Gentlemen, Start Your Crocs!

It’s finally arriving tonight: the Top Chef finale! (unless, of course, Bravo teases us and airs a rerun instead as they’ve been known to do.  Just to screw with me.  But it seems pretty official that it’s happening tonight.  If you consider the blogosphere official.  And facts.  Assuming you think facts are official)

It’s a six-legged race between one Voltaggio, another Voltaggio and the one that’s not a Voltaggio (Kevin!).  Here’s how it stacks up:

The Favorite: Kevin.  The man has just been nails all season, delivering simple, yet elegant food (like a nice cardigan).  He’s the Iceman of Top Chef, except impossibly polite (and not kinda homo-erotic).

Who Do I Want To Win: Bryan.  Love the fact that he seems incapable of displaying human emotion.  It’s not that he’s a robot.  He clearly has a heart, it’s just that you can’t tell if he’s ecstatic or livid or asleep.  But his food has uniformly looked delicious and complex without being smug.  And how cute was it when he bought that stuffed animal for his daughter?  Aww!

Who Do I Think Will Win: Michael.  He’s been running neck a neck a neck all season with his brother and Kevin, but his biggest competition may have been his own ambition (see what I did there?).  He’s the biggest risk taker of the three, and having the chance to do the traditional progression we’re betting that he’s going to be able to pull it all together and truly wow the judges with intense flavor profiles and interesting textures and avocado foams and other words they say a lot.  Also, if he doesn’t win, someone might get hurt, whereas Bryan and Kevin will be gracious losers.  So for the sake of the judge’s own safety (and Padma’s ‘lil bear cub), they might hand the title to Michael V (ah, just kidding, Mike!  I’m sure you won’t hurt anyone if you lose.  We’re just having a good time, that’s all!).

While you count down the minutes on your egg timer until the finale, you can check out Jen talking about how she’s become an inspiration to Philadelphia’s female youth (take that, Rocky!):

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