Go, Leah, just go.

Finally, the mediocre chef and even more mediocre floozy is gone. A friend — my Middle East Guy, in fact — sent me this the other day in response to an earlier post.

Jonah,
You mentioned the inexplicable persistence of Leah in the Top Chef ranks. My theory is this: because they clearly casted for identity purposes (Euros! Gays!) rather than interesting individuals, they ended up with a cast of stiffs who aren’t all that interesting. Some of them are nice, or amusing, but overall, eh. So their attempts at ginning up reality-show-style drama have been incredibly lame. E.g., Stefan is the evil Euro villain! (Except for his Commie-art t-shirts, he’s not even close to the most obnoxious person on the show.) Team Rainbow! Europeans vs. Americans! Wheeze.
Anyway, here’s my read on the last few in light of the “producers make some decisions” disclaimer in the credits:
Restaurant Wars
Leah saves her ass by making out with Hosea and therefore makes herself dramatically interesting. Will the other people’s distaste for their cheating on their sig-others unite them against them? Because in my reading, her team clearly lost the restaurant challenge. The only things that were good were Stefan’s dessert and Fabio’s charm. In other words, all the main courses sucked—and hers was a total failure. While Radhika, who got booted, deserved to lose, too, Leah’s failures were more egregious (and she screwed up her own dish to boot), so the most obvious explanation is that she got kept because she and Hosea looked like they might fill the villain role that Stefan didn’t seem to be fitting.
Football Challenge
The bottom three—Stefan, Jeff, and Fabio—are all good chefs. Two of them provide desperately needed personality, so despite the fact that the commentary seems to indicate Stefan’s is the worst dish, it’s bye-bye Introverted Jeff.
Le Bernandin
The bottom three are Jamie, Hosea, and Leah. Jamie’s probably the best overall of this group, but she’s the least interesting. Leah continues to provide some faint hope of drama with Hosea, so despite the fact that Jamie’s braised celery is oversalted while her fish is perfect—whereas Hosea, a fish guy, messed up the monkfish and Leah’s fish sucked and she’s clearly in over her head—she’s done. If only she had made out with Leah, she’d still be around.
[Name withheld]
(Rooting, probably vainly, for D.C. homegirl Carla, though I like the Euro guys fine.)