Why Kevin Will Win Top Chef

What’s up Top Chef nerds. So unlike the last season or two, I haven’t been blogging about Top Chef that much but I wanted to weigh in before tonight’s finale.  I feel the need to tell you something that frankly, I could have told you 10 weeks ago: Kevin is going to win. It’s not even going to be close. Oh sure, it’s going to be close in the sense that Bryan and Michael will cook amazing meals and the judges will weigh the merits of each of their cooking abilities, but there is no question in my mind that when the ultimate prize of Top Chef is awarded, it will be given to this smiling mug:

When I turned on episode one of Top Chef this year, I instantly knew who I was rooting for.  A fat, red-headed dude who is only 26 yet has a huge receding hairline, a giant bald spot, but most importantly, a ridiculously awesome beard? Yeah. Yeah. YEAH.  I thought to myself: this guy, is clearly going to be getting awesome all season long. It’s like looking at the fat kid who played Magic the Gathering in your High School student center and now all of a sudden he’s this badass chef. How can you NOT root for the guy? If you aren’t rooting for him, you were probably one of the meathead jocks making fun of kids like Kevin, and you’re probably still bitter that Mike Isabella got knocked out (full disclosure, in high school I neither played Magic the Gathering nor was a meathead jock. Although I probably was a tad closer to the jock side than the nerd side of things).

The best part of rooting for Kevin was those first couple weeks when no one knew what his deal was, and there were so many contestants on the show you couldn’t remember anyone’s name. People would ask if I was watching or who I was rooting for, and I could just look them in the eye and say with a very forceful voice: “BEARDO!”  They would nod and mutter something about “oh yeah, the guy with the big red beard, he seems interesting.” At that point I would just look away and snicker, knowing full well that in a few weeks time, they too would surely be seduced by Kevin’s cooking skill and over-sized persona….well, just by the fact that he is over-sized.

So why am I so confident that Kevin will win against the clearly talented Voltaggio brothers? A few reasons:

1) He looks the part. Or more specifically, he DOESN’T look the part. Kevin has a fun, everyman look to him that people can relate to, and he definitely has a different look than previous Top Chefs. Don’t count that out, they always have to be thinking target audience.

2) One brother is better than the other. Or are they? By having Kevin win, Top Chef does not have to declare that either brother is better. How Bromantical will it be when they don’t pick a 2nd and 3rd place, but instead just pick Kevin as the winner, leaving Bryan and Michael as co-runners up? Will make for some great brother bonding moments during the ending clips.

3) Dude can COOK. Kevin (along with the Voltaggio brothers) has been absolutely dominating this competition from start to finish. This may have been one of the most lopsided Top Chef seasons ever. I’m not sure if people realize just how badly Kevin, Bryan and Michael have been crushing everyone, but it has been a bloodbath.  Take a look at this handy chart from Wikipedia that shows the elimination and quickfire winners from each round:

Other than one Elimination challenge win in Week 7 by 4th place finisher Jen, every single other elimination challenge has been won by Kevin, Bryan or Michael. That’s 12 out of 13 elimination challenges won by the top 3. That is DOMINATION.  Kevin, of course, leads the way with 5 Elimination challenge wins to Bryan’s 4 and Michael’s 3.  Not only that, but Kevin has been owning everyone in quickfires, with 4 quickfire wins to Michael’s 2 and Bryan’s zero.

Has any contestant ever dominated in this fashion? The answer: No. Never. Not ever in the history of Top Chef.  Kevin’s five elimination challenge wins is the most EVER, by any contestant, in any season.  Only two other people have even scored 4 elimination challenge wins, Stefanie, who won Season 4, and Stefan who was the runner-up in Season 5.

So if you aren’t rooting for Kevin, start now. You might as well get on the bandwagon, because at 10:58 EST tonight, we’ll know that he has been crowned the newest winner of Top Chef.

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