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Both women decide to do some version of scrambled eggs with Latin flavors. Giselle serves soft scrambled eggs with Latin salsa. Angelina has a spicy tomato jam with ostrich egg scramble. Dana offers the following judgment. Giselle focused too much on plating, with too many pepitas in her dish. Meanwhile, Angelina absolutely overwhelmed the flavors of her ostrich egg. To no one’s surprise, Angelina (who’s quickly proving herself to be out of her league in this show) is on the bottom and Giselle remains in the competition.

On to the Elimination Challenge. Given that Santa Barbara is known for its glorious seafood and wonderful proteins, the chefs will be paired up to make a single surf and turf dish. Grayson, with her immunity, is designated a team of one. Angelina and Giselle, fresh off their (mostly) losing efforts, cannot find a teammate and are stuck with each other. Dangling in front of the chefs is the prospect of getting their own barrel of wine and their own label, which of course, is the victor’s reward.

Inside the barn are little signs with the names of proteins (lamb, chicken, rib eye, etc.) and seafood (prawn, scallops, cod, etc.). The chefs bum rush the barn and start grabbing at signs frantically. It’s like Black Friday at Walmart. With the surf and turf ingredients decided, the pairs start figuring out their dishes. There’s passive aggressiveness (Angelina and Giselle are brimming with tension), shotgun marriages (Jason’s Italian roots do not mesh well with Frances’s Asian flavors), and happy marriages (Marjorie and Karen are besties).

After a quick stop at Whole Foods, the chefs head to the kitchen to start cooking. As they marvel at the size of the kitchen, Tom walks in. Twist time. It’s not going to be surf and turf . . . instead, the cheftestants will be doing surf vs. turf. Instead of a single dish with teams competing against each other, the chefs in each pair will be working individually to make either a surf and turf dish that will be compared to the dish made by their partner. The losing chef in each pair will be up for elimination. Grayson, as the winner, can do either surf or turf, and may compete against any team of her choosing.

She chooses the team of Wesley and Amar. “Maybe I can bust that shit up,” she says. They do not respond. “Boom boom!” she says.

No one thinks you can bust that shit up, Grayson.

The trio is the first group up to serve. They find ten individuals sitting around a big table, including Dana Cowin, Tom, Iron Chef Cat Cora, and Richard Blais. Amar has olive oil-poached halibut and eggless béarnaise. Tom likes the sauce but finds the fish overcooked. Cat says that it lacks complexity.

Wesley has sous vide rib eye with stenciled design made of asparagus puree. Tom criticizes the stencil, saying it looks like splatter. Richard hates the rib eye, saying the sous vide went “horribly wrong.”

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