Basically? None of the food mattered in this episode. The Nestlé and Calphalon commercial for the Quickfire? Who cares. But in the interest of keeping my job, I'll tell you that Sam won it, which meant he had his choice of protein and course for the five-course romantic dinner Elimination challenge. They sped us through the Elimination Challenge, where all the dishes seemed to go over pretty well with the judges (AT FIRST) except maybe Cliff's beef dish, which was pronounced "hotel food."

The meat of the episode occurred after the Elimination Challenge and back in the lofts. Riding an adrenaline high from finishing the intense challenge, some drinking and balding goes on. It appears that Elia always wanted to Sinead herself, so she and Ted Ilan shave their heads. Willingly. After they laugh at Son of Sam for wimping out and keeping his full greasy mop, Cliff goes into the living room, drags a sleeping and pathetically limp Marcel off the couch, and forces him to the ground. Apparently, he was physically restraining Marcel in order for one of the others -- Sam? Ted Ilan? -- to shave his head. Sam, seeing the writing on the wall, just shook his head. He wouldn't shave Marcel's head, but he also didn't try to stop Cliff from acting out some potentially repressed tendencies. No one did, actually. The whole scene was eerily silent, uncomfortable, and very disturbing to watch.

Cliff, realizing that no one else was joining in on the violence, finally lets Marcel free. Marcel, after slamming the cameraperson in the face -- which, I believe, was Ted Ilan, as they had "borrowed" a camera that night -- spends the night in the bathroom. Hopefully, with the door locked. The next morning, Colicchio arrives with a face full of fire and brimstone and asks everyone but Cliff to leave the room. No doubt that burned bacon-sniffing schnozz of his detected the fragrance of assault and freshly shaved heads all the way down the block. Colicchio repeats some Bravo rules to Cliff, which basically say that if you lay a finger on another cheftestant, you are gone. Cliff boggles at this but accepts his ousting. Before leaving the loft for good, Cliff actually apologizes to Marcel and the other cheftestants for letting the "joke" get out of hand.

At the Judges' Table, the courses are analyzed to death and all of a sudden the judges seem to be changing their tune about how good they originally thought everything was. Whatever. It was all done with the pretense of making us believe for about three minutes that someone else would be sent home. However, while Padmadala got to nastily tease Marcel and Elia, all four cheftestants are told they are going to Hawaii for the finals.

Even the august presence of Eric Ripert as guest judge was overshadowed by Clippergate.