| Season 6 | Episode 2
Welcome to part two of the Hell's Kitchen premiere, which is clearly just a second episode shown immediately after the first one! One way you can tell is this "Previously on Hell's Kitchen" segment, which I am absolutely not going to recap, having just now finished recapping that very episode.
Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 64
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 43
Bleeps I Missed Because There Were So Many: Probably about ten
Robert kicks things off by shouting "Fat guy wit' a dream is back!" I saw him in commercials for this season, but I was hoping it was reused footage or something. Actually, I already dislike a lot of this year's crop, so Robert might be one of my favorites at this point.
Dave moans a bit about Robert, and I just realized who Dave looks like. Rich Hall! Anyone? Sniglets? Aw, forget it. Robert is helpful to the red team because he knows most of the menu and when to use the convection oven and all that. I could see that being helpful.
To signify that the night is over, we get a nice big shot of a half-moon. Yes! My pleas have been answered!
The morning, the chefs line up in the kitchen to get insulted by Chef Ramsay. When that's over, the challenge will involve shrimp. Each chef will behead, shell, and remove the [bleep] sac from shrimps "to Chef Ramsay's exacting specifications. Joseph is contemptuous, because this is something any entry-level chef can do. Well, let's get started. It sure would be a shock if it all came down to the final two chefs.
Lovely will be sitting out for the red team because there's one more person on that team. Chef Ramsay brings out a tub of shrimp, and then there's a pointless spot where more shrimp rain from the sky. And it's time to disassemble some shrimp!
Tennille is working on three at a time. Lovely counsels that the women take their time and is getting on Van's nerves. The men think the women don't know what they're doing, and vice versa. Time runs out. Look, it's hard to describe a bunch of people beheading shrimp, okay?
Sabrina is first, and she's got seven successful shrimp. Amanda has nine. Tek has seven and Ariel has six, so the red team is at 29. Tennille has never worked with whole prawns and appears to have missed the sacs on all but one. Robert makes fun of her glasses. Suzanne gets them up to forty. That's ten for Suzanne! Robert claims his shrimp are "mad clean" but has only four. That's 44 for the red team.
| Season 6 | Episode 2
Blue! Andy has seven, and Van (a fish cook!) has nine. Tony has another nine, bringing them to 25. Joseph has only five. Dave, who I'm surprised is still wearing his cap in the kitchen, has four. Kevin says his shrimp are perfect, and they are. Up to 43. We're down to Jim, and he only needs two. It came down to the last chef? Shocking. His first shrimp is okay, but it comes down to his last one. Shocking. Anyway, the blue team wins. Tony exults: "Right. On. We are the [bleep]. For now." Yes, always be sure to keep your trash talking reasonable.
Chef Ramsay harasses Tennille a little about her shrimp, and she cries in an interview. The red team's punishment is to prepare a whole lot of "amazing shrimp cocktails". Ariel complains that she does not like shrimp. It's the little leggies, isn't it? Oh, and they'll be segmenting lemons and taking out the seeds. Meanwhile, the men are heading out to Newport Harbor and eating on a hundred-foot megayacht. Yes, megayacht. That would make good Sci-Fi Original Movie. Excuse me, I mean "SyFy Original Movie". I hope their new name doesn't mean they're going to stop making terrible CGI monster movies!
The red team is removing seeds from lemons and complaining about how much work it is. The men walk through whooping up a storm. Robert tries to take a break, but Tennille insists that everyone keep deseeding the lemons. Tempers are running high, and Lovely is wondering about lunch.
The blue team sits down to lunch with Gordon Ramsay, who assures them that every service makes them stronger, and that he got yelled at a lot when he was coming up. Joseph doesn't care. He interviews that this isn't teaching him anything. "What gets accomplished by running your mouth? Not a thing." And he says pretty much that to Gordon! "I didn't come here for lunches. All this, y'know, it's not what I'm here for. I'm not gonna lose my eye on the prize." Dave claims that everyone's fired up, although I have to say that Dave has not yet looked even remotely "fired up" about anything. Joseph insists that he cares so little about the lunch because he's so awesome. Then the megayacht shows up with Jean-Philippe on it. Gordon leaves the blue team to it.
On the megayacht, the guys are sitting around marveling at the fact that they just had lunch with Gordon Ramsay. Except for Joseph, who is openly dismissive. Back in the kitchen, Suzanne is harassing Tennille about not doing a good job on the shrimp. Tennille interviews, "You can clean shrimp. Good for you. You're not even a good person." Well, yeah, but the challenge was about the shrimp, right? Not the contents of her character? As they're sniping at each other, the blue team strolls back in talking trash.
| Season 6 | Episode 2
Another half-moon! Moon continuity! Hooray!
