Last night, my girlfriend's friends from Chicago were in town so, being the amazing hosts we are, instead of taking them out to someplace they would never forget ... like maybe the Getty Museum for wine and cheese at sunset ... we dragged them to the crappy Thai place at the corner and then back to our place to watch, of all things, America's Next Top Model. Except it was some kind of ridiculous highlights episode, and highlight episodes are, I think, just about as interesting as a director's commentary to a McG movie. With a little coaxing, we got our friends to stick around to watch Lucio Fulci's overlooked zombie masterpiece ... aptly titled, Zombie! ... and then this season's most exciting episode of Top Chef yet. The fighting in the kitchen still wasn't as cool as a zombie fighting a shark (I'm not joking; rent Zombie!), but the cheftestants were finally ready to add some excitement to their reality competition by all but throwing down. Seriously, I thought Dale and Jennifer were going to start sawing heads off with bread knives.

Things kicked off with the obligatory Quickfire Challenge, but, unlike past weeks where cheftestants were challenged to wow judges with 30-minute culinary creations, they were instead asked, per Top Chef tradition, to test their palates by discerning, or at least trying to discern, between low- and high-end food products. Turns out, not only are most of our cheftestants poorly trained in kitchen classics as well as classical technique, they've also got totally shitty taste buds. In a blind taste test, Stephanie scored the lowest with an inexplicable 6 out of 15 right, while Antonia bought herself immunity by nailing 12 out of 15.

Antonia carried that immunity into the challenge, where cheftestants were broken down into four teams -- Earth, Air, Fire, Water -- to create the first course of the Meals on Wheels Celebrity Chef Ball. As their team names suggest, they were charged with serving dishes inspired by their element. Not nearly as exciting as last week's movies-inspired challenge, but the cheftestants came into this with the realization that, if they wanted to win, they could no longer sit back and let others in their groups dictate dishes they don't believe in. Lisa, who might be clinically depressed judging by how the producers used Dale to depict her, refused to make a deviled egg, for example; this led to the Fire Team whipping up a kick-ass shrimp, bacon, and chili dish that wowed the judges and even led guest judge Ming Tsai to award her a free trip for two to Italy. Spike, conversely, sat quietly while Antonia ... who, remember, had immunity ... argued against his squash soup; ultimately, their carpaccio dish was ripped apart and the third team member, Zoi, was asked to pack her knives.

Backstage afterwards, with Zoi gone, Spike blamed Antonia for her departure, leading to a shouting match that soon had Zoi's hurting girlfriend, Jennifer, shouting, too. Dale intervened, telling Spike to stand by his dish, which got Lisa, who he's definitely not a fan of, involved. That was all it took. Dale was bleeping every other word, waving his arms about over Lisa, and Jennifer, venting her frustration, kicked a chair across the room. Now that's reality television!

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