by Michael J. Lamp

"Fry, Baby, Fry"

Tiffany's shocked she didn't leave last week. Dale's just glad the person that went home wasn't him. We're down to six. And go.

Paula Deen (hellz, yeah!) is with Padma for the Quickfire Challenge, thus bringing my most caloric and buttery dream to life. The chefs must create their Quickfire dishes in a deep fryer. Awesome.

When Mike Isabella begins explaining his dish to the pair of Ps, Richard Blais realizes that it sounds pretty familiar. That's because it's his recipe, which Isabella read in Blais's notebook the evening before. Oh shit.

Dale and Carla are Paula's least favorites. Dale's flavors had no 'wow' factor, and Carla's hush puppies weren't southern enough for the Deen family matriarch.

Antonia's dish was Paula's favorite. Unfortunately, Antonia didn't plate two dishes, so she loses. Richard and Mike conveniently land in the top two, and Mike wins for Richard's, I mean his fried chicken oysters.

John Besh joins the ladies to announce this week's Elimination Challenge. John and Paula are hosting a fundraiser to benefit the gulf coast in the wake of the BP oil spill, and the chefs will be cooking gulf seafood for 300 people. That's a lot of shrimp, yo. Oh and some eliminated chefs will be assisting, which always thrills the remaining cheftestants.

Mike takes Tiffany F. and her brown shrimp, while Blais selects snapper and his boy Fabio. Carla goes with Trey and the red grouper, and Tiffany begrudgingly (and hilariously) picks Marcel. She only chose him for the white shrimp. Antonia takes Spike "and his crabs," and then Dale rounds out the picks with Angelo and the amberjack.

Carla gets a rude awakening during her brainstorm session with Trey. She discovers that he isn't familiar - at all - with the flavors of New Orleans, prompting her to ask to see his NAACP card. A true lol moment, fo sho.

Back at the house, Richard avoids Isabella while the girls gossip about Mike disobeying 'Chef Law.' If this were Glee, there would've been a great musical number while the girls did each other's hair.  Damn. Also, Dale may have a mostly prickly personality, but comparing the other chefs' return to bed bugs was effing hilarious.

Richard's clever pairing of pulled pork & snapper, Mike's play on shrimp 'n' gritz and Antonia's blue crab cake land each of them in the top group this week. Richard wins the challenge and a trip to Barbados. I think getting revenge on copycat Isabella probably trumps a trip to the tropics, though.

Tiffany's super sweet shrimp, Dale's undercooked potatoes (with overly seasoned croutons) and Carla's crowded and unharmonious grouper dish send the three of them to the bottom.

In rather stunning fashion, Dale gets the boot and is headed home. We see a lot of tears during Dale's exit, which actually makes me like him more. This experience appears to have hit him harder than he's shown yet.

Who's next? It's really anyone's guess at this point.

(Image courtesy of Bravo)

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