Bryan Voltaggio! My brother, my captain, my king! Long have I yearned to hear that bleating staccato laugh again, like Beavis and Butt-Head added a third member to the crew and he was part surfer guy, part goat. With my whole heart, I love Bryan, Top Chef’s Sisyphus pushing plates across tables to judges and begging them to like him, please, like him, and I sincerely believe that he should have won Top Chef Masters. (Have you rewatched it? I cannot, and will not, recommend the series, a cursed television artifact from that sliver of the aughts when people insisted on talking about food in purely sexual terms. You’re not George Costanza; give it a rest.) When Bryan showed up this week for both challenges – when he joined the chefs during the Quickfire and just hung out with them like a dad chaperoning a field trip! – I felt a deep, soothing calm. Top Chef still did a goofy thing this week by not ranking the lowest Quickfire dishes and again denying the chefs a chance for useful feedback. But I like to think the production mostly kept its shit tight because Bryan was there, and you’re not going to waste Bryan’s time, you know?