The morning, the teams are doing prep. Robert is acting as the red team's leader, because he does, in fact, have some idea what each of the stations is going to need. I could do without him calling his teammates "my girls", since several of them are older than him, but aside from that, he's helping. And they're sensible enough to do what they're told. On the blue side, Kevin shoves Tony out of the way and cuts some grapefruit for him to show him how it's done. As Tony's getting snitty about this, Chef Ramsay tells him he should be cutting the grapefruit over a bowl to save the juice. Ramsay complains about the grapefruits and calls Tony "speccy", as Joseph looks on contemptuously.
The teams are lined up for a pre-service pep talk. Gordon reminds them that "to add a little bit of ... magic to the dining room, we'll be serving scampi tableside." Van is assigned to customer-charming duties, presumably on the strength of his accent. He interviews, "I don't have any experience in the front of the house, but I have charisma! I have charisma! And that's what's gonna get me through this service tonight." I think he's trying to psyche himself up for this. Good luck! On the red team, Tennille is working table-side, and she is mopey about it.
Everyone's ready to go, but Tony is still slicing grapefruits. And they're not over a bowl. Horrors! The waste! Noooo! So Chef Ramsay threatens to kick Tony out and puts the Fear of Ramsay into him.
Open Hell's Kitchen!
Van asks Chef Ramsay for a rag and gets shouted at. He learns his lesson and resolves to stop asking him for things. Problem solved!
The tableside people (Van and Tennille) will be trying to coordinate their stuff with the appetizers coming out of the kitchen. That sounds difficult, since the chances of appetizers actually showing up at all are kind of low. Tennille explains that she doesn't know what voice she should use and demonstrates both "sexy" and "white boy". She claims to one table that she's a Whoopi Goldberg impersonator. That would make sense if I had mentioned that she's a black woman with dreadlocks. Oh well!
The first scallop order comes in for the blue team, and Tony immediately cooks them and brings them to the pass. Problem: he's supposed to do that in sync with several other members of the team so that the garnish and pasta are ready at the same time. Bad Tony! Start over! Tony interviews that he has to think positive, and he's starting to look like Rick Moranis. I think in Spaceballs. Or possibly the early part of Ghostbusters.
| Season 6 | Episode 2
Meanwhile, Lovely is cooking her scallops on someone else's burner. Why? Because the gas is off on hers, apparently. Nice job. Her excuse is "Tek told me it was on." That might not fly. [Clearly, Lovely didn't pay attention to the videos they were shown at the beginning of the season. -- Angel]
Blue team has some appetizers ready to go, so Van starts the scampi machine (or whatever). But! The scallops are cold in the middle. Ramsay tells Tony that he should have better vision than anyone "with those four eyes you've got". Seriously? Jokes about glasses? Anyway, Tony has to go out to Van and tell him he [bleep]ed up. Right in front of the customers, you talk like that? Van tells him to get going. He seems vexed. Kevin takes over the fish station and seems to do a good job.
Red side! Robert's on risotto and messes up a couple different ways. He has some strained analogy about having sex at the prom, but I'm going to skip it. Tennille interviews that she realized that he's not the savior. "He's no different from any of us! All he is, is bigger and talk more!" Robert sets his pan on fire and gets shouted at.
Out in the dining room, Jean-Philippe is trying to give Van some tips, but he's too tense to listen. Van goes to the wrong table and gets yelled at by Ramsay from inside the kitchen. The customers seem to enjoy Van telling them "I'm going to go get yelled at right now. I'll be right back." JP claims he can't understand Texas English.
Tennille meanwhile has some slightly undercooked shrimp, which is a bigger deal than usual because her customer is pregnant. Her team is unhappy about redoing the appetizers. Van, meanwhile, is being charming. He's also dropping pans of shrimp on the floor, which means that he has to run back to the kitchen for a new pan. The running makes JP furious, and he stops Van by putting his hand to Van's chest and shouting at him. Van takes exception to this and flips over from laughing at JP to being legitimately angry at being pushed. Chef Ramsay drags them both into a back room to find out what's going on. JP explains that Van is not respecting the dining room. Van in an interview: "Bitch, shut the [bleep] up. He thinks he's some kind of boss man around here. He ain't nuttin'." Chef Ramsay just tells them both to do their jobs and ignores the argument. When they leave, Van goes first and JP mutters "Ladies first." I mention that because I think it lends balance to Van calling him a bitch.
Tennille comes into the red side to announce that she's backed up six tables. Ramsay tells her she's sunk her team.
| Season 6 | Episode 2
On the blue side, entrees are leaving the kitchen. Gasp! But after Andy slices some chicken, he discovers that it's raw. He tries cooking the pieces, but he's caught at it and called a donkey. Joseph interviews that the reason the chefs have meat thermometers on their arms is so they can check the chicken before cutting it. He makes a valid point.
Red side. Chicken is late and not ready. Sabrina and Suzanne are shouting at each other over who gets to announce when the chicken is ready. Robert's standing between them and trying his best to ignore both of them. Sabrina brings up the chicken over Suzanne's protests that it's raw. And it is, indeed, raw.
