The final episode left us smiling — for a few reasons.
With a stunning series of sweets, Yigit Pura not just won the Top Chef: Just Desserts crown, but became the first gay Top Chef, period. Yay!
The issue of sexuality was front-and-center in the first season of Top Chef: Just Desserts — and not just because a number of the contestants were gay. Rather, Morgan, the "straight guy," was totally fixated on asserting his straightness from day one — distancing himself from other contestants, declaring that he got along with (the nutjob) Seth because they were "both heterosexual males" and mentioning, on the slightest pretext, his love for women.
The hostility boiled over in the penultimate episode, in which Morgan lashed out at the flamboyant Zac, asserting that, "It's not part of my character to jump up and down and flail and sing show tunes… I would rather remain composed than freak out like a little girl." In last night's episode, he went so far as to describe the departed Zac as "a little fairy."
So while it's unfortunate that anything should boil down to a battle of the sexualities, he kind of took it there. And this was but one reason I and most of the audience was so relieved to see the exacting, sensitive Yigit take the title instead. Yigit mentions, in an earlier episode, that he and his parents had a rough time with his coming-out, and that initially his father felt the kitchen was "no place for a man." But we've also seen glimpses of his perseverance and of his sweet, long-term relationship with the boyfriend he met over a honey-almond croissant in a San Francisco park. (To say nothing of all Bravo's gratuitous beefcake shots.) In talking about his hopes of winning, Yigit mentioned the pride he'd take in being the first openly gay Top Chef. And we're so glad to see him win it — not least because of the inspirational It Gets Better video he made for the Trevor Project: