Top Chef New York, Episode 9: Who Cares? Lost is back!

Morris Day: "What time is it?"

Well, we are either in the past or in the future.

Previously on Lost/Top Chef:

Andy Cohen went down into a cave and turned a big wheel and moved the Top Chef kitchen to New York.

The chefs are stranded in a deserted tropical kitchen in a vaguely Polynesian or possibly south-east Asian location where they are greeted by the judges:

Padma: "Mariska Hargitay! That means hello, goodbye, and also love!"

The chefs try to survive by gathering food in the Top Chef kitchen but they are eliminated one by one. Ariane is gone. Or is she? Maybe she managed to jump off the ship right before it blew up. You never know, right?

This week the Top Chef Four -- Radhika, Jamie, Carla, and Jeff -- fight against The Others -- Stefan, Josea, Fabio, and Leah -- in a little something called Restaurant Wars.

Restaurant Wars! It's the only way to protect the Top Chef kitchen from the executives at Lifetime Television, who will stop at nothing to get the power of Bravo programming for their own evil reasons.

Tom Colicchio: "You have to lie. It's the only way to protect the Top Chef kitchen."

It's just a kitchen, Tom! It doesn't need to be protected!

Tom: "It's not a kitchen. It's a place where magic happens."

Jeff: "Ooh, who wants to see a magic trick?"

OK, fine, I guess magic really does happen in that kitchen. What do I have to do, Tom?

Tom: "You have to lie. It's the only way. Lifetime can't know about the kitchen. They've been searching for the kitchen for years, they planted a fake kitchen at the bottom of the ocean, and they sent people here to kill everyone in the kitchen just so they could have it for themselves."

Wait, so they already know all about the kitchen? Then what the hell good will it do to lie about the fact that we've been in the kitchen? That's not going to keep them from knowing it exists."

Tom: "I haven't really thought it through that carefully. Trust me, this will keep the plot moving forward. Soon there will be time travel and all kinds of shit and you won't care about the fact that it doesn't make sense."

Leah is caught in a love triangle between Jack and Sawyer:

Leah: "I'm so attracted to bad boy Sawyer but I know that Jack is the total asshole I'm meant to be with."

Sawyer: "I really regret what happened with Leah. She has a boyfriend and I have a girlfriend. We made out for two hours. Two hours of foreplay and no sex. I really regret that."

The chefs drive around in the sponsored cars again, showing off the amazing technology, like the button you have to push every 108 minutes to keep the universe from ending.

Radhika's restaurant is called Sahana. Sahana means "watch out for polar bears" in Sanskrit.

Leah's restaurant is called Sunset Lounge. Sunset Lounge means "Dude, I am so wasted" in douche.

Radhika and Fabio are taking the front of the house. Fabio looks fantastic in his suit. He really cleans up well. Radhika looks like the mother of the bride. I'm sure we could find a more flattering dress for her.

Radhika is terrible running the front of the house and she lacked any leadership in the kitchen. She also is not around when the judges leave:

Judges: "Let's dine and dash!"

The judges liked all the food at Sahana except Carla's terrible desserts:

Carla: "I couldn't do anything about the terrible desserts but I sent them out with love."

Tom: "We didn't want your love! We wanted decent dessert!"

Carla: "OK, Tom, calm the fuck down. I know the dessert was terrible. All I said is that I tried to send out positive energy with it. I understand that you think that's new age bullshit but, seriously, it didn't make the food any worse than it already was, so what's the point in getting all bent out of shape about it?"

Fabio is great at the front of the house. He's very charming and attentive. It's almost as though he had interacted with other humans before.

Most of the food at Sunset Lounge is boring and the fish is inedible, but Stefan's desserts were the best part of the night.

Stefan wins a suite of GE appliance, just like the one's everyone has been complaining about all night.

Padma: "Oh, they weren't working on GE appliance today. We decided to make them suffer and use Kenmore."

That's just evil.

The judges really wanted to send home Leah but her restaurant got slightly higher reviews from the patrons so they have to choose between Carla and Radhika. Radhika is sent away.

For the quickfire challenge, Padma tells the chefs to just make something, she doesn't really care what it is. Two chefs will be picked to be the chef owners of two competing restaurants but they won't have immunity:

Padma: "What's going on? We just finished the elimination challenge and all of a sudden we are back at the quickfire. And what was that weird noise and that blinding white light?"

That Annoying Physicist Guy: "I don't have time to explain it to you. We need to get to some high quality GE appliances right away, before it happens again. It's very complicated and, if I can't explain it to a bunch of other equally annoying physicists, I certainly won't be able to explain it to you."

Padma: "Listen, asshole, I was married to Salman Rushdie and I'm not as dumb as I look. Just tell me what's going on!"

Physicist Guy: "OK, imagine there is a record spinning and the needle is skipping. The record represents the earth, we are the music, and the needle is representing time. No, wait, the record represents time and the needle is supposed to be us. No, that's not right either ..."

Padma: "Oh, for crying out loud, we're moving around in time! Why didn't you just say that? It's not that complicated!"

Next time on Lost/Top Chef:

Ben Linus finally gets the eliminated chefs to go back to the kitchen. Because the kitchen wants them to come back and what the kitchen wants the kitchen gets.