| Season 11 | Episode 5
OK, we're eliminating someone now, right? I mean, after five minutes of previouslies and then the opening credits. I haven't really talked about the credits very much, but I think it's kind of hilarious that just about all the chefs are fighting the robots, except for Susan, who just seems to be watching things blow up around her.
Anyway, when we eventually continue (and rewatch the last few seconds that THEY JUST SHOWED IN THE PREVIOUSLIES A MOMENT AGO), Ramsay tells Jeremy to get his ass up there, for serving up a sample plate, something he's never seen happen before. Jeremy saunters out and owns up to doing something stupid, not that all the evidence to the contrary here has shaken his opinion of himself as a great chef.
Anyway, Ramsay congratulates Blue for winning in spite of Jeremy, and tells them their reward is Ramsay getting rid of him. Which is nice and all, but I'm sure they'd probably rather have a day on the beach.
There are tears shed and apologies made on the Red team, who were at each other's throats when selecting their nominees. Nedra seems particularly shaken, not to mention angry at Amanda for being keen to nominate her, but they hug it out.
And now it's on to prep for tonight's dinner service, and ... OK, I've recapped not just The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and Bachelor Pad and Bachelorettes in Alaska (look it up) but I don't know if I can handle Mary here nattering on in her mouse-squeak voice about her period being three days late. She knows the cameras are on her at all times, right? "I have to pee so bad," she informs everyone. "I can't worry about another bitch's problems," says Nedra, bless her. Mary seems to want to be pregnant, although she doesn't know what that means in terms of the competition. You ... finish it? What is this, the 19th century? She goes into the bathroom, pees on a stick, and comes back out to announce that she is definitely not pregnant, which is met what I will charitably describe as aggressive indifference.
Over in Blue, Dan seems to be the new Jeremy, which Michael (no fan of Dan's already) questioning his food knowledge and experience. Barrett also thinks Dan doesn't know what he's doing, which is backed up by a montage of Dan asking basic kitchen questions.
During a break, Mary wanders into the kitchen where the Blue team is hanging out, and mistakes what looks to be sincerity from Zach over the way she fought elimination for insults, and winds up basically telling the rest of Blue to fuck off. She slams the door to the bedroom, and Nedra eventually comes storming out to tell Blue to lay off Mary. Barret thinks the Red team is cracking. He's pretty cocky for a guy on a team that loses members even when they win challenges.
| Season 11 | Episode 5
Anyway, Nedra goes on a long tirade that is more bleep than uncensored speech, and she's not buying Blue trying to tell her they didn't antagonize anyone. She calls herself Mike Tyson, and Barret makes some punching motions, which until now I believe were used in promos to try to pretend an actual fight broke out at some point.
Back from commercial, we are STILL at break, and I guess I wasn't paying enough attention, because even Voiceover Guy says Blue team was teasing Mary. Zach shrugs off Nedra's threats of violence and says he's not here to make friends with the females, which, mission accomplished.
Eventually this show realizes it might want to get some cooking accomplished, so the teams head back into the kitchens, with dinner service less than an hour away. Ramsay tells them the teams haven't shown the consistency they need, and it's Jean-Philippe and the wait staff who bear the brunt of the kitchen doing a poor job. We hear a sob story from one of the waitresses about how she almost lost her job after a table complained to Jean-Philippe about her, and he reprimanded her until he found out that it was the kitchen's fault. Another waiter had a table walk out on him. Anthony feels bad, but I guess that's because he, unlike me, thinks these things actually happened, and that guests in Hell's Kitchen aren't warned that they risk long delays and sometimes not actually getting their food at all, and that the maitre'd would threaten to fire a waiter over people walking out because they're pissed the food hasn't been finished yet.
Ramsay announces that tonight they give back by supporting the wait staff a little more, and assigns Jessica and Barret to be waiters for their teams. This prompts Barret to spend half an hour getting his Mohawk just right, so it's good to know he's got his priorities in order.
Dinner service starts, with Jessica worried because she's never been a waiter before. Barret has, but apparently he's just as slow getting tickets to the kitchen. And when he does, his chicken scratch is all but illegible. Ramsay snaps at Jean-Philippe to take Barret and himself back to Belgium, and Jean-Philippe is all "thanks" at Barret. I kinda wish Jean-Philippe would give it right back to Ramsay, you know? Ramsay also rips up one of Jessica's tickets for being unreadable. Then it happens again with Barret, and Ramsay warns him that with his mistake he's history. Again, I'm relatively certain Ramsay is happen to exaggerate the problem for dramatic purposes. Barret on his handwriting: "If you want me to write like a bitch, I guess I'll have to write like a bitch." I don't even know what that means, but I do hope he's sent home .
| Season 11 | Episode 5
When the cooking gets underway, a nervous Susan is in charge of appetizers and is ignoring Amanda's instructions about when to walk and not, but things seem to work out and the appetizers start going out. Barret finally gets a readable ticket in to Ramsay, and Blue gets cooking. Well, as well as they ever do. Ray and Dan on fish are completely at a loss as to how many scallops are on the first ticket, with each convinced the other is the problem. And then Ray overcooks the scallops and Ramsay berates him and says "senior moment" at one point. His batch of scallops is good.
