1. Ted Allen wears an impeccable suit.
2. Ted Allen also has on a pair of glasses that make him look...intriguingly handsome.
3. Screw it, you're really attracted to Ted Allen.
4. The four contestants are introduced, and all of them have a chip on their shoulder.
5. One contestant always has a horrible temper.
6. Another contestant always has weird piercings and/or tattoos.
7. And yet another contestant seems like everyone's crazy aunt who drinks too much at holidays.
8. Each contestant tells you how they'll spend the $10,000 and suddenly you want $10,000.
9. Ted Allen introduces the rules of the show and that intense elevator music plays.
10. You see the first shot of the pantry and you wish your kitchen looked half as good as that.
11. You'll also see the judges for the first time, and you hope one is Geoffrey Zakarian, because he is a bona fide silver fox.
12. If you get Zakarian AND Aarón Sánchez, you feel very, VERY blessed.
13. You also will probably confuse Alex Guarnaschelli and Amanda Freitag if you're not careful.
14. Contestants open the baskets for the first time. Opening the baskets is the most suspenseful five seconds in all of television.
15. Most of the secret ingredients will be normal, but inevitably there is a wild card like "goose tongue" or "powdered strawberry seed" or "non-alcoholic vodka" that makes you scratch your head.
16. You wonder how contestants can make an appetizer in 20 minutes when you can't even make a bowl of oatmeal in that time period.
17. The contestants start giving this elaborate backstory as to why they're making the dish they're about to make, like an appetizer needs a five-paragraph essay to justify its existence.
18. The contestants ALSO start telling you their entire life story like it has anything to do with the fact they're about to burn the appetizer.
19. Someone burns the appetizer.
20. One contestant won't know what one of the ingredients is so they have to taste it.
21. Watching the countdown clock will make you sweat.
22. Also, a contestant will cut their finger and you'll be like, "DON'T BLEED INTO THE FOOD!"
23. The judges will analyze the chefs' cooking style like they're on SportsCenter.
24. One of the contestants will BARELY finish plating their ingredients before time runs out.
25. Contestants will take a huge step away from their plate and wave their hands in the air when time runs out as if it isn't abundantly clear they've stopped working on their food.
26. When the judges taste the food, they'll first compliment it, and then in a WILD twist they'll complain about something weird like "it was too alkaline" and you won't really know what they mean.
27. The most disgusting-looking dish will actually not be the most disgusting-tasting dish.
28. The contestants will exit to the breakout room and pretend like they all don't want to kill one another.
29. Ted will ask the judges about all the dishes and all of them will give really opaque answers, so you can't tell if they really like it or not.
30. The contestants will come back in, and just as Ted lifts the lid to reveal who is being chopped, YOU CUT TO COMMERCIAL BREAK.
31. Then you get back from break, and figure out who gets chopped first. Everyone talks about how they don't want to get chopped first, because that's HELLA embarrassing.
32. The first contestant chopped has to thank the judges for the opportunity and then awkwardly exit down that grim hallway.
33. Contestants open their baskets for the main course. Yet again, there is a random ingredient (probably a vegetable, or it could be some random animal body part) that you've NEVER heard of before.
34. You wonder again how someone can cook an entire main course in 30 minutes.
35. You also wonder if you can get one of those cool gray uniforms for when you microwave ramen at home.
36. One of the judges says the phrase "flavor profile" way, WAY too many times over the course of the episode.
37. One of the contestants forgets an ingredient during the main course.
38. Somehow someone is able to plate four dishes in 10 seconds and your heart is racing the entire time.
39. At least one contestant always prepares a dish with a little side dish like a shot glass of pickle water like they're fancy schmancy or something.
40. Once again, just as Ted lifts the lid to the chopped dish, the show cuts to commercial break.
41. No matter how many times you've watched Chopped, you think at some point they're going to reveal who gets chopped BEFORE the commercial break.
42. Remarkably, the contestant who forgot an ingredient or royally messed up NEVER gets eliminated.
43. Finally it's the dessert round, and honestly you're exhausted from watching so much cooking on television.
44. Ted makes the two competitors stare each other down before the dessert round and TBH they look like they might kill each other.
45. Also, one final contestant is always WAY taller than the other. There's always a weird height difference!
46. One contestant sprints to the kitchen, like running the 10 feet instead of walking it will make a difference in the end.
47. Somehow one contestant will, like, try to bake something completely or make homemade ice cream in three minutes like it's possible.
48. So something is *ALWAYS* undercooked in the dessert round.
49. The dessert round wraps up and your stomach growls because you're so hungry.
50. The title card with the chopping knife crosses your screen for the last time and you wonder why your TV has to be so bright yellow.
51. The judges will note a detail that you would never even THINK of, like the fact that a chef "salted the phyllo."
52. The final contestant is eliminated. The judges go over each dish, and you realize how much cooking you just watched on TV.
53. The last contestant eliminated talks about how amazing the experience was, and then they walk down that grim hallway.
54. That random slidey door with the knife on it closes...even though no one actually walks through it.
55. The winning contestant tells you how incredible it feels to have won Chopped
56. Meanwhile you're on your couch in your sweats watching the show.
57. Inevitably there's another episode of Chopped on after, so you HAVE to watch it.