Les Amis!

Oops! I had forgotten due to recent personal drama that Top Chef would not air a new show this past Wednesday. My ears drooped in disappointment. I did, however, get to see the final episode of season two with Ilan and Marcel's last fateful cookoff, and it brought a key element of these shows to light:

There are reality contestants - usually the stubborn asshole, pardon my French, of the group - who say they "are not here to make friends." They are just "here to win."

Current examples include Sweaty Howie, S3 Top Chef, and Robb Asshat, S2 Design Star.

And our dear cotton-candy-coiffed Marcel, also.

However, two of those three examples were cast off before they could win, and Howie looks like he's heading towards that also.

These people, very suffused in themselves and any drama surrounding themselves, don't seem to realize that the competitions are about their work, solely. It's not like Survivor where wheeling and dealing and strategy in big part decides who wins; here, the better you get along with people, the better you look to the judges, and the more seamlessly your group competitive assignments run.

So yes, you ARE here to make friends. But of course, these dear ones think they are so terribly important and the work is so life or death (ceviche! vegas wedding! oh, yes, very life or death!) that this "not here to make friends" is one more solemnly intoned reflection of their utter seriousness as a competitor.

In other words, just a bunch of hot air.