I really thought I knew how this scenario would go.
In my mind, I thought that Anne Burrell would be the one to beat. And I imagined that there would be a finale when she and Robert Irvine would resurrect their past rivalry and have to cook against each other again.
Now with Irvine's dismissal from the competition, that obviously isn't going to happen. But also I have to say that I've been surprised by Anne Burrell's performance thus far. To date she has been playing it safe. She hasn't been uber compeitive. She hasn't wanted to win. She has acted as if what really matters is not getting eliminated. This goes against everything that I saw of her competition in "Chopped." In that contest, she suffered an eye injury early on, but continued competing and wowed the judges with her food. She had to go to the emergency room after the show, but she was deteremined to win. In this episode, she doesn't seem to take the judges' warning to her that she needs to step up her game seriously. I can't imagine anyone reaching the place where she has in her profession and not understanding the truth in their comments. I can't imagine someone who was previously such a tough competitor adopting this attitude.
It makes me wonder this is how Chef Burrell feels and it is not something scripted that was cooked up for her part in this enterprise. If this is what she truly believes, it seems so shortsighted. In my mind, this competition is a marathon, not a sprint. I can't imagine a contestant being crowned the winner who has basically dogged it in the first two heats. Again, it is absolutely contrary to how I would imagine Chef Burrell would approach this competition. I am actually pretty flummoxed by the events so far. Would I have ever imagined that Iron Chef Mario Batali's sous chef would basically just be happy to avoid elimination? It is very hard to believe.
As for Chef Irvine's dismissal, I think this is one of those situations where I don't know enough to judge. It seemed from the reactions of the other contestants that Chef Chiarelli's decision to make pasta was an incredibly risky thing to do. Chef Symon seemed quite committed to the magnificence of the dish. There were comments in Chef Irvine's previous evaluation that seemed to suggest that he had erred in his seasonings. That seems to me to be something that would be hard to forgive in an Iron Chef competition.
My sense had always been that Chef Irvine definitely had the mettle to be an Iron Chef, but I wondered if he did have the comprehensive training and experience of some of his colleagues in this competition. I am sorry to see him go, but it made sense to me. I can't say the same for Chef Burrell's actions so far.
