Geez -- itself might make us cry.

But you know what's really interesting about Top Chef? Even though it's come off the rails, it's still pretty compelling.

However, the wind has been further taken out of our sails due to some of the outside factors.

Look, you can get straight-up recaps at many fine places--particularly here at TWOP (Hi Steph! We love you even though you don't return our emails!). We'll be extremely brief in our recap, to leave more room for our assessment:

We open with seeing what the four finalists are up to. Sam's studying pastry stuff, which he thinks is his main weakness; Elia's still honing her craft and waxing nostalgic about being a swimming champ; Ilan's back doing his Spanish thang at one of Mario Batali's places; and Marcel evidently gets along with his folks at work. As soon as the chefs are back together, the vitriol bubbles up again, and even Elia is annoyed with Astroboyhair. They fly to Hawaii, enjoy a feast with native foods that Chef Alan Wong explains to them in detail. Smartly, Ilan seems to be listening, because the challenge this episode is to prepare dishes meshing traditional Hawaiian cuisine with the cheftestant's own sensibilities.

They all do a great job. Marcel finally puts his best foot forward, incorporating the soul of the cuisine with his chemical magic. Ilan stays with what he knows, and makes two unusual yet lauded dishes. Elia's dishes seem to lack Hawaiian spirit of any kind, and Sam's, while delicious, didn't involve any heat (i.e., "cooking") whatsoever. The judges say everyone did a great job, and had to split these kinds of hairs to make their decision. The judges send Sam and Elia packing. Ilan and Marcel, rivals since "show me your knives" on day one, are the "final final finalists."

There was a little drama at the judges table where Elia sort of accuses Marcel of "cheating," initially prodded by Ilan, though he plays the coward, backs off quickly, and lets Elia fall on her face. See, these claims can't be quantified, and Elia starts jabbering about Marcel's lack of "the spirit of cooking" or "the kitchen" or "chefery" or something. This was not so "cravable." It was a good episode other than that, but it really evoked the sort of crap that has marred this show all season.

And those outside factors that have cemented this as a mostly disappointing season? That magic feeling we had about Harold, Stephen, Leanne, Dave, Chunk, and the rest (even "our Lady of the Bowel Movement," Andrea) continues to diminish in the face of the following:

Top Chef