I really can't wait to get down to the wire. These contestants are dragging a little bit. I long for stars like Hung and Richard Blais to make it exciting. Stefan and Eugene seem like the ones to watch, but I can't invest in anyone yet whereas in past seasons I had my absolute favorites early. Where the contestants lack a little bit, the tasks are a little bit of a kamikaze mission to mix it up. As for me recapping it, I'll try to just comment without making it so structured. This is my personality -- I'm a writer, I'm structured, and unless I follow the show, I don't know what the hell happened.

I love that the Quickfire moved from the Top Chef Cookbook to a soup. It seemed boring to simply recreate past recipes. This seemed brutal since soup with large pieces of fish sounds vile and difficult to me. Low and behold, many prevailed. Grant Achatz was the guest chef. He's a superstar, and might I add, he is totally adorable.

Jamie rocked that corn soup before so this was going to be a breeze for her. She's got the goods, but I can't get as excited as her as I did about Stephanie from last season. Richard's demise began here when he was too late in getting his acid into his Mexican soup. When people are on the chopping block, I look at several of their past mistakes to try to see who really hasn't performed overall. Daniel's ham and egg soup looked thick and hearty and delicious. Strong Island holding strong. Ariane looked like it wasn't going down the right road with her overcooked lamb. Leah started to shine with her underdog white asparagus soup and I was even surprised to see that she won.