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Casey is confident that she can tie things up, feeling that Silva simply has too many components in his dish. She presents a seared scallop that looks for all intents and purposes like a scallop with a sweet corn sauce. Silva has a spice rubbed-halibut with radish on his side. The diners adore Casey's dish but the judges uniformly disagree. Tom likes the lightness and flavor of Silva's dish, Richard has no hesitation in agreeing, and Chris as well. Casey looks absolutely stunned.

Next up is Amanda versus Shirley, and Amanda feels like all the pressure is on her, as the green team must sweep the next three dishes in order to win. Her roasted black cod with black radish puree must defeat Shirley's beef braised daikon with misshapen pasta. The voters overwhelmingly pick Amanda's dish, but the first two judges (Richard and Chris) go with Shirley based on how well she paired the daikon with beef broth. Padma goes with Amanda, tying things up. With Tom left as the tiebreaker, he goes with Amanda, noting that Shirley's dish was a bit heavy and that some of her pasta stuck together - a technical mistake that keeps the green team alive.

To keep things going, John has a radish “ramen” for the green team, while Sheldon has an adobo radish with radish porridge. The Diners go with John's ramen and Richard does as well. Chris adores Sheldon's porridge, though, and goes with Sheldon, and Tom does as well, noting that Sheldon did a better job of bringing the radish flavors to the forefront. With Padma as the tiebreaker, she goes with John's ramen, leaving dessert as the deciding dish.

As they did during the prep period, the green team is very vocal in how delicious Silvia's yogurt cake is, with Sam predicting that it'll bring Padma to tears. It'll have to beat, though, Brooke's purple daikon panna cotta with sour pineapple curd. The diners by a four-to-one margin go with Brooke and every judge does as well. The blue team prevails.

But not by much. Back at Judges' Table, the judges are quick to point out that every dish that was served during the Elimination Challenge was delicious. Padma declares it the best meal she's ever had on Top Chef and Tom seconds that, noting that each dish was delicious and demonstrated great work. On the winning team, though, two dishes really stood out. Silva's halibut dish was elegant and refined, while Brooke's dessert is described as “transformative.” Tom notes that last season, Mei Lin cooked what he judge to have been the best dessert ever on the history of the show, and that Brooke's dessert in this challenge “rivals” that one. With this said, of course Brooke is declared the winner of this Elimination Challenge. Hopefully she can start calming some of her nerves now. She's such a self-doubter sometimes.

As for the green team, four chefs are up for elimination. Tom notes that Silvia's yogurt cake wasn't bad, it just “ran into Brooke's freak show with a delicious dessert,” and declares that there's not much he would have changed about the dish. Chris says that the outside was perfectly crumbly and he would love to have another serving. As for Casey's radish scallop, Padma thought it was beautiful and really looked like a scallop.

As this point, the praise is so profuse that it starts to sound like the judges are complimenting the winning chefs in this challenge. That changes slightly with Sam and BJ. Sam erred, Tom says, in picking brioche as the bread in his banh mi. BJ, for his part, lacked textural variety, with everything being very soft. Tom adds that his radish flavor was as pronounced as in the other, more successful dishes.

As the judges wrestle with their decision (“how on earth do you send someone home in this challenge?” Padma wonders), two things become clear. BJ's dish, though good, was a bit one-note in terms of texture and flavor, while Sam's flavors were too muted for something that was supposed to have been a banh mi. “A failure in marketing,” Richard notes.

And that failure is enough to get Sam sent home. Tom assures him that he's going home for making a “great dish” and not because he didn't give it his all. But that's cold comfort. In a challenge where everyone made fantastic food, he draws the short end of the stick. Padma apologizes that Sam is leaving so early, and Tom comments, “this sucks.” But that's “just part of life,” as Sam notes.

That's true. Sometimes, that's just life on Top Chef.

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