Time to play catch-up. I know, I know, I’m falling down on the blogging job, but I’ve had things to do, people to meet, sale racks to troll and beers to nurse.

Last I recapped, we had just said goodbye to Sandee. Her lobster was poached, so her goose was cooked (hey-o!). In her wake, she left the Top Chef apartments with one less mohawk and one less gay. So sad. I love lesbians. Sometimes, I think I’d make a better lesbian than a gay man, but that might just be because I like folk music and staying home.

Since then, though, Micah was summarily dismissed for her “lack of imagination” in reinventing meatloaf, in addition to insinuating that all Americans love ketchup with everything.

But back in the semi-recent past…

Iris in.

C.J. brushes his teeth and does us the favor of not wearing a shirt. Thanks Ceej. Rowr. Lia interviews that she may be young, but she’s determined enough to make it to the top. No less determined is Howie, who is riding high off his pork chop victory.

C.J. leads the group in a “go team!” cheer before they go to the Quickfire Challenge. Once in the kitchen, they meet a British dude described as a mixologist. Apparently, this is actually a thing. Sommelier is to wine as mixologists are to cocktails (remember that one for the GREs, folks). The challenge is to make a dish that compliments the cocktail. They draw knives to select their respective cocktails. Ready, go.

Casey’s selection immediately piques my interest when she announces that she’s going to make french toast with her strawberry balsamic rickey. Not only french toast, but it also involves a pecan crust. There are few words that are more melodious to my ears than “pecan crust,” besides maybe “sale at Express Men’s” or “free bagels in the main conference room.”

To the surprise of no one, Hung starts acting a fool by saying that hard alcohol isn’t refined and isn’t elegant and, therefore, doesn’t mesh with his very refined and very elegant cooking style. He makes me tired.

Despite this, he makes a sour cream/salmon concotion to go with his cocktail, stating that sweetness always goes with creaminess. Does it, though?

British judge goes around and does his thing. He comments to C.J., “You’re very tall” and C.J. thanks him for noticing. At once I feel sympathy for C.J., because you can only imagine how many comments he gets on a daily basis. I know nothing about this on a first-hand basis (as I’m still holding out hope to surpass the 5′9 barrier one day), but still. Despite C.J.’s stature, the judge isn’t quite as impressed with the dish.

In the end, Hung ends up in the bottom three and, upon learning the news, asks the judge if he is actually deigning to say that sweetness doesn’t go with creaminess. To which he isn’t really answered. To which he interviews that he “called out” the judge.

Again, he makes me tired.

So, although the judge liked Tre and Dale’s dishes, Casey walks away with the victory.

Commercial: They’re advertising that show Flipping Out (like Work Out and Blow Out… get it?). From what I can gather, it’s about a gay, abusive android who remodels houses. Eh. I’m out.

The chefs are divided in teams of three with the instructions to make trios of the same ingredient. They are informed that a fine dining group with “refined palates” will do the judging. Brian has everyone draw names out of a hat, but the groups don’t take. For some reason, people are eager to switch into Casey’s group even though her immunity will pose a threat to them.

There’s much bickering about the progression of the meal and Dale ends up declaring that he wants in on the dessert course, claiming (in fake Yiddish) “I could futz a good dessert.” Immediately, a fog of disaster appears over his group.

The groups are: Team Beef — Cj, Tre, Sara N.; Team Pineapple — Camille, Dale, Sara; Team Tuna — Joey, Casey, Howie; Team Scallop — Hung, Brian, Lia.Back at the apartments, negotiations are underway and Team Tuna is already in disarray. Casey is the odd woman out, manwiched between Howie and Joey who seem rather quick to blame her for being lazy because of her immunity. Eventually, they sort of settle on a plan.

The editors insert a transitional shot of Camille slipping into the hot tub in a bikini for no real reason (but why shouldn’t they?).

Shopping day: Team Scallop finds out that the scallops at the store are frozen solid, thereby inspiring them to change they’re team name/logo/t-shirt/matching wristbands to Team Shrimp.

Back in the kitchen: Dale takes credit for switching the team to a pineapple-themed trio — a move he will learn to rue. Sara M. is having gelatin disasters. Furthermore, while he says he “loves Camille to pieces,” her pineapple upside-down cake is just not working out.

Tome comes around to judge them through shady “is that really what you want to do?” glances. Team Shrimp is working well together while Team Beef has a nice flow to their trio. Tom obviously has reservations about Team Pineapple but doesn’t say anything. Furthermore, when he has an uneventful talk with Team Tuna, Joey remarks that Tom likes to get under his skin. That’s not really the case, as it seems that Joey is constantly finding external sources to justify his rage.

Flash forward to the dinner. The elite dining club gathers. They don’t have golden tongues or pickle spears for fingers or anything else that would make them seem special. Well, aside from the fact that they HAVE GIVEN THEMSELVES MEDALS FOR NOTHING. It’s completely weird. In addition, one of the diners is Chip, one of the winners from The Amazing Race. Gay Chip, not Black Chip. No one mentions it, and it makes me feel like I’m going crazy.

