At some point during the ten seasons of Top Chef, the annual Restaurant Wars episode became an even bigger deal than the finale. The appeal of the challenge is obvious. Not only does the task force our chefs to step out of their comfortable roles at the midway point of the season to complete the seemingly insurmountable task of building a restaurant from the ground up in a day, but it's also one that's rife with the type of explosive drama reality show producers crave. Orders need to be placed! Flatware need to be classy! Padma's cleavage must be acknowledged the second she walks in the door!

You have to assume local chef Sara Johannes wanted more fireworks in her mostly stagnant

season of Top Chef, but I can't imagine she wanted to make the impression she made on tonight's episode, which unfortunately saw her exit. This was cringe TV at its worst (best?), an hour of television that made me wince on more than one occasion.

Things just didn't go well for Sara's team from the start. Based on names alone (Nina, Shirley, Carlos, Justin), the team appeared poised for victory from the beginning, but quickly became derailed over a lack of commitment on their restaurant's theme. Naming themselves Found, the team's idea was to center their menu on "Modern America," an all-encompassing melting pot that would effectively allow each chef to stay within their chosen style of cooking. The other team took a more direct approach with Fin, a seafood restaurant that was unified by both style and flavor profiles. Travis is praised as the best front of the house person in Restaurant Wars history, while Nicholas wins for combining black drum and oxtail. That's hardly the story in this episode, however, but congrats to them both.

I have no idea why Sara decided to be such a martyr in this challenge, but I was practically screaming at my TV when she volunteered to not only take the front of the house position, but to also make a dessert. Restaurant Wars is never an easy challenge. There's absolutely no need to make it as hard on yourself as possible.

I've written before that Sara's sleepy yet direct approach can come off as slightly condescending, but dealing with Justin (who also volunteered for his role as Found's executive chef) in a productive way couldn't have been a walk in the park. Justin showed a petulant side during last episode's judging panel, and it's an attitude he's now made his calling card. From tantrums over Nina buying the wrong plates to his sharp words to Carlos at Whole Foods (apparently they went shopping before solidifying their menu? Why?), Justin was in bad spirits the entire episode, an attitude that surely contributed to the chaos in the kitchen. At one point Sara rightfully points out that they don't have a big enough coffee maker to serve 120 people and his retort was to say "Can we be positive?" in the least positive way possible.

But Sara's just as guilty, if not more, for Found's failures. It's expected that there will be some backlog in the kitchen and some unwanted waiting time for the VERY IMPORTANT Chase Sapphire Preferred diners, but Found didn't even seem to have a shell of an ordering system in place. Meals went out in random segments, wrong plates went to the wrong people, and Sara apparently broke a dining taboo by issuing a "verbal fire" for the judge's appetizers instead of submitting a formal ticket.

The judges were impatient, especially Padma, who was absolutely dismayed by Sara's very strange choice of not formally introducing or explaining the dishes. She offers no details for three of the dishes, is prompted by Padma to explain one, and then remembers to explain her own, a choice that struck Padma as conceited. Sara was clearly frazzled despite her icy demeanor (and killer blue dress with matching head scarf), but all of this was truly bizarre to behold.

Found had a few good dishes (Shirley's poached cobia and Nina's pork tenderloin drew judges' praise, as usual) but the rest of the restaurant was dragged through the mud. Carlos' fish wasn't cut properly, Sara's nectarine brown butter cake was missing its crucial mascarpone ingredient (the emulsion broke due to the kitchen's high heat) and Justin revolting-looking rabbit drew an audible laugh from Tom Colicchio.

I didn't expect Sara to survive this week due to how weird the vibe was at Found, which is why I actually wanted this to be a double elimination. Sara and Justin both let their sides of the restaurant down, while also delivering subpar dishes. Executive chefs often go down with their sinking ships. That wasn't the case here, but I at least hope Justin's stock is severely diminished after his display in this week's challenge. 95% of the viewing public blamed the loss on Sara's attitude (more of that bossy bitch narrative I can't for the life of me grasp), but Justin was the one who had a clear lack of faith in his team from the onset and was a bit too eager to blame them for their loss in front of guest judge David Chang.

Unfortunately, Sara wasn't able to defeat Louis in Bravo.com's Last Chance Kitchen tonight, which means her Top Chef career is officially over. Sara might have gone home in pretty mortifying fashion, but at least she did it on an episode where she got to show off a Twin Cities area code t-shirt, proudly emblazoned with both "612" and "651." Minnesota is still proud.