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In typical Top Chef fashion, given the enormity of the task, the chefs will be getting a little help: they’ll each have one of the last four eliminated chefs as a sous chef in the kitchen. And Brooke’s big advantage? She gets to assign the sous chefs.

No surprise, she picks Casey, whom she beat in Last Chance Kitchen to get back into the competition. The next question is who Katsuji is assigned to work with. If Brooke wanted to be mean, she could pair him with John, as the two memorably clashed in Restaurant Wars. The other question is who she assigns to work with Emily, this season’s “how on earth did she make it that far in the competition?” chef.

Showing her Lady Macbeth side, Brooke does indeed assign Katsuji to John, leaving Shirley with Sylva and Sheldon with Emily. Katsuji immediately brings up the Restaurant Wars elimination with John, saying that he “hated him for a little while” because he “$@#@$ threw him under the bus.” This is gonna be ugly.

The cheftestants head to the Patron hacienda to do a tequila tasting as preparation for their dishes and margaritas. After that, they head their separate ways to start planning out their meal. Everyone except for John and Katsuji, though, who are still trying to get past their bad blood.

Next stop is Whole Foods Market, errrr, Fresco, a big, brightly lit supermarket where the chefs will have to forage for ingredients. Brooke is forced to rework her dish after not finding the type of high quality tuna she wanted for her ceviche. Katsuji, ever the clutterer, keeps suggesting different ingredients to add to John’s dish. John eventually accedes and allows Katsuji to make a prickly pear relish that will top the dish. Shirley asks Sylva to grab some agave nectar for her marinade, but he ends up grabbing Mexican vanilla instead.

After shopping, it’s surprisingly quiet in the kitchen during the chef’s prep time. Katsuji, mollified by John’s offer of including his relish, works silently on his portion of the dish. Most other sous chefs are assigned either mise en place duties (Emily) or work on the margaritas (Sylva and Casey).

With 45 minutes before service begins, there’s a bit of last minute adjustment-making taking place. Sheldon worries that his octopus is overcooked, Shirley decides to treat Sylva’s shopping mistake as a serendipitous one, putting some of the vanilla in her marinade, and Brooke muses about whether or not her margarita is strong enough. Meanwhile, Katsuji proposes that he and John do a shot and promptly raises his glass to “John’s last day in the Top Chef kitchen.”

Finally, the diners and judges arrive - it’s time to get down to business. Sheldon has a Filipino kinilaw with octopus paired with a guava and coconut margarita. Both seem okay - Richard wants more salt in his dish, Tom finds it too sweet, and the margarita is a bit too tart, though it balances out the food.

Shirley presents charred beef with a salsa molcajete alongside a cucumber and honeydew margarita. Everyone adores her salsa but nobody likes the use of Mexican vanilla. As for her margarita, the cucumber and melon have left it too chunky, leading the judges to opine that Shirley should have strained it before service.

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