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Pompous Mike goes next and Natalie slams him for having no protein on his plate.

"My idea was to cook the leek and make it look like a scallop," he says.

"But you understand that a leek still has no protein in it?" Gail asks. Wow, go Gail.

Pompous Mike cedes the point that his dish had no protein but says that he felt like his other ingredients were cooked well, like his turnips and his carrots.

"The carrots...were okay," says Tom, pausing to imply that the carrots were anything but okay.

The chefs head back into the Stew Room and I'm quickly trying to rationalize every reason why Jennifer should not go home. Sure, her dish looked like a "garnish," but at least it tasted good. Pompous Mike's dish had many flavoring and cooking errors. Would you rather have something small cooked well or something big cooked badly? HRMMMM????

I just hope that the judges agree with me.

The cheftestants are called back out and Tom delivers the final remarks. Robin couldn't bring her dish together in a way that everything made sense. Pompous Mike suffered from errors of execution. Jennifer's performance over the past episodes have really fallen and her dish looked like she had taken a garnish and served it as a main course.

And Pompous Mike goes home. He displays great equanimity despite being sent home, shaking hands with the judges. He then gives Jennifer a big hug and she seems to cling to him in total terror or relief or grief or a combination of all those things. Gail notices and gives a pointed look to the other judges as if to say, "Wow, Jennifer is really at the end of her rope."

So here we are, two episodes away from the final. We have three rock-solid chefs (Kevin, Michael and Bryan), we have one on the rise (Eli), we have one falling apart (Jennifer), and one who is still inexplicably in the competition (Robin). I would like nothing more than to see Eli and Robin go home in the next two episodes – they are the chefs that deserve the least to be in the final. But with the way Jennifer is cooking, who knows. I just hope that she takes yesterday's Elimination Challenge as a wake-up call.

LEADERS AFTER 10 EPISODES:
Kevin: Six times in the top of the Elimination Challenge, four Elimination Challenge wins, three Quickfire Wins
Bryan: Six times in the top of the Elimination Challenge, three Elimination Challenge wins
Michael: Eight times in the top of the Elimination Challenge, two Elimination Challenge wins, one Quickfire Win
Jennifer: Five times in the top of the Elimination Challenge, one Elimination Challenge win, two Quickfire Wins

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