Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 9
Best Ramsay Quote of the Night: "That sounded like a drunk country-western singer."
Best Contestant Quote of the Night: "Stop talking -- you might have a little more energy. Just be quiet for a minute." -- Rock to Bonnie. Of course.
Unbelievable. UN-FLIPPINGBURGER- BELIEVABLE! I'm still not over Julia's send-off last week, and NOW I can't EVEN get long-sought satisfaction from a Bonnie ousting? Ugh. I can't believe I tempted fate in this way, but when I started the show tonight, I hurriedly wrote: "Anyone who didn't see Bonnie going home needs to take off their jacket and give it to me. DONKEY!" Wrong. Sad and wrong. Another week of Bonnie whining and crying and simpering and blonding. I mean, I don't love Jen, but I certainly thought she should've been in the final over Bonnie. This whole episode, I had one mantra: "Get rid of Bonnie. Get rid of Bonnie." But then her voice kept popping into my head whining, "Oh, my God, you guys, people on the Internet thing are soooo mean!" and I can't get rid of her!
Starting the episode off in the usual way, the final three get emotional over Julia. Bonnie sounds like she's crying in her audio, but we only get her back, so I'm thinking it's more of the forced stuff she pulls later. Rock, alone and outside, also cries. Although he tells us he's really sorry to see Julia go, I'm more inclined to believe he's doing more of the same crying he did last week about his loss of control. As to that, he and Jen quickly do a kiss and make-up sort of thing in the opening of the episode.
The morning, the ripped-off Quickfire idea has a ripped-off theme: remake comfort foods, elevating them to a gourmet level. At least they weren't told to de-cholesterol-fy them. Rock has to remake spaghetti and meatballs, Jen is assigned fried chicken, and Bonnie -- with a great deal of complaining, face-pulling, and general acting like one of the things she nannies -- pulls Warren's favorite: franks and beans. Bonnie announces that it's a British dish and that's why she's an ignoramus about it. Since Lia could tell her what not to do, I'll tell you what one of my chef friends suggested when the dish showed up on Top Chef: cassoulet. Of course, it couldn't have been attempted in the low-cholesterol version because if you take out the sausage, butter, pork, goose, bacon, and duck confit, you just have...beans, really. But here, Bonnie could have attempted something along those lines, even without having to confit her own duck. But why am I helping Bonnie? As far as I'm concerned, she can go hang herself with her own franks casing. In a twist, the judges of the day will be THEIR MOTHERS! YOU GET A MOTHER AND YOU GET A MOTHER AND YOU GET A MOTHER! EVERY! BODY! GETS! A MOTHER!
When Jen catches a glimpse of her mother, she bawls outright. And it's not pretty; her crying face almost makes Dawson's look sexy. Other mothered reactions are Rock just grinning and Bonnie -- who wants to be seen as emotionally invested in her relationship with her mother as Jen -- forcing sobs out through totally dry eyes. The contestants wait while the three mothers try all three dishes. None of them knows which kid made what dish, so it's all fair and balanced. Jen's reimagining of fried chicken -- a fried chicken roulade stuffed with crab, goat cheese, and spinach -- wins a lunch out with her mother, Mum Ramsay (who arrived earlier to sort of illustrate the difference between her mac and cheese and her son's version), and Gordon Ramsay (should we be concerned that he looks older than his own mother?), as well as a $1000 shopping spree at a kitchen supply store.
While Jen is off shopping and lunching, Rock and Bonnie have to clean out the dorm room. Bonnie immediately starts whining as she looks at the list of tasks. "I'm really good at making beds," she offers, as if this was a HUGE weight off Rock's mind. Rock is awesome, though; he rolls his eyes and tells her that's peanuts compared to everything else they have to do. We learn that in addition to not doing any ironing, Bonnie also doesn't clean at her nanny job. Fine. Good. Okay. Fuck the nannying job; she's twenty-six years old -- who the hell cleans her apartment? Wait, I don't want to know. She has a cleaning lady, doesn't she? Unless, of course, she's a live-in nanny and in that case, the family clearly has enough money to have their own maid service. At twenty-six, I'd be ashamed if I looked at a list of cleaning tasks that included such Herculean tasks as "toilet" and "bathtub" and "mopping" and offered that I could "Windex things" in addition to being really good at making beds. Gah. And if that wasn't bad enough, Bonnie CANNOT SHUT UP during the entire cleaning process. She whines that she's hungry, tired, has low-energy, etc. In another case of trying to get out of work, she asks Rock if he could throw out some ham and then clean the fridge. Not being blinded by her blonde, Rock just stares at her, like, "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!" and, without saying a word, gets Bonnie to back off, creeling, "OKAAAAY, I'll clean the fridge!" like she's St. Bonniface, Martyr of the Soft Scrub.
