This episode reminded me of beginning culinary school, in our very first class in the kitchen and the instructor shouting at a student, "There's no crying in the kitchen!" -The lesson being that the food was outside the realm of emotions; cooking was about the science of the ingredients and excess baggage needed to be left at the door. Learning correct execution was the key, good intentions don't always make a great plate of food and you can't cry to a customer and get forgiveness when you mess up a dish.
Clearly several chefs were shaken by the challenge. Shaken enough to be thrown off their game. They forgot that they were in a televised cooking competition, not a group therapy session. All they needed to do was choose a dish and fish a cute story about it from some part of their past. Marjorie handled this perfectly, she was green, so she made a green dish. No deep psychoanalysis, just a simple declaratory sentence defining the concept.
Philip's attitude is grating, I think to a certain extent that he is refusing to accept that his food could be better. Some of his food on past episodes has clearly been bad, who here wants to stand behind his gummy mashed potatoes? I don't think Tom's dislike of them was idiosyncratic. IMO, we are seeing the Dunning-Kruger effect in action with him. His time is coming, very soon, much sooner than he himself can imagine...
I was sorry to see Jason go on this round. he clearly got upset by something and he wasn't focusing on the food. Hopefully, he have a good run in LCK.
