink Fiji water. The closeup of Fiji is especially lingering and gratuitous. The same Fiji water that's been accused of lying about how many trees it planted to improve its carbon footprint, and using bottles made from Chinese plastic in a diesel-fueled plant? The Fiji water that threatened to close its plant in Fiji when the local government wanted to raise the taxes it paid? The Fiji water owned by controversial billionaires Lynda & Stewart Resnick, who also own Pom Wonderful and are the biggest citrus, pomegranate, almond, and pistachio growers in the U.S.?

Lindsay focuses on her halibut, Sarah pats herself on the back for not second-guessing herself like her weaker competitors do, and Paul hacks live squirming lobsters with a cleaver. Guess he missed the study showing that lobsters have a central nervous system and do feel pain.

The trio completes their dishes and serves them to a crowd of 120. One good thing about Canada: At their chef events, they use real plates and glasses, not the disposable crap used at events in the US of A. All three dishes -- Paul's lobster, Sarah's cannelloni with five greens, and Lindsay's halibut -- are good, but all flawed. But Lindsay's inability to address the challenge correctly is the worst of the three, and she's sent home.

"I knew that it would always be me versus Paul," gloats Sarah. Must be hard to be so smart all the time.