Oh, spoiler warning by the way, I guess. But, let’s be honest, was there ever any question that Jeff was going to win Food Network’s talent search Next Food Network Star? Vick and Susie had great personalities, but there’s already people on the network with similar perspectives/specialties. Mexican food? Covered. Italian food? Covered. Dude guy? Covered. But funny sandwich guy? They don’t have one of those.

Tonight’s two hour season finale kicked off with a reunion episode that was kind of pointless. I’m not sure why certain networks insist on doing the reunion before the finale. Wouldn’t it be a lot more drama-filled if everyone knew who won? Ah well, there was still a bit of static between Chris and Justin B as well as some between Penny and pretty much everyone. The most surprising was that Mary Beth seemed angry at Jeff for reasons I didn’t quite catch. Mary Beth seemed to get a little more sneaky and bitter as the season went on, which is too bad because I think the perspective of a food writer in the cooking world could make for an interesting show. Maybe like a news show even?

The actual episode kicked off with the three remaining contestants, Vic, Susie and Jeff, cooking their ultimate meal. In a twist unseen before, only the top two would move on to film a pilot for their proposed show. Everyone’s meals seemed to be solid and they all had great stories behind their dishes, so it wound up coming down to the descriptions of the food, which, unfortunately for Vic, he didn’t get to. His story was great, but there was no prep or cooking talk, so he wound up missing the chance to film a pilot.

Both Jeff and Susie had a few stumbling blocks during filming, but wound up doing a pretty great job. Once they were done, they had to face not only the judges, but also a focus group made up of all of the voted off chefs. There were some negative comments, but mostly nice oncs, then it came down to judging and Jeff wound up taking home the victory.

These three contestants pulled ahead pretty early on with big personalities that were fun to watch on TV. Honestly, I’d probably watch any of them on a show and wouldn’t be surprised if they wound up on Food Network or The Cooking Channel. I don’t tend to sit down at regular times with the Food Network outside of their competition shows (Iron Chef America reruns are part of our daily routine at this point), but I would definitely keep an eye out for them. In the end, I think Jeff had the clearest, most unique vision, plus he’s the guy that everyone liked. As I said a few months back when I explained why Penny was playing the wrong kind of game for this show, people want to like their Food Network hosts and no one’s more congenial than Jeff. Congrats to him and I look forward to catching your show when I stumble upon it!