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For the third time in a row, the Orange Team can’t keep pace. Giselle and Amar have a spice-rubbed New York strip steak with bacon and potato salad. Jose doesn’t find that the two elements come together to form a cohesive, enjoyable dish. Tom wishes that the flavors from the marinade came through more strongly, saying that all the flavor derives from the salsa verde.

The teams finish up with dessert, and both chefs (Phillip for Blue and Isaac for Orange) are struggling with the wind. Neither chef can keep his respective burners lit or his bowls on the plate. Isaac goes first and offers up a grapefruit sabayon with tequila whipped cream and lemon almond crumble. Jose and Tom both enjoy the dish but wish there was more grapefruit flavor, and Richard adores the texture of the dish.

Meanwhile, Phillip is the first chef on the Blue Team to come up short against his Orange team counterpart. He’s doing his take on a recipe from his wife, with coconut pudding with strawberries, basil, and a rum-lime foam. Jose questions whether the coconut and strawberry work together, while Richard and Tom both question the lack of texture in the dish.

In my mind, the Blue Team has clearly won the day, despite the slip up from Hipster Phillip, and Padma confirms it. Tom compliments the chefs for putting out some really good food, noting that a few dishes were spectacular, before Padma announces the Blue Team as the winning group. One dish within that group, she continues, stood out above the rest: Jeremy and Karen’s ceviche. Tom loved the clean and fresh flavors, while Richard loved the presentation of the dish. As for the individual win, it goes to Jeremy for the somewhat arbitrary decision (it seems to me) to serve the dish atop bowls of ice.

This instantly sends Jeremy to the top of our yet-unpublished Power Rankings, with two Elimination Challenge wins out of four episodes so far. He’s definitely someone to watch.

Meanwhile, Tom consoles the Orange Team, saying that they didn’t serve up a bad meal, they were just “out-classed a little bit” by the Blue Team. Padma notes that they were all solid dishes, except for one, which was “clearly inferior”: Grayson and Angelina’s shrimp.

Grayson is somehow perplexed. “I really liked the dish, I’m trying to think of why [you didn’t like it],” she says. Tom notes that the dish incorporated fatty avocado, fatty chorizo, and not enough lime to cut through all of that. Grayson defends her decision to leave the corn the way it was, not incorporating any raw corn. On the other side of the dish, Tom criticizes Angelina’s cooking of the shrimp as over-marinated and “kind of rubbery.”

With errors on both sides, Tom says that one ingredient set the dish apart from those served by the rest of the team, and that one ingredient will govern the judges’ decision. That ingredient is corn, and thus results in Grayson going home (and Angelina dodging a bullet for four episodes out of four. She should audition for a Wachowski movie.).

But not without a fight. “We both got the corn,” she protests as she shakes the judges’ hands, “we both decided to put it in.”

“You cooked it,” Tom responds.

“Fuck that shit,” Grayson mutters as she walks out of the room.

In her departing monologue, she says she’s “furious” that the “judges completely blamed [her] for the dish.” She asserts, though, that she’s “fine” with taking the fall - using a tone that makes it clear how not “fine” she is with it. This is not “Angelina’s first rodeo, I’ve been on this earth longer than her and I’ve been in kitchens longer than her, so the fact that the judges chose me to go home when they damn well know I’m a very seasoned chef, it boggles my mind.”

“One little kernel of corn,” Grayson acknowledges, “can send you home.” That’s true, and I’m sorry she feels cheated by the judges’ decision. But I certainly won’t miss her whining and complaining. Have a nice trip back home, Grayson.

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