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Against this backdrop, John and Gerald marinate in anxiety. John, who's 58, feels like everyone his age has either made it in the industry or faded away. Winning Top Chef would validate his career choice, and losing in the first round… well, that wouldn't help things. As for Gerald, he recounts a litany of life difficulties he's experienced in the past couple of decades. If anyone could use an ego boost, it's him.

But to get that ego boost, he'll have to take John down in a sudden death cook-off held on a slave plantation. As Jamie notes when the group drives onto the plantation, Top Chef never shies away from a city's history, and Charleston is no different. Padma gives a pretty little speech acknowledging the role plantations played in our nation's sad past and then perplexingly asks Gerald how he's feeling. Really? How he's feeling? How about feeling like the show just threw yet another obstacle in his way before he can stay in the competition.

Again, harkening back to history, Gail (who I'm happy to say has joined the judging panel for his challenge) announces that the Sudden Death Cook-Off will require the two chefs to participate in an oyster roast. They'll have 20minutes, oysters, and a fire pit to do their spin on an oyster dish.

Needless to say, that's not a lot of time, and the chefs get to it immediately. Gerald throws five oysters onto the fire to let them open, while John whips out some white truffles - a secret ingredient that he brought with him to use on the show. Very smart move. No point in holding back - if he loses, there'll be no opportunity to use the ingredient moving forward.

After 20 furious minutes - and another round of cooking oysters for Gerald, after he finds that the five he initially cooked had crabs in them - Gerald serves up roasted oysters with a Thai mignonette, while John has a cream-poached oyster soup. The judges sample both and retire to the barn to deliberate - an area within earshot of the cheftestants, leaving their deliberations quite audible to the chefs whose dishes they're judging.

In the end, while both dishes were good and had nice flavor, Gerald is the one packing his knives and going home. As he shakes the judges' hands, Tom notes that John just did a little bit better at developing the oyster flavor, while Gerald needed to put more smoke and heat in his dish to really make it Thai.

In his closing comments, Gerald notes that nothing prepares a person to be on Top Chef. Well, that's not exactly true. Being on Top Chef in a previous season will prepare you to be on Top Chef, which is perhaps the reason why Gerald is going home instead of John.

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