Episode Report Card Keckler: C | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Day 1
By Keckler | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 06.03.2007
The tasting over, Ramsay announces what it means to sit on the right hand of the devil in Hell's Kitchen and thus to forever serve the rich and the damned. The winner will score the head chefship at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Las Vegas, where s/he will get a $250,000 salary and a share in the restaurant's profits. Yeah, none of this one-time-only $100,000 crap for Ramsay! Ramsay then splits the twelve contestants into two teams -- the girls (Red Team) versus the boys (Blue Team) -- and sends them off to bed.
During prep the next day, both teams show signs of failure. For all their earlier proclamations that they will send all the boys home before they'll turn on each other, the girls aren't really communicating, and Aaron the Asian Cowboy can't make ice cream. Before opening the restaurant to the L.A. hordes gathering outside, Ramsay checks in with the two teams. Julia, a waffle house short-order cook, who felt ignored and sidelined during prep, tells Ramsay that she doesn't think the Red Team has their shit together. Her entire team rolls their eyes at this. Next, Aaron starts mysteriously crying. I say "mysteriously" because Ramsay hadn't even yelled, sworn, or thrown anything at him. And also? Aaron was all Johnson's Baby Shampoo about it because there were no tears. It was...odd.
Finally, Jean-Philippe throws open the doors and service begins. Right from the start, the girls/Red Team are screwing up as Ramsay moans that their fried quail eggs are too much like a "plastic silicone implant" and throws them out. Those damn quail eggs end up being the Red Team's downfall as four different contestants try their hand at making them. For some reason, they keep shooing Julia away from the eggs, completely ignoring the logic that if there's one thing a freakin' short-order cook at a waffle house would be really good at, it would be fried eggs. Finally, after much screaming and swearing, Ramsay assigns Julia the fried-egg appetizer and things start looking up for the girls. Of course, it took Julia crying to Ramsay about being ignored by her teammates to secure that task, which didn't endear her to the Red Team, but still, the eggs get fried and appetizers get served.
Over on the Blue Team, Vinnie, a nightclub cook, stupidly laughs after Ramsay slams his overcooked pasta. He tells us he laughed because he doesn't know what "rubbish" means. I'm laughing that someone could really be that stupid and not set themselves on fire more often. Later, Ramsay wildly clutches his head when he discovers that that Vinnie is using water instead of stock in the risotto. Vinnie tries to argues that they ran out of stock, but Ramsay, who samples the risotto water, announces that it tastes like "gnat's piss." Awesome. I mean, I didn't know gnats peed in large enough volumes to allow anyone to sample the flavor, but I defer to Ramsay. Because of the gnat's piss risotto, Vinnie is sent to wash dishes while Brad takes over his station. The boys/Blue Team continue to have problems when Ramsay sends back Aaron's overcooked chicken and admonishes him to wipe his nose because they aren't serving "chicken and snot." Predictably, it doesn't take too long before Aaron gets dizzy and tired and decides to give himself a break. Ramsay shows surprising gentleness as he coaxes a crying Aaron back into the kitchen.