Top Chef Reunion Recapatini: Dale the Mo' Sex Symbol

On Survivor, the reunion specials offer the pleasure of seeing people who clearly loathe each other pretending (badly) that they don’t any more, as well as after-the-fact insights into the hugely misguided thinking behind their failed strategic decisions.

That’s something Top Chef can’t really replicate -- how interesting would it really be to hear reflections along the lines of “I guess in retrospect I really should have cooked that chicken all the way through” -- so the only real interest I had in watching the second reunion special this season was confirmation that it wasn’t just a horrible dream and Hung had in fact won. (Part of me was hoping we’d actually get a “do-over” challenge here, because it’s not like this show has proven itself above that kind of blatant disregard for established procedure.) Oh, and I also wanted to see if Dale is still cute. Happily, the answer is "Yes," but sadly, it’s also "Yes" to the Hung question as well.

The reunion kicks off with this very topic, as Bravo Andy (a.k.a. “Brandy”) asks if the right chef won. The only one to answer is tellingly the person who spent the least amount of time with him, Sandee, who says, Hung was “the one to beat,” apparently forgetting about the other 13 cheffersons she also wasn’t able to beat. Brandy pushes the point and directly asks if Hung should have won and is met with a show of hands. These are not, I suspect, hands raised in support of Hung but more likely requests for permission to leave the room and barf.

I was hoping that in an hour of television that managed to find time for such urgent topics as which person Gail would like to cater her wedding, Brandy would ask Hung if there’s a special someone in his life and of what gender, or at least clarify his “I can go both ways” comment from his audition tape. No such luck. Instead, Hung is given yet another chance to defend his strategy of being an a-hole. Hung blah blah blahs about not letting feelings get in the way of competition. And Dale, bless his bandana-ed heart, pipes in here that it’s also about the kind of chef you are and says he’s the type of chef who’s going to help out the person next to him, whether it’s in the restaurant kitchen or in a competition.

Tom takes this opportunity to launch into one of the episode’s many attempts to deflect rampant criticism about the maddeningly arbitrary, bewildering nature of the judging this season. He says that in the finale, they compared the dishes head to head, and Hung and Dale each had two good ones, so it came down to the bad ones and Dale’s was simply the worst. Dale says, “I screwed up,” and he tries to laugh it off but it’s clear it actually still pains him. It pains me too because it’s confirmation that Hung pretty much won with chocolate cake, a dish he himself described as “playing it safe.” Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge -- and integrity over the bus -- as far as this season is concerned.

Thankfully, this whole reunion special, like the entire season, is redeemed pretty much by Dale’s presence, as he manages to be as honest, charming, and funny as he was all along. Following a montage that repeats for the gazillionth time Dale’s “backstory” (as Tom refers to it, evidence of how the mess of real life is typically transmuted by reality TV into a pleasant story arc) as well as his greatest hits from the show, Dale hilariously says, “I always wanted a montage.” And honestly, what gay man doesn’t? I even have my theme music already picked out and at times wonder if it would be worth it to secure the rights now “just in case.”

Later, Brandy tells Dale he’s become “a mowhawked sex symbol,” which made me worry that clueless viewers would think this was some new gay fetish with its own magazines and websites, like between that and the education about Bears they got in the first reunion special they’d think all gay men are obsessed with body hair of some kind or other. Which, come to think of it, is pretty much the case.

Anyway, this is all a lead-up to an awesome question from a M.O.O.T. (a.k.a. “Member of Our Team”) named Brian from Toledo who calls Dale a “hottie with a Quickfire wit” and asks what his type is. Dale’s response -- “Beauty is only a light switch away" -- is basically a primetime-friendly soundbite for “I’ll sleep with anyone.” But his best comment, after pressed about his type, is, “I like men because they’re men.”

That’s certainly a much, much better line for a T-shirt than the other one this show attempts to popularize: “Oh Big Time.” This is allegedly CJ’s trademark catchphrase, which, despite the fact they show a montage of him saying it in various circumstances, I swear we never heard before.

Someone who’s never seen the show would understandably assume CJ was not only the winner but the only person who ever appeared on Top Chef, given the seemingly endless hours of screen time he gets here. They keep cutting to him and quoting him, and there’s an entire montage devoted to “The Funny Man of Season 3” that kicks off with him talking about the hilarious subject of having had cancer.

