At points during this season of "Top Chef," it seemed as though Laura Ozyilmaz was unfairly being pigeonholed as something approximating a "villain," something the show has largely gone without for many seasons now. As the series itself matured, with Padma Lakshmi as its guiding force, it was softer, kinder and more professional, with memories of forced head shaving a long-ago occurrence that'd never occur in today's "Top Chef" landscape.
However, at the end of the day, "Top Chef" is still television, so there always needs to be a storyline, rootable contenders (and in almost all cases, someone to perhaps root against). In this season, Ozyilmaz was sometimes slotted into a sort of antagonist characterization, with throwaway shots and confessionals used to establish her as somehow objectionable.