The night's service has the contestants taking their turns at the pass, so Ramsay pulls each one of them aside to make sure they know how loud they should scream and how many expletives are required. Bonnie has no problem imitating Ramsay and screaming her little pony-tailed head off at him. He's quite impressed and sends her back to prep. Rock has a little more trouble getting into the role, but gets it in a second go-around. Finally, there's Jen who also starts off weak but after Ramsay tells her to imagine that he's just exploded her golden retriever in the microwave, she pulls out some okay screams. (Side note: in addition to Varria, Jen also kind of looks like a golden retriever. Especially when she hangs her head out of limos in Vegas.) Scott and Mary Ann are filling in the gaps on the line, and the twist is, Ramsay wants the sous chefs to intentionally screw dishes up. Anyone who watched the past seasons should have known this was coming, and any contestant on this show who doesn't watch the past seasons is as dumb as someone who pretends not to know what meatloaf is.
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Jen takes her turn at the pass with Ramsay overseeing her. Things go relatively okay until she almost sends a dish of crab spaghetti out without the crab. Ramsay bellows at her to smarten up, and Jen doesn't make any more mistakes. She even catches an unseasoned and improperly cooked risotto and gets into a brief time argument with Scott. She puts her foot down and Scott backs down. Rock's opinion of Jen's performance is that she's inexperienced and her announcements and directions came out "jumbled." Forewarned by Jen's sabotaged spaghetti, Rock makes sure that Scott's attempt to send monkfish without its prosciutto wrapper doesn't happen. He sends the dish back and berates Scott for not knowing the menu. Bonnie's opinion of Rock's performance is that he was slow and should have been better given his experience. Ramsay seems to agree as he keeps urging Rock to use his fingers and move faster. Finally, Bonnie is up and she catches uncrispy squab and also announces that Jen's risotto is bland and unseasoned. Bonnie tells us, "Jen didn't even taste her food. I'm not sure if she has as good a palate as I thought she did." For some reason, that really pissed me off. I don't know if it was her superior, condescending, "I'm so disappointed in you" tone or what, but I really got overwhelmed with irritation there. Rock's opinion of Bonnie's performance is that she was "all over the place," and she was. We get several scenes of her screwing up orders and correcting herself and telling them to forget what she said. Oh, I know why "Bonnie" and "palate" bugs me -- it's because she supposedly has such a refined one. I swear she's been carrying that success through this competition with her like it's some new badge on her Girl Scout sash.
During Bonnie's time at the pass, Jen admits to having overcooked risotto (Scott tastes and confirms this) and slows down the entire line. However, at the end of the night, Ramsay tells the contestants that this was Hell's Kitchen's best night ever. He sends the three of them back to their dorms to prepare their reasons why they should be among the ones to go to the finals.
There's some hidden "who deserves/wants this more" jousting between Bonnie and Jen, but it's bloodless, and Bonnie professes to want the win just as much as Jen. Back in front of Ramsay, they all give their little speeches (Jen's is so much better than Bonnie's) and finally Ramsay says, "And my decision is, Rock." Rock's gutted. I scream. (And then kick myself for getting too caught up and not predicting this.) Ramsay just called his name to say, "You've got to go... into the final." Rock pulls his head back off his chest, shakes his head and says, "Don't scare me like that." Between Jen and Bonnie, Ramsay elects to keep Bonnie. Ridiculous, whiny, annoying, not-knowing-what-franks-and-beans-are Bonnie. Jen cries, Ramsay hugs and kisses her, tells her she should be very proud of herself, and calls her, "My darling." Forget the Vegas restaurant -- that's the prize I want!
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Rock and Bonnie hug and we get some blue-toned memories of Jen's past moments on the show. Still looking way too studied in her sadness, Bonnie stands to Rock, as Ramsay presents them with more surprises: Bonnie's parents and Rock's gorgeous wife. Rock whispers to his wife, "Think they'll give me a conjugal?" At the very end, Ramsay scares them all by dropping a separator into the dining room, which means, of course: two chefs, two kitchens, one winner.
I bet Julia knows what franks and beans are.
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