Top Chef’s Wild Twist Ending Last Night Led To Not Enough People For Restaurant Wars. Last Chance Kitchen Hints At What’s Next

Spoilers for the Monday, April 20th episode of Top Chef: Carolinas can be found in this article. So, check out the episode with your Peacock subscription, and don’t say I didn’t warn ya!

Where do I even begin with last night’s episode of Top Chef? Honestly, it was a great night of TV. Melissa Benoist was on and there was a dessert challenge. Anyone who has watched the Bravo series over the course of the last twenty years knows the majority of the chefs hate making dessert (and it’s hard with no recipes). This week’s episode was no exception.

What Happened During "Desserts Fit For A Queen"

Basically, the chefs were tasked with creating and serving dessert to 60 guests who were invited into the Top Chef kitchen. The event was to celebrate 20 years of the series, which debuted back in 2006. The chefs were given a choice of many different southern desserts to choose to emulate in honor of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, which gave them choices like chess pie, banana pudding and so on and so forth. They could make a literal or loose interpretation of the dessert. Since some of these were pastries, we saw a lot of loose “in the cup” desserts.

There were some overly confident chefs, of course, and trained pastry chef Brandon seemed a bit surprised when his dessert skills didn’t woo over the voting guests or judges. Mostly, though, there were quite a few grumbles, many of which came from Justin, who just could not wrap his mind around the challenge. He took Ambrosia and made a literal interpretation of the dish using dry ice to keep everything cold. The judges found his dish to be muddled and very one-note.

Also on the bottom was Oscar, who made just way too much bread pudding to bake it evenly, and Duyen, who chose a caramel cake and then made it completely unrecognizable by mixing caramel foam (that apparently didn’t taste like caramel) with green-colored pandan rice. Justin going home was not the twist, however.

His wife, Jennifer, as the show had been teasing for weeks, continued dealing with some sort of stress issue that sent her back to the hospital at the end of the episode. Kristen had to break the news that she could no longer compete, but could come back during a future season. Unfortunately, the show had just announced the classic episode “Restaurant Wars” that requires eight chefs.

Thanks to “Last Chance Kitchen,” I think I have a good idea about what happened ahead of next week, and I’m pleased if I’m right.

How Last Chance Kitchen Hints At Next Week

Top Chef did a great job not showing us who was brought back for “Restaurant Wars” in the previews for next week; however, Last Chance Kitchen hinted at the outcome.

At the tail end of Top Chef this week, Kristen approached Justin and told him,“Because you were the last person eliminated, we’re offering you that spot back.” He talked to Jen about it and they had an awkward conversation where Jen told him to do what he “thought was best,” but he seemed to really want to be by her side at the hospital. Cut to Last Chance Kitchen this week, which featured… Justin!

Last Chance Kitchen's been known for twists in the past, and here’s the rundown this time. After Sieger’s shock elimination during the BBQ challenge, it seemed like he did not compete on Last Chance Kitchen, and Nana, Brittany and Rhoda competed for some cash fun. Nana won, but Rhoda was still in competition from the week before to continue since Nana’s win was for cash and not for the opportunity to work her way back in.

This week, from the way Tom explained things, Justin left to spend some time with his wife at the hospital and then decided he did want the chance to get back into the show. Because some time had passed since Kristen approached him with the offer to return, his only way back in was to compete on Last Chance Kitchen with Rhoda.

Unfortunately for him, Rhoda beat him with some awesome-looking mushroom toast with caviar. This leaves us two options for next week:

1. When Justin left to be with his wife, Top Chef scrambled and asked the next previously eliminated chef back, which means Sieger got a second chance to compete.
2. Rhoda beating Justin put her back into the competition just in time for “Restaurant Wars," and Tom was simply teasing the outcome.

Of these two possibilities, I actually think the first one is more likely. First, Sieger seemingly had not competed in Last Chance Kitchen. Second, Tom Colicchio at the start of the episode intimated that some time had passed since Justin had joined his wife at the hospital, and I’d assume “Restaurant Wars” had already started filming during that time. This makes it seem like someone who was not Rhoda or Justin had re-entered the competition in the meantime.

Given I’ve been loud about thinking Sieger should not have been eliminated in the first place, I hope he gets another shot at competing, but at this point I’m also rooting for Rhoda to get back in. She was so strong at the start of the season, and just had a couple of cooks that didn’t go well. Some strong chefs have already been eliminated early, and it would be interesting to be in a world where both Sieger and Rhoda got a chance at redemption. Rhoda’s seemingly still on the hunt given Tom left the episode with, “I’ll see you next week,” but I am very invested in however this whole story plays out now.

Either way, now that we know Jen is OK, this medical removal wrinkle has led to some of the best TV I’ve seen on the 2026 schedule so far, and I can’t wait for what’s next. I'm pretty sure that "what's next" will include eight chefs in "Restaurant Wars," however.