On the blue side, Tony is harassed into providing some halibut promptly and is caught not seasoning it. His excuse? "I always season it. I didn't season it, though." Nice job. Kevin leans over Tony's shoulder and seasons the fish for him. Chef Ramsay asks who's cooking the fish, and Kevin announces that he's taken this dish over.
Lovely has some sea bass that Chef Ramsay describes as "raw, translucent, and pink." She interviews that it wasn't raw, but I don't think she quite understands that to Chef Ramsay, "raw" covers any state of cooking short of perfect. Anything past perfect is "burnt". Her refired sea bass is, indeed, burnt.
On the blue side, Kevin's fish is raw. Now everyone wants to cook the fish to prove how great they are. Joseph starts shouting at everyone, but it's not like he's being productive either. The red team has a burnt chicken. Gordon claims he's "going to do something I've never done before in Hell's Kitchen." He assigns everyone to just make shrimp cocktails, since at least they don't require cooking. The customers get yummy shrimp! Yay! And then both the kitchens get shut down.
Postmortem. Chef Ramsay acts shocked that the second night was worse than the first one. "One team better than the other? Piss off!" Each team is instructed to come up with two names for elimination.
Tennille tells her team that she did a fantastic job and that she doesn't feel comfortable nominating anyone since she wasn't in the kitchen. On the blue side, Tony admits that he should be one of the nominees. Lovely claims that there was nothing wrong with the fish that Ramsay rejected. The entire red team fixates on Tennille serving a "raw shrimp" to a pregnant lady. So, for example, Lovely claims that nothing she did could have been all that bad because Tennille was trying to poison an unborn baby. Or something. Suzanne tells Sabrina that she warned her about the raw chicken, which Sabrina thinks is "being a know-it-all". Meanwhile, Van is enraged at Jim's suggestion that he should be nominated for almost punching JP in the face. His answer? "I'll punch you in the face! Suck my [bleep] [bleep]! Stop [bleep] lookin' at me like that! You're about to get [bleep] up, bro!"
| Season 6 | Episode 2
Van goes for a walk, which is probably a good idea at this point.
Dining room. Seething chefs! Ariel's first nominee for the red team is Tennille for "serving raw shrimp to a pregnant lady". Second is Lovely for "overall performance and experience". Chef Ramsay asks Joseph who the nominees are. His response? "They can speak for themselves, but they know who they are." Chef Ramsay doesn't care for that. "Hey, smartarse. I asked you to tell me. Who's the first nominee, and why?"
Joseph nods. "No problem. Tony. And Andy." Chef Ramsay doesn't care for his attitude. "Listen. I know you may be slightly stupid" -- at this point, Joseph has the Crazy Eyes -- "First nominee, and why." "First nominee and why? Tony. He knows why. We sat down as a group. Everyone picked each other. No peer pressure. We're men!"
Gordon stops him. "Just, just ,just. What do you want, a medal?" Joseph is getting angry. "What do you want me to [bleep] say? What do you want me to say? They now who they [bleep] are! We chose as a group and they stood out and they said they belong there." See, I think Gordon's hoping for something more along the lines of "couldn't cook fish". Joseph's still blathering on. "They stand up, they know who they are." He folds his arms to give the thing a sense of finality.
Gordon walks forward (out of his light!). "Listen, you idiot. I asked for one nominee and why. Plain English. And you're mouthing off and you couldn't answer me. Now can you just tell me, in [bleep] plain English, the first nominee and why he's nominated. Is that [bleep] clear?" It appears to be clear. Gordon goes back to his light and complains that Joseph can't answer a simple question. Joseph takes this opportunity to declare, "I ain't no [bleep] bitch, chef. I don't give a [bleep]. I ain't no bitch." Gordon speaks for everyone when he says, "What?!" Incidentally, Tony and Andy have to be feeling pretty relieved at this point, because Joseph appears determined to deflect attention from them. Joseph attempts to clarify his statement by clearly enunciating the words "I'm not no bitch."
The other chefs can't hold back anymore. Robert tells him Chef Ramsay is trying to bring the best out of him and he should look past this. Suzanne (I think) tells him to show some respect, and Joseph tells hr to shut her [bleep] mouth. It's definitely Suzanne who asks Joseph if he wants to be an executive chef and gets told (possibly for the second time) to shut her [bleep] mouth. Chef Ramsay is legitimately appalled. He tells Joseph to "answer the [bleep] question". Joseph tells Gordon that if he keeps talking like this "out in the [bleep] parking lot there will be trouble.
| Season 6 | Episode 2
Chef Ramsay tells Joseph that he asks the [bleep] questions, and that Joseph gives the [bleep] answers. "[bleep] that [bleep], dog," answers Joseph as he takes his chef's jacket off, walks up to get in Gordon's face, and says "Let's go step outside, mother[bleep]!"
To be continued. Whee?
You can email Monty at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.