The episode begins with $100,000 Best Chef competition. Head Chef Jeffrey Barge is in the kitchen with his sous-chef Eliza. Jeffrey is yelling out orders to his staff gets. At the judges panel he begins to loose his vision and collapse.

The CBI team are called in. Another one of the competing Chefs is the daughter of the Senator. The team first talks with the event coordinator Duesterberg. He got into a fight with Jeff over his missing truffles. Jane notices that the victim was poised.

Lisbon orders the team to look into what Jeff may have eaten before the competition and check for ricin poisoning. Cho investigates the other chefs in the competition, trying to see who may have wanted Jeff dead. Cho discovers that Chef Ludo stole Jeff's pricey truffles.

Lisbon and Jane talk interview victim's wife, Abigail. We find out that they were separated at the time of his death. Jeff’s brother, Kevin, interrupts the interview proclaiming Abigail is a liar. Kevin said he has been sober for two weeks. Abigail confesses that she did receive a call from Jeff at 12:30am to apologize, but she hung up on him.

Rigsby and Jane search Jeff's hotel room and it looks like it's been ransacked. Jane points out it was really Jeff who did the destruction when he relapsed. He finds a bottle of gin in the toilet that is poisoned with ricin.

The team gathers the chefs together and Jane first accuses Ludo of spiking the gin. He realizes that the other she Hanna looks relieved so he then accuse her. She confesses that she bought the gin, but denies poisoning it.

Lisbon finds out that Jeff did call his ex-wife, but also made a two hour long call to Eliza. Eliza tells them the call was about the changes Jeff wanted to make in the menu. When the are leaving a masked man comes to steal the restaurants money. They catch the unidentified man and it is Kevin.

Back at the CBI headquarters, Kevin tells Lisbon that his brother was broke and owed money to Horlick.  They also find out that Eliza once tried to make it on her own, but couldn’t get a liquor license. 

Horlick tells the team that it was a big misunderstanding. He knew Jeff had cash because he was staying at the Ritz. The team put together that Jeff was having an affair with a married woman. Jane figures out that it is Julia. When they go to interrogate her, she confesses that she was having an affair. She then asks for some water and collapse and dies.

Lisbon gets a furious call from the attorney general because the Senator’s daughter dies while they are interviewing her. Her husband doesn’t seem too broken up about it and tells them he knew about it.

Lisbon and Jane to to interview Abigail again. Jane puts together that she is with child. Abigail tells them that she told Jeff and that is why they were arguing.  They search her house and find castor beans – which is the source of ricin. The team find out that Julia was also poisoned with ricin in the hot pepper she always used.

At the memorial service, Jane noses around the kitchen, and slips some hot pepper in the soup. Back at the table, Jane watches everyone starts to fan their mouths over the hot soup. At this point, Jane tells everyone that he put Julia’s hot peppers in the soup.

Eliza immediately choking and confesses that she put the poison in the pepper. Jane reassures everyone that he did not use Julia’s peppers. He said this to find out who the murderer was. Eliza admits that she killed both of them because Jeff used Julia’s state connections to have her liquor license denied. She has no remorse.

Abigail confronts Lisbon about the castor beans. Lisbon tells her they did this because they needed the real murderer to think the case was closed. Lisbon also tells Abigail that it looked like Jeff was cleaning up his act to be with her and their unborn child. Once Abigail leaves, it looks like she is about to take a drink herself, but doesn’t.