Susan, meanwhile, is still running her stuff to the pass without any regard for when Amanda's stuff is ready, and she winds up sending up raw scallops. Like Ray, her batch is fine.
Over in Blue, Dan does seem to be boxing Dan out of the fish station, and Ray charmingly suggests Dan should grab his tampons and join the Red team. He does this in a talking-head, but the two snipe at each other for real too, enough that it draws Ramsay's attention, whose mood isn't improved when Ray cooks the wrong fish for a ticket. And then "Dumber and Dumber," as Ramsay calls them, start bickering again.
And Susan and Amanda are still not communicating properly in Red, and it's Susan's turn to send up undercooked food. Ramsay calls in Jessica to chastise the kitchen for her table's half-hour wait for their appetizers. Jessica gives a half-assed and smiling "Come on, guys," and then gets dressed-down by Ramsay for not taking it seriously enough. He asks her if she wants to leave, and then she gives the team a barely more forceful "Let's go, guys."
But Red moves on to entrees eventually. Meanwhile, Barret is on an apology tour of his tables, who are waiting for their entrees. Ray's halibut, though, doesn't pass muster -- it's dry and overcooked. Anthony, serving up perfect Wellingtons, says he wants to kick them out himself.
Over in Red, Nedra and OH GOD NOW WE HAVE TO LISTEN TO MARY YELL. Sorry. They serve up raw pork, and there follows a blowup with Ramsay not understanding why it's going to take so long to get a proper one on the order. It's the only thing they're waiting on, so Ramsay makes Jessica escort Nedra out to the table to personally apologize for the delay. It's the longest we've ever heard Nedra speak without needing a single bleep, and it was truthfully a little unsettling.
Ray's got some more halibut ready. Wait, did I say "ready"? I meant "raw." Ramsay starts screaming -- "We're going down in flames. Titanic ain't got shit on us," Zach yells at us" -- and then appears to throw the whole sorry lot out of the kitchen. Ray heroically won't let his poor performance prevent him from yelling at his teammates, and then Chef James gives them shit and tells them he can't even look at them anymore.
| Season 11 | Episode 5
Red's not going to have an easy ride, because Ramsay warns them that one more mistake out of them, and he's throwing them all out too. He's doubtful that the order of pork will be good. And you don't need high-definition to see the raw flesh glistening when he cuts into it. He throws out the entire team, and they go to mope in the dorms, where Susan seems to think that Ramsay was just pissed off because of the idiots on the Blue team. Sure! If Blue hadn't been so lousy, Ramsay would have been fine with the raw pork!
Ramsay summons the teams downstairs. They seem to think they're getting a second chance, but Ramsay meets them outside the kitchen to yell at them some more. I imagine it's rather cathartic for him. He screams that he and the sous-chefs are finishing the dinner service, and both teams lost and are terrible and are worse than Hitler and they each need to come up with two nominees for elimination. This doesn't seem to be a difficult decision for either team. Dan and Ray are in separate rooms, with Ray yelling about Dan being a "little bitch" and Dan complaining that Ray wouldn't let him do anything. Dan would appear to prefer that Ray not call him a bitch, and Ray challenges him to do something about it. Well, I'm definitely tuning in after the break, because this show never overpromises and underdelivers on things like this!
Yep, when we come back from commercial, no one's jaw even gets broken. What bullshit.
In the dining room, Red nominates Mary and Nedra for the raw pork, and Blue nominates Dan and Ray for poor performance on the fish station. Ramsay orders all four of them to step forward. Mary says she didn't have any other mistakes other than the mistakes that, you know, sunk the team. Nedra says she can't make excuses, but "I extremely apologize" and says it won't happen again. Ray says he has a lot to give and asks Ramsay not to give up on him. Dan says he's a team player who kept trying to support Ray, and Ray won't let him finish. Nedra decides that if it's interruptin' time, she wants some of that action and starts yelling about how she's going to fight for what she wants. It's about as tedious as you'd expect.
Zach in the back pipes up to blame Dan for not being very helpful, and then complains about Dan at that very moment giving him the finger behind his back, and Zach helpfully demonstrates for Ramsay, who I hope at this point is wondering if this show's obvious policy of finding the biggest shitheads it possibly can is starting to backfire. Zach says the team is sick of the consistently bad attitude.
| Season 11 | Episode 5
It's tough for Ramsay, because they all suck, but he eventually orders Ray to come forward to take off his jacket. Then he does the same for Dan, Nedra and Mary. He says he's about to do something he's never done before. Not that we're going to find out what it is this week. For the second week in a row, we get the dreaded "To Be Continued" screen, a tactic which as far as I can tell only makes viewers of this show less likely to continue watching. I can't imagine that's the desired effect.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Lost in tonight's madness was Anthony consistently cooking perfect Wellingtons. On this show, that's as rare as unicorns. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.