We’re a few episodes into Season 5's gameplay portion of Next Level Chef, and I need to talk about Richard Blais. The former Top Chef winner and buzzy culinary star is, for the second consecutive season, playing with an aggressive and borderline reckless strategy that treats the individual players on his team more like chess pieces than human beings. As a viewer with some level of human empathy, I absolutely hate it, but as a seasoned reality show viewer and gamer, I can’t help but respect it.
Let’s do a quick recap of the rules to make sure we’re all on the same page before I start hating and praising Blais in equal measure. Each week, the chefs on Gordon Ramsay, Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais’ teams cook on one of the levels according to a specific theme. Whoever has the best dish amongst all the competitors wins immunity for themselves and their entire team. Afterwards, the captains of the two losing teams must pick a representative to head into a 1v1 cookoff in which the loser is sent packing. It's a lot of fun.
