Top Chef Episode Covers Gay Marriage Debate

Last week offered an exciting Top Chef two-fer: The season finale of Top Chef Masters, which quietly asserted itself as perhaps my favorite episode in franchise history (as I wrote in that blog, it was like watching a real-life, extended cut of the climactic meal in Big Night), and the premiere of this season’s Top Chef, which introduced new blood, a new city, and lots of new gambling-themed gimmicks. So it was perhaps inevitable that Week Two would be a big comedown for your friendly recapper, because I’m already wrung out from last week’s finale/premiere double bill and because I’m looking at a chaff-filled 16 contestants clogging up the screen. Who are these people? Why should I care about them? Could someone wake me when the six or seven who clearly have no chance are finally eliminated. All right, enough whining. I press on. Tonight wasn’t a terribly memorable hour, with a couple of rote challenges and not too many juicy developments. If it’s remembered for anything, it will probably be the mild controversy about the bachelor/bachelorette party Elimination challenge, which didn’t sit well with Ashley, who’s a lesbian and therefore not happy having to honor an institution in which she and others gay and lesbians (including two others from this season’s group) cannot legally take part. I really don’t feel like dipping my toe in this issue—the obnoxious comment board flare-ups over Ted Kennedy’s death have been unsettling enough for one day—but Ashley’s objections were surprisingly strong and perhaps flipped the script a bit on “defense of marriage” types who are always fretting about how the institution” is threatened. Full Story from AVClub.com

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