"A Top Chef... whose default personality is not 'adorably half-asleep' (Harold, Stephanie) or 'kind of an asshole' (Hung, Ilan, soon-to-be Stefan)."

The case for Carla:

She has a spirit animal, she claims to be a former model, she yells "Hootie!" in public a lot, and her impression of a tortoise is unrivaled. She's fantastic. And not in a contrived, I'm-trying-so-hard-to-be-a-reality-show-personality kind of way, which is what I suspect of Fabio most of the time. I think Carla's genuinely like that....

Of course, everyone loves Carla's personality, but it's not Top Person. It's not even "Top Pussy," as Fabio said yesterday, explaining why he wasn't going to stop in the middle of a challenge to go to the hospital because he broke his pinkie finger. And anyway, if we're voting with our hearts, I ♥ Fabio. Cooking, in pain... that was hot.