He’s at his best, I think, when he calls Padma on her bullsh*t about personality not affecting the judging and how she doesn’t ever play favorites. But then again, he’s the right guy to call her on this since he’s the most blatant case of her doing just that. In fact, the two of them are so flirty even now that the entire reunion special feels like an extended foreplay session -- or worse, a pilot for an upcoming reality spin-off featuring the two of them embarking on a new life together as a couple. I can just see it -- “On Top of Chef” -- featuring a newly married Padma and CJ as they pursue their dream of opening a restaurant catering to the special dietary needs of tall people.

If CJ is set up as “The Funny Man,” another montage reminds us that Brian is “The Fish Man,” although at this point, I’d like to nominate him as “Crazy Hat and Fugly Shirt Guy,” a moniker emphasized during this special by his sporting the much-reviled cabbie cap and an argyle sweater that looks like a Rose Bowl float exploded all over the front of it.

Howie, on the other hand, is immortalized as “The Pork Man.” But I’m thinking that his mushroom turd hors ’douvres (seen in yet another montage of notable failures) are more appropriate signature dishes, a reminder that he shoots so much crap he might as well be called “Snake Eyes.” When asked why he never wore a bandana given all his sweating, he insists he had “no idea what [his] body was doing” during the challenges. I find it hard to believe he wasn’t aware of the gallons of precipitation flowing off his chrome dome, and if he wasn’t, he has no business being around food meant to be served to other people.

Then he says that seeing what a jerk he was on TV led him to change his ways. In fact, he hasn’t spoken to anyone since the show because he wasn’t sure how they’d feel and so left it up to them to make the first move. This is his more of his insufferable “empty plate” strategy all over again -- do nothing and then get all sanctimonious about how your not doing anything makes you superior to everyone.

Howie is also featured in an out-take with CJ where the cameraman asks them to sit closer together and they get all uptight about it. In fairness, their reaction might just as easily be the result of the stifling confines of the car as any discomfort about having to -- horrors! -- get close to another guy, but it’s also not the only example of gay panic included for viewer laughs here. There’s also a montage set up by Brandy as showing how “love bloomed in Miami” that depicts Joey and Howie’s interactions but forced into this bizarro silent movie format with placards announcing “the thin line between love and hate” and how “fate tore them apart.”

These scenes bugged me, not so much because of the behavior of the cheffersons themselves -- Joey and Howie actually handle it rather well -- but in terms of the motives behind its inclusion by the show’s producers. Either they were hoping it would make Joey and Howie visibly uncomfortable or counting on an audience finding it hilarious seeing two men treated this way. Either way, it was disappointing to see juvenile borderline-gay-panic scenes in a reunion of a season that featured a proud, openly gay contestant. I suppose we should at least be thankful they didn’t go for some kind of Brokeback Mountain spoof.

Other than that, various montages and viewer questions repeat topics already much discussed and obsessed over in recaps and blog posts -- i.e. the Smurf Village, Sous Vide, judging gripes and grimaces (although we get to see Gail whack Tom which is kind of awesome), Tre’s much-debated ouster, Padma getting sloshed, friendship with Casey = doom, etc. etc. yawn yawn. Speaking of Casey, she’s declared the “Fan Favorite” and awarded $10,000 and a bunch of pots. A Casey montage attests to all the “hard work” that brought her this far even though she still can’t chop an onion.

Other than Dale’s moments, the best, most surprising line of the whole episode comes, from, of all people, the heretofore silent Camille. When talking about which chefs the judges would like to take on in a challenge, Camille says, “I’d pay for Padma and Clay to face off.” It’s so astonishingly nasty -- and so unclear as to which of the two should be more insulted by it -- that I’m still kind of in awe.

The second best line comes right at the end. When asked what advice they’d give to future cheffersons, people reply things like “expect the unexpected” and “have fun,” but almost the last thing we hear is Jamaican Sara piping up, “and make sure you follow the rules of the challenges.” I love it because it’s another example of how this show’s continual efforts to force lofty ideas about Life and Food and Heart and Soul on us were typically undermined by irritating minutiae, usually at judges’ table. I couldn’t think of a more fitting final thought to summarize this entire season.

So long, Dale. We'll miss you and your sexy hawk. Everyone else, not so much.