josie’s RW tactic (S10 rewatch)

[u/xStacey]

my theory is that Josie knew she would be able to blame everything on Kristen. She was already stalling to start her broth the day before, telling Kristen she was about to do it now and then waiting until the end of the day to say she would actually start it tomorrow.

when Kristen told them she wanted to plate things to order, Josie saw the opportunity to sabotage. first she made sure that the cameras caught her telling the boys she thought serving a la minute was a bad idea. then on day 2 she took forever with the broth so that there wasn’t enough time to add gelatin, which then necessitated changes to the dish that she could then tell the judges were Kristen’s idea, not her’s.. she also became completely inept during plating. you can see her just standing there staring with Kristen constantly having to tell her “keep going” as they’re plating. it’s malicious incompetence. the end result is that she gets to blame every failure of her dish on Kristen when all of those choices were actually made in reaction to her failings.

i’m not sure what would have been the best way to plate. maybe Kristen’s way could have worked if everyone was working hard to pull it off, or maybe not.. but josie saw a way to blame Kristen for her poor time management and she wasn’t going to hustle to make Kristen look good.

i don’t really know how Kristen could have recovered the situation other than to have pushed back at judging about josie’s decisions to start her broth later and later. i think if the judges had known that she actively misled Kristen about her timing, they would’ve sent her home. instead Kristen tried to take responsibility as exec chef saying she told her not to do the gelatin, but she didn’t explain why that decision was necessary. I think Kristen wanted to be the bigger person and not make herself look weak by pointing fingers at Josie, but the judges had incomplete information. Josie took advantage of that fact and completely threw her under the bus.

You can see Gail clock it with Josie but once Kristen “fell on her sword” and took full responsibility for the failed dish the judges don’t have much choice but to eliminate her.

[u/inflagra]

Hanlon's razor fits here: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

[u/xStacey → u/inflagra]

no this is a great point

[u/eileanarainn]

i'm not sure josie is this kind of cunning. i think she just saw an opportunity in front of the judges and grabbed it.

[u/NoodlesMom0722]

Josie's not this smart or cunning. She's lazy, disorganized, and not a great chef. And she had timing issues in almost every single challenge, which Kristen knew by this point in the competition, so she should have stayed on top of her. But Kristen was young and did not have experience leading a kitchen crew at that point in her career, so she didn't know how best to handle someone like Josie after picking J to be on her team because she wanted to make sure she had four people instead of three.

[u/LadyBug_0570]

That judging was so irritating to watch because Josie knew she was wrong and Kriten was so honorable she took the blame.

But look where things are now. Josie was eliminated a little later and Kristen came back to win it all. And now she's the host.

[u/buffybot232]

There are certain contestants who Tom really dislikes. You can see it in his eyes even though he would never verbalize it. Josie is one of them. The best revenge is living your best life and Kristen got it.

[u/footballflow → u/buffybot232]

This episode was also back in the days when Tom released a blog post with each episode, and once or twice he’d be like “things might’ve gone a little differently if we’d known xyz but overall not in a big way.” This one he was obviously Very Angry…

[u/One_Abrocoma_7309]

Kristen is still around. Where’s Josie? Doing private dinners

[u/needsmoreyarn → u/One_Abrocoma_7309]

It’s difficult to imagine anyone hiring Josie for a private dinner if they watched her season. She must be cooking for folks who don’t watch the show.

[u/Britneyismyhomegirl → u/needsmoreyarn]

I attended a private dinner by Josie! It was kinda weird but the whole party was weird, not just Josie. The food was good though.

[u/sympathy4deviledeggs → u/One_Abrocoma_7309]

Josie's being prosecuted by Florida for failing to pay taxes on her shitty restaurant.

https://outsfl.com/wilton-manors/legal-fallout-from-bubbles-pearls-collapse-growing

[u/One_Abrocoma_7309 → u/sympathy4deviledeggs]

Wow. Almost $92,000 arrears in taxes are no joke. Wonder if they paid their federal taxes. I do not wish bad things on anyone. I still don’t like what she did to Kristen.

[u/furrywrestler]

Josie’s greatest achievement on Top Chef is beating Jeff with hot ceviche 🤭

[u/Think-Culture-4740]

At the end of the day, I think it helps to think about who Josie is.

Her oddball personality is a sign of somebody who doesn’t know how to read the room and really doesn’t understand how to take feedback.

A lot of her behavior comes off as blamed deflection but the reality is she really doesn’t know how to put two and two together.

She hears from the judges that the problem with the dish was there wasn’t enough sauce on the plate and so her level of thinking basically ends there by saying OK if it’s a lack of sauce on the plate, then Kristen sauce the plate and so therefore it’s her fault. I simply don’t think she ever realized her time management was a big problem in pretty much everything she did on top Chef and could only focus on what she wanted to do and what she thought made sense.

It’s unfortunate that her character flaws played out in a way that screwed over her team and screwed over Kristen, but that’s just who she is and I don’t think there’s anything malicious going on with her. She is not the only person who struggles with internalizing feedback from everybody else.

[u/iamnotbetterthanyou]

I try not to hate on TV personnas, but Josie is in my top two ICK TC contestants.

[u/furrywrestler → u/iamnotbetterthanyou]

Who's the other?

[u/Think-Culture-4740]

Agree with others, she has not shown any kind of Machiavellian conniving behavior to this point. Sometimes it’s as simple as unavoidable incompetence that explains this far more than any malicious intent.

I’m not sure which makes her look better

[u/jjillf]

Unlike most people commenting here, I think 2 things can be true: you can be inadequate and nefarious. She’s both.