"I've Been to a Whole Lot of Places, But Afghanistan Wasn't One of Them."
Sunday, July 15, 2007 | posted by Mike
Wow.
We've been covering the JAG Situation for some time now. For the longest time, all we had was conjecture and speculation when it came to the question about how it would be handled. Well, it all went down tonight...on screen.
After hashing out the week's pros and cons for each of the contestants, they came back from the cliffhanger final commercial and kept Rory and JAG, eliminating Amy.
Then came the curve ball.
After a few screens of text explaining the story and stressing that he did not clear up the situation during a press conference, they brought JAG back in for a sit-down with Bob and Susie. JAG came clean about the situation and, emotionally, stepped out of the competition. The judges accepted his resignation and they brought back Amy for the final competition.
It was an amazing thing to watch. Obviously, the story has been getting quite a bit of play here and on some other websites, but I wasn't aware of it making the leap to other large media outlets. For the Food Network to treat the issue with this much seriousness, and for them to respect their audience enough to deal with it in the manner that they did is very, very impressive.
There's no telling how "voluntary" JAG's resignation was, but the fact that it played out the way it did in front of the cameras and the with judges not hesitating to accept the resignation, it was clear that if a resignation wasn't forthcoming, it very well may have been mandated. You have to hope that it was voluntary. JAG spoke about being honorable, a value that is prized among all veterans and particularly among members of the Marine Corps.
There was no good possible ending for JAG. There was no way to save himself after going too far down a path of lies.
Perhaps, though, he gets some semblance of redemption from his final act.
Labels: The Next Food Network Star
