When the Color Goes Out of My Eyes, It's Usually the Change, but Damn, Sam, I Love a Woman That Rains

(Ryan Adams, Damn, Sam)

Last week we got rid of Nikki and her homemade pasta. Can we get rid of Lisa this week? I'm going to keep asking for it until it happens. Stephanie opens the show again this week with a comment about being sad to see Nikki go home, while we get to watch her tweeze her eyebrows. Dale doesn't like the fact that everybody hates him. And Andrew drops an f-bomb! Andrew, where have you been, man??

Quickfire Challenge: Sam is back! Sam was a finalist on Season 2. Padma had a serious crush on him, and I think she was in tears when she told him to pack his knives and go home. She has finally found a way to bring him back as a guest judge (I'm assuming she's been working on this ever since he walked away from the Judges' Table for the last time). Sam tells them they need to put sexy back in the salad. When was it ever there in the first place? Spike says he wants to make a salad that makes people want to have sex after they eat it. Thanks, Captain Literal. Then Lisa starts complaining about other contestants who don't belong there and whose personalities "suck ass." Hello, Pot? This is the Kettle. You're black.

Sam likes Andrew's and Spike's, but not Lisa's. (fingers crossed!) Antonia's has great flavor and Richard has broken from tradition and served his salad inside his fauxhawk. Not really, but that thing is getting a bit intrusive. Sam picks Richard (Richard?), Stephanie (Stephanie?) and Lisa (Lisa!) as the worst; and Spike, Antonia and Dale as the best, with Spike as the his overall favorite, which I am sure Padma is very excited about, given his earlier statement about having sex after you eat his salad.

Elimination Challenge: Make gourmet boxed lunches for Chicago firefighters and police officers, and they're supposed to be healthy. Spike gets to pick an ingredient from each food group that nobody else gets to use. Andrew is in rare form tonight, working blue like he's Richard Pryor. The chefs go to Whole Foods and stand there for ten minutes while Spike uses his 10 minute head start to taunt them by waving at them from various places in the store. What a hilarious douchebag. It happens to be nighttime while they're shopping and cooking. I'm guessing that after they left for Whole Foods, a conversation such as this took place:

Padma: Sam, you hungry? You know, I just divorced this dude, so I'm, um, available ... for dinner.

Sam: Yeah, I'm hungry.

Padma: How 'bout Indian?

Colleccio visits the group and seems to like the soup Stephanie is putting together, and is then brought almost to tears when he tastes Lisa's hot sauce. Richard's burritos look pretty good, and Dale's using bison, which is awesome. Colleccio thinks everyone seems to be doing well with this challenge. After he leaves the kitchen, Lisa realizes somebody "sabotaged" her rice by turning her burner up to high. Stephanie thinks Lisa might be full of it, and Dale agrees. With about 10 minutes to go, they all start running around the kitchen like the Keystone cops, dropping things and falling over trash cans.

The police officers come in for lunch and Richard proceeds to say "Do you like burritos?" about 7,500 times. Spike is creating the illusion of scarcity by only putting two lunches on his table, with the rest of them stacked behind him. Padma chows down on some lunch real quick before dragging Sam back to the pantry to see if he can find where she hid the tandoori chicken. The judges don't seem to love Spike's chicken salad or Andrew's sushi. Padma thinks Lisa's rice isn't cooked well, and when Sam agrees with her, she looks at him with puppy dog eyes. Sam comes from a family of policemen (which, Padma hopes, means he might have access to handcuffs), which ostensibly is why he's the guest judge? I didn't quite get that.

Judges' Table: Dale and Stephanie are called up first. Ted Allen looks like he's about to start cracking up for some reason. Sam names Dale as the winner, and he gets a bottle of wine and a trip for two to visit the winery from whence it came. Dale has very quietly won five of the 20 challenges so far this season, which is fairly impressive, given the number of contestants.

Spike, Lisa and Andrew are called back as the bottom three. Oh, please, PLEASE keep Ace and Gary and get rid of Lisa!! Andrew didn't notice something in the rules of the challenge, and Padma freaks out and yells at him! I don't think she has raised her voice above "barely conscious" since I've started watching the show. It is not looking good for my boy, Andrew. Colleccio lays the smack down on Spike, telling him "unfortunately for you, my opinion is the one that matters." Go, Tom! Lisa immediately alleges sabotage of her rice. They seem to skirt this issue by telling her that the rest of her dish wasn't cooked well either. So she does what any respectable person would do, and looks for another person to throw under the bus. Andrew wasn't very happy that he was her first choice, and they have some words while the judges deliberate.

I'm bracing myself for Andrew leaving tonight. Amanda thought he could be the fan favorite this season. It would be a shame to see him go. And a shame it is. Spike looks like he just saw his puppy get run over. The number of people I like on this show was just reduced by one. Now, I am really rooting for Stephanie big time. I also hope she starts dropping an f-bomb every now and then.