Maybe we're just tired. Maybe it's the Paula Deen influence but several of last night's dishes didn't inspire food envy so much as food leeriness. Chicken oysters? Fried mayonnaise? It's no "Millionaire Matchmaker" duck embryo, but still, not really feeling it, thanks.

So Paula Deen shows up for a Southern-cooking deep-fried quick fire.

"If you can eat it, you can fry it," she says. She suggests perhaps some balls of butter, but definitely no calamari, ok, my peaches?

Dale wraps oysters around beef. Antonia considers deep-fried shrimp and avocado salad. Fair enough. But Mike Isabella comes up with something called "chicken oysters" that makes us shudder... and then Blais wants to fry (and deep freeze) mayonaise. What about stopping at fried Oreos?

Turns out "chicken oysters" is a thing, and it's Richard's thing. Mike cribbed it out of Blais's notebook, according to Blais's accusing gaze and Mike's guilty smirk.

Although Paula Deen loves fried mayonnaise, she gives Mike the win over Richard, which must sting. The tension between the two (and Mike's gloating) serves as an undercurrent throughout the episode, as it gets a little "Real World" with hurt feelings, gossip and cold shoulders.

Enter John Besh, who asks for New Orleans-style Elimination Challenge, with assistance from recently-departed All-Stars contenders. Curiously, Marcel is picked second to last, with Angelo chosen dead last by Dale. The reasoning was that as the most recent to leave, his head wouldn't be in the game. Perhaps that wasn't entirely wrong, as shown by the end of the episode.

Richard (+ Fabio) shines during the episode, as does Antonia (+ Spike). Richard gets the idea to pair his crispy snapper with pulled pork and citrus grits, an idea so crazy that it works (and our food envy is back!). Antonia, no slouch herself, enchants the judges with her crab cakes with sausage and jalapeno. Mike Isabella rounds out the top three with a grit-encrusted gulf shrimp. Paula Deen flips over the shrimp but we're hoping karma awards the win to clearly deserving, much-too-nice Richard instead.

Our belief in karmic retribution is momentarily restored: Richard wins! Throughout the season, he's been generous to a fault, doling out advice that people later use to outshine him. We hope such experiences don't turn him sour as Speakeasy believes that it pays to be nice.

In the bottom three this week: Tiffany, who suffered at the hands of Marcel, literally; Dale, who couldn't wrangle his stew or his vegetables; and Carla, who overwhelmed her grouper with hot sauce and mustard. This week's loser: Dale, whose disappointed tears moves our pea-hearts. But as he says, everyone has to go home, except the winner.