Top Chef New York Reunion Special: It's time to move on with our lives!

I know Top Chef tries really hard not to be a carbon copy of Project Runway but there is something nice about having the reunion show prior to the finale. Obviously, you can't reminisce about the finale in that case because it hasn't happened yet but there is a whole season to talk about and several months have passed since the taping of the regular season has ended. Most importantly, people still give a shit.

But Top Chef just has to be different and give us the reunion after all the excitement of the season has already disappeared. I've moved on with my life, Bravo! It's taking all my energy to care about a group of people who will never in a million years be made into supermodels!

Obviously I'm going to watch the show. But I'm going to be bitter the entire time. Here we go:

Andy Cohen: "Hi! I'm Andy Cohen!"

Oh, god help us.

Andy: "Tonight we'll find out who's not in a relationship, who got drunk, and we'll have an exclusive interview with that woman who had the octuplets!"

Please don't.

Andy: "Say hello to the judges and congratulate Hosea!"

Hi, judges. Congratulations, Hosea.

We start with the obligatory Bravo bromance. This season it was between Fabio and Stefan:

Viewer from Pasadena: "So are you guys gay or just European? We are so confused."

Stefan gets a special shirt that reads "I'm not gay but my Bravo t-shirt is"

We learn about the birthday curse.

We have the obligatory Bravo clips of someone talking too much. This season it was Jeff. I have to admit I loved it when Padma sighed with exhaustion while looking at one of Jeff's dishes.

We learn that Tom saved a woman's life:

Woman: "My life had no meaning until I ate at Craft and I discovered how good food could taste. He truly saved my life!"

Tom: "Oh, stop. You're embarrassing me."

Richard: "That is so hot."

We have a question for Gail:

Viewer: "Are those real?"

That was so inappropriate. Instead of answering that question, Gail will talk about Toby:

Gail: "He really isn't as big a bitch as everyone thinks."

I'm sure she's right. He actually didn't come across that badly. In the first few episodes he was in I got sick of his canned quips. But then he settled into just being mildly annoying and I started to enjoy the fact that he always disagreed with Tom. As you could tell from reading my recaps, I was always waiting for Tom to lose his temper throw a punch. But Tom is just a big teddy bear:

Richard: "That's so hot."

Yeah, we know.

Tom gives the chefs advise about criticism:

Tom: "Having your restaurant reviewed by a food critic is much harder than being judged on Top Chef."

Toby: "How would you know? You've never been a contestant on Top Chef."

Tom: "Shut up, Toby!"

Time for another question from a viewer:

Lupe: "Ariane made simple food. Is making simple food the way to win Top Chef?"

Tom: "Ariane didn't win, Lupe, you dumbass."

And then we get to the relationship between Hosea and Leah, popularly known as Hoseleah. We start with clips of them discussing their doomed relationships back at home:

Hosea: "I don't want my girlfriend to leave me."

Too bad.

Leah: "I don't want my boyfriend to leave me just because I kissed a guy one time."

ONE guy? ONE time?

Leah: "You're right. Who am I kidding?"

Andy: "OK, so are you guys married yet or what?"

Hoseleah: "We live in separate cities."

Andy: "So what you're saying is that if you lived in the same city you would get married."

Hoseleah: "Um . . . I don't think we said that."

Andy: "I'm going to take that as a yes. Tom is prepared to give Hosea a job in New York and we have an Elvis impersonator/minister standing by so congratulations!"

Hoseleah: "We're not getting married."

Andy: "But it's obviously what America wants. Don't be so selfish!"

We see scenes of Glad wrap volleyball and Leah and Jamie getting drunk.

We see clips demonstrating that Stefan likes women and then some viewer wasn't paying attention and missed the nicknames this season so we see clips about that.

Then Gail tells us that Daniel Boulud catered her wedding, which is pretty cool:

Andy: "And here's the most boring picture we could find from the wedding."

Awwww.

Then we see clips of Jamie saying things like "This chicken is pecking at my shoes" to prove that she's a big complainer:

Carla: "I think it's defense mechanism. She's obviously afraid people might think she doesn't complain enough so she makes up for that by complaining a lot."

Jeff tells us he was misquoted in People magazine:

Jeff: "I didn't say Tom's food was boring. I said he was a talentless jerk. I feel really terrible that they got that wrong."

Tom: "It's OK. People who buy People magazine can't read anyway."

We see clips about all the bald heads this season. But technically, Eugene and Patrick are not bald. And I have to say the Bravo special-effects department really went above and beyond with those photos with superimposed hairdos.

Fabio wins fan favorite. Congratulations, Fabio! Fabio and Carla were definitely my favorites, although I would not have been surprised at all if Stefan had won; he was one of the most entertaining chefs this season.

And that's it. Bravo viewers get a well-deserved break! I'll have to find something else to blog about for a while, since we have no idea when Project Runway will be on. I'm not blogging the supermodels. But maybe Top Design or Shear Genius will be back someday soon. Thanks, again, for reading!