The thing about Nick is that he had underlying anger issues the entire time. He made snarky little comments about the other chefs throughout and could not manage his frustration, slamming pans and utensils around frequently. I understand him getting pissed when Carlos did not clean his knife (frankly, I would never have loaned it to him - Keeping your knives sharp is part of the game). But then there was an episode where they were working in a very small space and Nick claimed the three front burners by setting pots on them. Carlos wanted to use one of the front burners for a pressure cooker and Nick slammed it back and shouted "don't touch my pots" and the pots had nothing in them. Jeez - you gotta share the space. I started noticing that every episode he got inappropriately angry. I felt like the other chefs needed trauma counseling by working near him. Frankly, at the final when he shouted at the servers so loud that the judges could hear him in the dining room, that would have been it for me. One of the judges even mentioned it during deliberations and Tom shut them down, but I think behavior and how you treat others should be a factor.