Last Night's TV: Top Chef, Arrow, Empire, and More (SPOILERS!)

VIEW IN BROWSER THIS ISSUE: Top Chef, Arrow, Empire, Survivor, The Challenge TOP MOMENT OF THE NIGHT Sharpen Your Knives Bravo BECAUSE: And they're back! Top Chef returned for its 13th season on Wednesday night, and it's in California for the first time since season 1. Though all 17 new chefs are stone-cold professionals -- nearly everyone is an executive chef, and with a handful for James Beard Awards, to boot -- no amount of unique body art or rockabilly fashion helps to distinguish between this giant crowd. Luckily, Tom, Padma, and Gail are back to do the dirty elimination work for us. READ OUR RECAP Arrow The CW WHAT HAPPENED: Flarrow is back and it's feeling paternal. Wait -- what? That's right, in Part 2 of the Flash/Arrow crossover set, Oliver finds out he's definitely the father of a son he didn't know existed. And when Felicity finds out without Ollie telling her directly she takes it as a sign that he'll never truly trust her and seems to break their relationship off for good. Oh, you thought that was heartbreaking? WELL GET READY. Because we've yet to mention how everyone straight-up dies in this episode. The Flarrow crew's plan doesn't quite pan out when they face off with Savage and his magic Egyptian staff turns everyone but Barry (who, y'know, runs-Barry-runs) to magic Egyptian dust. Luckily, Barry runs straight into the past where he fixes everything, and we've all got out fingers crossed for no butterfly effect! WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: And when we say fixes everything, we mean everything: Cisco realizes he needs to help Kendra (a special shoutout to Carlos Valdes for his MVP Flarrow performance), Hawkgirl is finally able to access her fierce priestess memories, Oliver avoids the DNA test that tipped Felicity off to Ollie Jr., and Barry grabs a bit of meteor dust to gain control of the magic staff in the final fight. There's, uh, a lot going on here. Yahoo TV says, "There are so many people talking over each other, it's almost Gilmore Girls, and there's so much mysticism, there was a slight possibility of the show turning into a Constantine reboot." But Yahoo also reminds us that at its core, the science fiction genre isn't just about time travel or meteor dust -- it "creates a hypothetical world and then shows how humans react." And Oliver proves that on all timelines (the ones where they die and the ones where they live), he will remain a keeper of secrets. READ OUR RECAP Empire Fox WHAT HAPPENED: Mimi the Usurper would be a pretty badass rap name. And, hey, it wouldn't be too hard to launch a rap career now that Mimi is the chairman and CEO of Empire Records. Mimi ousts Lucious with the help of her apparent wife, Naomi-Campbell-we-mean-Camilla, and Camilla's sultry persuasion of Hakeem; so naturally, Lucious shoots up his own home, "[helping] push the WTF midseason finale into official WIHTTS territory" (that's EW recapper Melissa Maerz's new Empire acronym for What Is Happening To This Show?). Thanks goodness Cookie arrives in time to talk him down, but it seems that even she could not have saved poor Rhonda, who makes the boo boo move of buddying up with Boo Boo Kitty. It's not 100 percent clear if it's Anika who does the pushing, but the midseason finale ends with a shot of Rhonda -- and her unborn child -- being shoved down a brutal flight of stairs. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: Y'all. Even for Empire, that one was a doozy... and Vulture was loving it: "This might be a controversial opinion, but 'Et Tu, Brute?' is what Empire should be: a nighttime soap of the highest order ... Someone was pushed down the stairs, we saw a dramatic board meeting, and they even held a fictional award show. Plus, we came back to the show's central struggle -- who will control Empire?" We got an answer on that last one for now: Mimi and her main fur-clad squeeze, Camilla. Everything else remains up in the air, mainly, what's to come of Rhonda when season 2 returns? Showrunner Ilene Chaiken gave a sliver of hope to TV Line: "I want you to come back hoping Rhonda is alive -- and thinking that she could be." But keep in mind -- that's an evil mastermind of Cookie-proportions talking. READ OUR RECAP Survivor CBS WHAT HAPPENED: Oh how the mighty have fallen. Lit'rally. Golden boy Joe was well on his way to winning his fifth immunity challenge when he took a frightening tumble after passing out. EW recapper Dalton Ross is quick to point out that it's easy to forget how tough the Survivor contestants have it out there when we're at home pounding Chili Cheese Fritos on the couch. Hence, the doc telling Joe that he depleted all of his energy stores while staring up the 16-foot pole that he was balancing a statue on top of for an hour and 20 minutes. Sure, makes sense. But it also makes sense then, that the lack of immunity necklace -- of which there were two, won by Kelley and Keith -- signaled the group's chance to get rid of the boy wonder. There was brief talk of Abi Maria, but no one seems to be able to resist the idea of taking the easy ticket to MillionDollarsville to the finals with them. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: Goodness us, we were so caught up in Mighty Joe's dramatic moment, we totally forgot that Wednesday was the heartstring-pulling Loved Ones episode -- and we weren't the only ones. The A.V. Club said their enjoyment of "the episode that promos built" was lessened significantly as a result of CBS building such a sense of dread about the episode's mysterious injury: "It's a tricky situation because there's not much the show can do about how the network chooses to promote it, yet those outside extra-textual elements can certainly play a part in how the show itself is consumed by audiences." Hopefully a second watch will reveal that adorable moment when Jeremy finds out from his beloved wife Val that they're having a baby boy. We could pass out from all the cuteness. (Too soon -- sorry, Joe.) READ OUR RECAP One More Thing... Blood is Thicker than Blue Liquor MTV PROUD PARENTS: The Challenge is back for its 27th -- 27! -- season and you know what that means: Johnny Bananas' toasts with mysterious liquors, titillating closed captioning ("[pants dropping]"), and plenty o' drama. And count on the drama being at its most heightened this season -- because the Challenge vets have each brought along a family member to compete alongside. Keep it in the family, folks. READ OUR RECAP Also Check Out... Recommended by Copyright © 2015 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved. WANT MORE? To subscribe to any of EW.com's email products, please click here. PRIVACY POLICY Please click here for our privacy policy. For further communication, please click here Your California Privacy Rights Entertainment Weekly Customer Service ATTENTION: CONSUMER AFFAIRS 3000 University Center Drive Tampa, FL 33612-6408 You are receiving this email because you are a friend of Entertainment Weekly. 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