Hung says he’s really happy to serve “elite people.” Fart, fart, fart.

Team Shrimp serves and Padma exclaims “this is good!” No one has anything bad to say except that Brian’s is a bit salty. Team Tuna presents, even though Casey appears to be hiding in the spice closet. The reception is less enthusiastic and Tom says Casey’s dish must’ve looked good on paper, but didn’t deliver. Team Beef presents to a reasonably good reception, despite someone snottily saying that Sara N.’s dish could be found at Denny’s.

Meanwhile, Camille is curled up on the counter stirring a giant mixing bowl in a Chef Boy-ar-panic. Joey says the dessert course looks like the circus — presumably with fewer elephant turds and scary-ass clowns. The team presents and adjectives like “hideous” and “dreadful” are used. People get their feathers extremely ruffled and it kind of irks me. The judges on Top Chef, like Project Runway in fact, have a tendency to criticize things like they are being personally insulted by faults in the projects. I don’t know, maybe judging (like blogging) is one of those vocations where it behooves you to be ornery.

Judges table: Padmas says it was interesting; Tom is surprisingly positive; Ted says no one forced Team Pineapple to make a dessert and seems perplexed at the decision.

Padma calls in team shrimp because they obviously won. There’s praise all around and Lia wins. More than anything, Lia is happy about getting Tom’s approval.

For winning, Lia also earns the responsibility of calling in Team Tuna and Team Pineapple. There’s a lot of the usual back-and-forth, but the discussion boils down to this:

• the judges think Casey’s dish was awful, but she has immunity
• Joey and Howie’s dishes were “meh,” but they’re being blamed for not keeping Casey in check
• the judges are weirdly critical of Team Pineapple’s risk-taking, which, up until now, seemed to be a virtue
• Tom takes Sara M.’s gelatin problems as a personal affront

Casey feels like shit and kind of breaks down in the kitchen while the decision is being made. She had apologized to the judges, saying that she doesn’t think Howie or Joey should have to go home because of her. That said, she also doesn’t give up immunity. Not that she should.

But it’s quiet, hot Camille who gets the axe in the end for having a lackluster dish and not really doing anything noticeable. She gives a heartfelt speech to her colleagues, C.J. picks her up, there are teary hugs and she leaves.

Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County becomes Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County.

So, wait, which is real? Guys? Anyone??

Also, The Hills previews have already sucked me in. Looking forward to recaping the first half of the season feverishly and then pretending the show fell off the face of the earth, as I’ve done for the last two.

It is purely a coincidence that the first entry into this new segment, Has Everyone Gone Mad?, also has the word “mad” in the title. This segment is dedicated to bucking conventional wisdom and delivering the hard truth about television trends. Or at least questioning some widely-held critical judgment and offering a small, shaded distinction of opinion. (I’m trying to make that not sound like “complaining.”)

Drinking at the office: Yet another way that Times Have Changed.

Mad Men is a show that thinks it’s bucking conventional wisdom and delivering truly edgy period drama (ad execs in the 50s! cigarettes! busty dames!), and many critics seem to be under this delusion, as well. But for some reason, everyone is blinded to an obvious truth: Mad Men is terrible. It’s full of “oh ho ho, look how backwards people were in the past!” moments, obvious sexual dalliances, and very little actual drama to speak of. And yet, Heather Havrilesky and Scott Tobias, normally paragons of taste and judgment, both recently praised it. Lavishly.

What the hell? Has everyone gone mad?

This is show where a character tells his rival he knows the rival stole something from his wastebasket, because “there’s no magical device that can make instantaneous copies” (paraphrase). Hardeehar. They don’t have Xerox. Those ignorant fools!

The thing is, as M.T. Anderson said far more eloquently in a speech I was lucky to hear recently, period drama often falls into this trap. It’s the trap of thinking we’re smarter than people from long ago, just because they smoked while pregnant or were sexist jerks. Isn’t it fun, to look back at those poor saps and laugh at all their mistakes? Aren’t we clever, knowing so much more than them?

I don’t know about you, but taking down easy targets like misguided historical people makes me feel icky. Everything that happened on Mad Men was so obviously Informed By the Characters’ Ignorance, it was impossible to feel for the characters as human beings. Compare this to an awesome show like Deadwood, that treats its uneducated, rough-and-tumble, fairly provincial group of whores, profiteers, and honest folks as multi-dimensional people capable of true insight. Just because they know nothing about Xerox machines and the internet doesn’t mean they don’t have compelling problems of their own.

It felt like every problem on Mad Men was only there because they didn’t have Xerox machines and the internet (and a little bit of gender equality and accurate health stats on cigarettes). That’s not drama. How are they supposed to know that they’re lacking those things? They know nothing about them! It’s just pointing out how things have changed; it’s not actually getting into the nitty-gritty of a time and place to see how things are actually the same. People are people. There should be something we can relate to, and not just sneer at.

I suspect that these critics are giving Mad Men a pass because the writer had something to do with the Sopranos at one point. I can’t understand why else they’re praising it, unless the whole world really has gone mad.