The cheftestants must make a dish suitable for demonstrating to a live television audience in two and a half minutes. It's not clear whether this has to be made in those two and a half minutes, or whether they can prep, and Melissa later worries about this exact point. Most go for the prepping ahead of time, although Ariane decides on a simple salad and Alex decides to go "out of the box" and make a rose-water creme brulee. I hated Ariane's idea -- I can't get into watermelon as a savory dish -- and loved Alex's. Rose-water creme brulee? Mmmm.

Listening to him talk about how he's taking a chance is like listening to that song that used to run on "Sesame Street." "One of these things is not like the others ... one of these people is doing his own thing ... " But ominous. Set to ominous music. Hahaha, so true. At this point, creme brulee is as "out of the box" as tapas.

The cheftestants do the whole Whole Foods thing, except for the part where Eugene, Jeff and Fabio insist on cutting their own fish behind the counter. What kind of weird Alpha Male crap was that?

The chefs are making a variety of dishes. Carla says the first thing that came to her was a tortilla soup (really? Why?), Eugene is doing sushi, Daniel is marinating a skirt steak, and Ariane starts chopping up a giant watermelon for her salad.

I actually thought tortilla soup was a good choice -- sounds different without being too out there. Like Eugene's sushi. How many people are going to want to make their own sushi and, as Erin points out, have access to sushi-grade fish? Daniel's skirt steak was genius -- quick to fix, accessible, tasty, hard to mess up.

Soon enough, the chefs are put in front of a set and are surrounded by the judges as they explain their dishes to the camera. But! Foreshadowing! This is not the real challenge! Mostly Tom just looks amused to be part of this.

Ariane does surprisingly well (Maryann, I see you rolling your eyes), and there are a lot of flub-ups despite many of the chefs' bragging that they've already done this on live TV (Jamie, I'm looking at you). Daniel seems to think he's camera-friendly, and mugs like crazy during his set, while smoking out the whole room while cooking.

I don't roll my eyes at Ariane doing well -- I love underdogs -- I just hate that she doesn't have ANY confidence in herself. Grow some ovaries, woman! As for Long Island (aka Daniel), he was just too. much. He was like a mini Emeril on camera, which isn't a good thing.

Jamie's egg never sets for her frisee salad, and the judges have to swallow it raw. (When I saw Rocco eat the egg, I was impressed. He's brave.) Eugene can't answer the difference between sushi and sashimi, and Tom practically spits out Melissa's shrimp dish because it's too spicy. 

Before his segment is shown, we cut to Alex saying, ""I have problems speaking to people in public; I'm a chef, not a public servant. Or whatever." (My favorite quote of the show! Hee!) Not surprisingly, his creme brulee does not go over well. Turns out it's not set -- an hour wasn't enough time to make, bake and set the brulee, even on the best of days. Big surprise there.

The judges briefly confer, then pick out a bottom three -- Alex, Jamie and Melissa -- and a top three -- Jeff, Fabio and Ariane. Padma tells them it's late and they'll do final judges table tomorrow (a-ha! So that's how it works!), and they slink home. Jamie cries herself to sleep, while Melissa gets a pep talk on how to boot Alex off the show. He's getting married in less than three weeks, and it's all he can talk about. Bad Sign No. 3.

In the middle of the night, Tom steals into the cheftestants' rooms and brings the top three to the kitchen. They're going to create their dishes for the Today show, and the winner will be chosen live. (I'm going to jump ahead here to make clear in retrospect what was not at that moment: the live show never airs, as far as we know, though we do see the hosts eating and discussing the food. Instead, the winner will have a guest appearance on this morning's "Today.") (Update with correction: The footage of the hosts tasting the food did indeed air, a while ago, I'm told by commenter Lisa.)

Ariane is excited and thinks she has a good chance because she watches the show all the time, which makes perfect sense, if you're Ariane. Jeff is, in his words, "pissed." "I'm going to be serving a Middle Eastern roll to a bunch of ladies with unsophisticated palates at 6:37 a.m." I'm really not sure what his problem is, especially since the cameras showed us approximately 201 shots of Jeff leisurely doing yoga in his bed after Tom woke him up. He ought to be refreshed.

The biggest drama during the tasting -- which all the other cheftestants are forced to watch in their apartment -- is that Kathie Lee spits out Jeff's shrimp cabbage roll. So would I! That sounds terrible. (I don't eat seafood. Or cabbage.) Honestly, though, the only chef who really seems to have understood how her food was going to play on television and with these judges was Ariane, whose Jersey tomato/feta/watermelon salad was simple enough to be easy but interesting enough to make her the winner.

I was most excited about Jeff's. I'm not a huge fan of tuna, and we already know my aversion to watermelon as a savory food. I think that his dish was the most inventive in the top three.

Yes, Ariane's the winner, and she's beside herself. At the judges table, convened shortly after the Today stuff is over and done with it, she wins a bag of chef tools from Rocco and is told about her gig this morning. Pretty good prize, I think.

The episode has been mostly uninteresting until this point, when I realize we still have 10 or so minutes left, and I'd forgotten all about the elimination. Oh, yeah! The fun part!

The Elimination

Melissa, Jamie and Alex stand before the judges with their heads hanging, after another whole day of thinking about what they did wrong. Alex is happy to own up to the fact that he made a poor choice, but Jamie defends her defensiveness over her uncooked egg, and Melissa offers a really impassioned defense that's unfortunately mostly nonsensical. She should be there because she wants to be there, and she still doesn't think her dish was too spicy. Tom has news for her, that seems to go in one ear and out the other.

When Melissa said she wanted to be here more than any of the other chefs there, Tom said it sounded as if she knew of someone who didn't want to be there. Such an instigator!

After their original lashing, Melissa continues the backtalk backstage, throwing Alex "under the bus," as he puts it. She seems like she was talked into defending herself offensively, and there's nothing she can do at this point.

I really don't understand this, just like the other bit of backroom drama between Long Island and Jamie last week. It seems out of context and not really from anything. Melissa had the chance to throw Alex under the bus by saying he didn't want to be there, but she didn't. A fuss over nothing!

That catty little episode ends, and we're not surprised to learn Alex is leaving. There's no heartfelt note this time (that we know of) or crying (that we saw); he just heads for the door and calls it a day. As am I.

I was completely disappointed by this episode, just full of more product hawking -- Rocco's book is a crappy Quickfire prize, folks -- boring dishes and, as MrsJudge pointed out last week, confusing drama. I'm also surprised they had the chef personality test so early on in the competition. I, too, will head to bed. But I will be dreaming of a better episode for next week.