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Tom has always said that from the beginning of the show. They are supposed to judge solely on what is presented in that challenge. Otherwise you have to many variables.

I agree with you on that. Quite honestly, I think Leah should have gone home and both her and Hosea re guilty for letting Ariane go home when they could have butchered and tied that lamb better than her. It was absurd.

Way to go on the spoiler, Mayo. ;)

Ariane was lame from the get go. I nearly screamed when I saw her beating the lamb with a pot. WTF goes through her head? Ed is right -- chef jail for her! I don't want to touch Hosea's and Leah's antics.

Okay, so perhaps Ariane did not perform her best tonight and clearly did not "honor the protein", but I still was disappointed to see her go. While she actually has won challenges (and proved herself able to cook meat...yeah, yeah, cooking it is not necessarily the same as the butchering and tying beforehand) Leah is sitting back out of notice of doing ANYTHING. Not just in this episode, but really, overall. I would have LOVED to seem her go last night, with reasons that 1)she helped tie that meat, and the judges were not impressed with it, 2) what else did she truly add to that meal, and 3)I think her litttle relationship with Hosea is BLAH!!!!!! I love that in the preview for next week, they are like, "Oh, you know, we definitely have some chemistry, but we're not going to pursue it or anything." Hell-OO--are they not doing just that by being will to project such things on television?! I get that they may be told to act a certain way, etc, but never before has the development of a relationship gotten in the way performance or really even played a part in the show. Not even last season with the one couple (I forget their names) that came on the show together.

Arg. I don't necessarily think that Ariane was "Top Chef" caliber, but I still think that she had far more to show--and has--than little miss Leah.

I meant to mention that I am certainly aware that the shows are filmed way before they're shown, but there's just something so fake about Christmas in July that offends me. And perhaps I'm just jealous seeing that fresh produce and warm weather

Okay, here are my thoughts: First, I nudibly gasped when I heard Ariane refer to the meat as "baby lambs." I realize that this is a small thing, but for someone who has basically only demonstrated that she knows meat (and obviously not dessert), does she not know that a lamb is already a baby? A baby lamb would be in utero, really.

Also, yes, Hosea and Leah each/both could have stepped in. However, in my opinion Ariane was upset from the start that she was to work with both of them and thought that no one was listening to her. A top chef would be willing to shout out that either A) they don't want to do something (see Jamie's comments toward Stefan) or B) They are not familiar and would prefer to work on something else, and then suggest an alternative (see various other contestants in seasons prior). She could easily have said that she did not want to do the lamb, and then suggested something else. Or said outright that someone would have to help her or it would not turn out.

And yes, Leah didn't do much, but what Ariane did did a *huge* dis-service to the animal, which was the focal point of the whole thing and of the farm itself, which I think was a big sticking point for the judges. So, on that note, I might have chosen the same way and was in fact not shocked in the least. I could easily see their positions on that. If what you do caused the rest of the meal that was presented to me more than merely mediocre, but down right insulting to the animal, I would have chosen the same way.

Just being honest.

This is why I hate group challenges - do you send home the person who jacked up the food, or the person who sat back like a lump of shit and offered no help? They both suck and should be dumped. They could have ditched like 5 people on last night's episode and I would've been fine with that.

For whatever it's worth, I think everyone got too complex with the meat because they probably assumed roasting it on the bone wouldn't illustrate their skills enough. Not that their solutions proved they were spectacular talents, either. Just saying.

I have no idea when this Ariane infatuation began with everyone, but I couldn't care less who got booted from Team Lamb. Why do all of you care? All 3 of them are clearly NOT Top Chef material. None of them are gonna win. 1 was bound to last longer than another... it's just the way the show works. There is no wrong person.

And like Allot mentioned earlier, the challenges where she performed well, all she did was cook a piece of meat well. If that's all it takes to win your hearts on Top Chef, there are about a million Mexicans working in kitchens in LA that can cook a piece of meat right. Sure, they don't know how to truss a lamb, but who cares!

btw They've always gone by only judging the current performance. Just take a look at what happened to Tre.

They hardly threw her under the bus, PerkyMac. They said they wanted her to cook the lamb because she'd won with that protein before! And maybe she's too scared to admit that she wouldn't have won that lamb challenge if Radhika and Jaime hadn't seasoned the thing for her. All she had to do was cook pre-seasoned lamb, and she very nearly screwed that up too.

So she can either admit to it and say "no, I'm no expert at cooking lamb unless someone else does all of the prep for me" or she can slog through with the prep that Hosea and Leah clearly thought she could handle. Good riddance to a weak-ass chef.

And to all of you prior posters who can't seem to get it, their names are LEAH and HOSEA and ARIANE. Not Lea, not Joseah, not Josea, not Arian.

This is why I hate group challenges - do you send home the person who jacked up the food, or the person who sat back like a lump of shit and offered no help?

Totally agree with @BangieB. That's exactly what bothered me about group challenges. A person who did a lot of work presents the judges with more to pick apart; whereas, someone who contributes very little gives the judges very little to hold against them.

That being said, I have to point out that Ariane unfairly benefitted from a group challenge the time she won for the rack of lamb that Radika and Jamie created. I will never forget the look on Jamie's face when they announced that Ariane had won for the lamb.

I was not aware we were having our spelling checked. Will we be tested on this?

My boyfriend has a theory. He thinks that Top Chef is a sinking ship and because romance between contestants has never been explored in previous seasons, he thinks that Ariane got the cut in order to let the two love birds take center stage on the dying show.

There was a cheftestant romance last season too, though--Jennifer and Zoi.

I dunno...
At this stage it doesn't matter a whole lot who goes out when.
Ariane had weaknesses in technique and creativity and wasn't going to be a finalist. She had her share of good luck and bad, if not this week it would have been soon enough.

I thought Ariane had some moments of talent (or luck) that allowed her to move past missteps that nearly got her kicked off early on. She hasn't been consistent enough for me to really root for her or feel like she has what it takes to go all the way. And if you don't know how to tie meat to roast, you probably shouldn't be there anyway.

That being said, it appeared as if (who really knows, with editing) Leah kind of threw her under the bus; when she stepped in to "help" her with the tying while admitting to the camera that she knew she wasn't doing the best job at it, I thought that was pretty slimey.

And andytseng is right; they've always gone by each performance individually and not a cumulative performance, which doesn't always sit well with me; there have been many seasons in which the bottom three include the same contestants over and over again, but if someone else performs just slightly worse than they did in a particular challenge, they continue to just barely skate by. I'm not really interested in continuing to watch mediocrity, and would rather those who have performed consistently well be given a "pass" when they've had an off day, allowing the most consistent chefs rise to the top.

Ariane was the most overrated chef on the show. I just don't understand how you can win any challenge with the simple shit she put out. A watermelon salad? Really? She gets praise for NOT destroying turkey? Really? There were even bad chefs who I preferred whole-heartedly to Ariane simply because she was unimaginative. There's classic and there's boring and this chick.. she didn't even try. Or maybe she did try, but she was simple untalented.

I also think Hosea will do a lot better once Leah is gone. I find her pretty lame too. I personally want Fabio to win. The other Italian is probably one of the best on the show, but he's an ass and Fabio is just so loveable.