Thursday, November 5, 2009

Top Chef Reunion Dinner - Questions

Questions. So many questions. But first. Bonus clip of someone treating Toby Young like he's treated chefs in the short time he's been on the show.

Definitely a warm glow moment.

Here's my biggest question. If the producers of Top Chef are so keen on rehashing their worst moment of the entire Top Chef Conglomerate, then please explain why you don't show the whole video tape in the sequence that it was shot. Because the way it was broadcast is apparently not the way it happened.You see Elia huddled on the floor, after the attack? She has all her hair. Instead of asking Marcel if he feels like a victim, you should have been asking Ilan who decided to manipulate the sequence of events. That would have been interesting, to say the least.

More Questions Next

15 comments:

the dogs' mother said...

Yes, that crossed my mind last night. We ALL know it. They should have just left that out if they weren't going to own up to the manipulation.

Big Shamu said...

EXACTLY! Instead it seemed like an exercise in goading Marcel into some sort of extreme reaction.

Captain Obvious said...

I'm sure you all know what happened that night. They tried to shave Marcel's hair first and then after that failed, Ilan and Elia shaved their heads trying to pretend like they were all going to shave their heads.

Then Bravo edited it to be completely different.

Yep, they should have definitely asked Ilan those questions.

Big Shamu said...

Yes we know, we just hate that they don't come clean. We know they chose to go for the money (not auffing all of them) and going ahead with the final. Pretty chickenshit move if you ask me.

Dani said...

What happened?

Big Shamu said...

OK here's the breakdown for those unfamiliar with ClipperGate. They had finished filming the last epi before the finale episodes. Since they had filmed it in a restaurant, they decided to do judges table the next day. So the chefs, Ilan, Marcel, Elia, Cliff and Sam are plopped back at their apartment. Supposedly all the camera guys are sent off duty. For some reason Ilan (I think) asks for one of the little handheld cameras to shot some footage on their own. He is given one. As broadcast what happens is that Cliff, Ilan, Sam and Elia drink a lot and decided to shave their heads. Someone's personal clippers are produced and Elia and Ilan are shown shaving their heads. Cliff's head is already pretty short so he doesn't shave. Sam refuses to shave his head. They then decide to shave Marcel's head. So they go into the the darkened living room, camera rolling and have Cliff "hold" Marcel while someone else shaves his head. Mind you Cliff is a big guy and well muscled. Marcel is a little stringy guy. So Cliff yanks Marcel off the couch out of a dead sleep. He proceeds to put him into a full nelson while Ilan screams for Sam or Elia to shave his head. Elia yells from another room that she can't. Sam, reclining on a nearby couch just smirks. Cliff and Marcel wrestle on the floor and finally Cliff lets go of him. Ilan can't let it go and continues harrassing Marcel with the camera until he retreats to someplace where Ilan will leave him be. As broadcast, that was the end of the incident. The next day, Tom is called in early by the producers and told of the head shaving and shown the entire footage that Ilan had filmed. Tom thinks all four contestants should be thrown off the show. The producers, unable to work fast enough to recover from 4 immediate auffings says no and decide that since Cliff was the only one who actually physically assaulted Marcel, should bear the brunt of incident. He is thrown off and the other three are given stern talking to's.

Now the picture I've posted shows Elia in the lower right hand corner crouching on the floor with a full head of hair, immediately after the attack happened. Which means the group decided to shave Marcel's head first and only decided to shave their own heads to cover the attack. A scenario that the producers ran with since it fit with their decision to only auff Cliff. I'm guessing they didn't vette the video close enough to see the evidence screwing their timeline. At the time, Chef Tom was posting blog entries at a blog over on the Bravo website and had said that he had wanted all 4 thrown off the show but the producers had overridden him. Subsequently that blog entry disappeared in the resulting furor over the attack on Marcel.

Dani said...

That is seriously messed up!

Big Shamu said...

I would have to agree.

moi said...

I agree: seriously forked up. However, that being said, if anyone could use a good head-shaving it's Marcel. That hair "style"? Lord, it's horrifying.

nejyerf said...

i always thought that marcel looked like the heat miser

He's mister heat miser
He's mister sun
He's mister heat blister
He's mister one hundred and one

Making Space said...

Wow. See, in this day and age, I would think they would know they couldn't really get away with that. People pay attention to this sort of thing, and teh interwebs get the word out.

It sounds rather heinous, actually. The handheld camera and the later head shavings of the attackers makes it seem like a planned attack/videotaping of attack. I'm surprised that no one is pressing any charges for anything. Yuck.

LaDivaCucina said...

Marcel looks like a wolf man to me with that hair.


Marcel is still a defensive prat. Maybe he IS cool when you get to know him but uber-defensive. ick.

still, no one deserves to be man-handled by drunken buffoons. That's horrible.

I'm kind bored with the contestants of this season. The only thing scary or inflammatory about them is their tattoos!! meh.

Big Shamu said...

Sorry MS, it happened a while ago and no, no one pressed charges. And yes videotaping your stupidity seemed to deepen an already stupid act.

I have to say, Season Two was a freaking disaster. I'll take this season over Season Two any day.

Making Space said...

Oy. So ancient history by the time of airing, and everyone equally asshattey, and still better than Season 2.

Is this show about food?

Big Shamu said...

Occasionally it's about food. It's really about clashing personalities.