The "Top Chef" finale -- Part I.

Tiffani, Harold, and Dave, the final 3, find out there's a first round that will cut the competition down to the 2. It's an extremely high pressure threefold task, which seems designed to eliminate Dave, whose frazzling under pressure has been highlighted for our amusement all season. And that's exactly what happens.

The chefs must cook for room service at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and have only 30 minutes to do each of the three tasks.

Task #1. They have to make a hot and a cold dish for "high rollers," who -- unbeknownst to them -- turn out to be their most recently eliminated competitors -- Leann, Stephen, and Miguel. Since we know them so well, they're much more fun to watch than the usual judges. They like Harold's food best. (They don't know it's Harold's.) They complain about the lack of caviar. The chefs had access to an endless supply of luxury ingredients, yet no one picked up the caviar.

Task #2. They need to make 4 snacks for the high stakes poker players. Tiffani lets her snootiness get the better of her (again) and sees this as a opportunity to push poker players to new levels of sophistication. But when one of the players says "I need a fork," she's doomed. Dave wins this one -- mainly through spring rolls.

Task #3. The Cirque du Soleil acrobats have to fortify themselves with protein and carbs and not fat, the contestants are told: make 3 dishes for them. That big slab of Kobe beef is high fat, but the acrobats love it. That's Dave's contribution, and he could have won Task #3 with it, but he makes the monumental blunder of only providing 2 dishes, so Harold wins again (with something I can't even remember now). Dave lamely explains that he got confused from all the pressure: "I heard 'two.'"

Obviously, Harold is the best of the finalists, so the question is whether Tiffani or Dave has to go. Tiffani didn't win any of the tasks, but Dave's blunder cannot be ignored. It was an elaborate and well-designed competition that we just watched, but in the end, what mattered was that one mistake. Dave should have just dumped a can of caviar in a bowl to have a third dish.

So now, the drama that is Dave is over, and Part 2 of the finale, next week, will be all about the super-competent, steely cool Tiffani and Harold. We've been edited into love for Harold. But let Tiffani come out next week, with her red hair flaming, and fight like mad for the title.