Hyphen TV: Your Head Is Round

August 5, 2013

Ok Cha shows her soft political side

Sang owes his sous chef Ted a drink or two after Ted won his challenge
on Top Chef Masters, earning Sang immunity and extra time to work on his
Quickfire dish. Sang made a delicious-sounding lamb sausage that he
stuffed into baby squid, getting him top marks but not quite hitting the
Quickfire win. The elimination challenge had the chefs creating
American dishes with an Asian twist to be served in LA's Asian Night
Market. Sang was concerned about creating an American dish, since it's
not what he usually does, but he decided to go a little crazy with his
immunity and put a spin on fried shrimp and coleslaw with fried shrimp
heads and poached tails served with chili garlic aioli and Burmese
cabbage slaw.

Sang and his fellow Masters, making aprons look good

Sang did start to second guess himself when diners
questioned whether or not to eat the crispy heads, but the judges loved
the crispness of the heads, the gentle poach he did on the shrimp
bodies, and the "ton of flavor" in the slaw. Once again, he landed in
the top three, with the judges loving his "great yet subtle umami
flavor." Sang won the challenge, earning him
$10K for his charity Worldwide Orphans Foundation, a cause that's
especially important to him because he found out as an adult that his
father spent years helping to build orphanages all over Asia. Congrats,
Sang! Way to continue the familial awesomeness.

There was enough
going on with the other ladies on Mistresses that Karen didn't get much
time in the spotlight, but we did learn that following the confrontation
with Elizabeth (which...how did she get out of that without exploding
from awkwardness?), she started to suspect that the widow may have
known about Karen's affair with her husband all along -- and murdered Tom
because of it (remember that Tom died after the administration of
Karen's lethal dosage of morphine). Karen hired a private investigator
to try to figure out exactly when Elizabeth found out about the affair,
but the guy encouraged Karen to talk to Elizabeth directly (does he not
need the job or something?). But that door was pretty firmly shut at the
end of the episode, when Karen was served with papers informing her
that she was being sued by Elizabeth for the wrongful death of Thomas.
Wut woh!

Karen had so little going on that we only have a photo of her in another plot

On Sullivan and Son, Steve's dad Jack was running for
councilman and needed his wife Ok Cha to show her support and love
publicly. Her response was a warm and fuzzy, "You
don't show love and support in public! You might as well just ask me to
take off my shirt and shake my ta-tas."
She finally agreed to try
being the people person she claimed to be capable of, throwing
around compliments like "Your head is round" and "I like how you hate
immigrants. They take all of our jobs." But a turning point came when
Jack made a speech for his supporters at the bar, followed by
introductions of his family -- with a quick cut-off when he mentioned Ok
Cha. Angry at being kept from the spotlight, Ok Cha went up to make her
own speech, which turned into a dictatorial vow to stop wasting city
money on needless things like flowers and recycling. This being a
sitcom, the crowd began calling for Ok Cha to run, and a spousal
competition was born. In the end, of course, the couple split the
Sullivan votes, leading to someone else winning the seat. Good thing we
got to cement Ok Cha as a Korean American overlord wannabe before things
went back to normal.

Ok Cha and Susan being "nice"

And finally, surgeon and journalist Atul
Gawande appeared on the Colbert Report to discuss his New Yorker article
"Slow Ideas," which explores how comminucation and social connection
are far more effective in creating social change than incentive and
instant gratification. I know, I was surprised too. Watch the interview
here
.

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Dianne Choie

columnist

Dianne Choie's TV is in Brooklyn, NY. She has a cat, several reusable shopping bags, and other mildly annoying stereotypes of youngish people who live in Brooklyn.

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