Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 20
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 32, mostly Jen-related
Contestant Quote of the Night: Nothing really jumped out at me, so let's just say it was that time Jen called Corey "a manipulative-ass bitch". That's about how classy the show was this week.
Last week: Matt and Ben got on each other's nerves. And everyone else's. The red team won the tasting challenge. Rosann and Petrozza got yelled at, and then Jen got kind of sulky. Ben got yelled at a lot. Matt apparently made some good risotto. Ben got tossed. Chef Ramsay asked for a volunteer to go from the red team to the blue team to even them out at four people apiece, and Matt made it clear that it wasn't going to be him.
This week: the following!
Back in the dorms, the remaining members of the blue team (Bobby, Petrozza, and Louross) talk without saying much. And on the red side, Corey and Rosann try to convince Jen to volunteer (while Christina and Matt are nowhere to be seen). Corey tries to frame it as a way for Jen to prove to herself that... something. Maybe she's not proving anything specific. Maybe she's just proving things in general. In an interview, Jen expresses the opinion that Corey is "a manipulative-ass bitch." I hope I've got that hyphen in the right place. It's possible that she was calling Corey "a manipulative ass-bitch."
With the teams lined up back down in the kitchen, Chef Ramsay asks for volunteers from the red team. No one steps forward at first, but then Jen takes the bullet. Figuratively. She tries to convince Gordon (and herself) that she's trying to feel out the competition and see who's strong and who's not. Again, I feel compelled to point out that it doesn't matter. Just don't serve up raw food and you'll probably do okay.
Jen gets a new jacket and goes over to stand to the blue team. And it's time for the challenge! There are twenty things in each kitchen, and the chefs have to improvise up some dishes. That's four dishes per team, and all twenty items must be used. And no repeating dishes! So the first step is for the chefs to divide up the ingredients. We see Matt snacking on something, which I guess makes sense. You want to know what it all tastes like, right? And it looks like the giant crab might be alive, because it comes scuttling off the plate. Yikes!
The red team starts with a list of each ingredient and appears to be keeping track of things carefully. Meanwhile, the blue team is mostly standing around hypothesizing. Louross interviews that Jen was just claiming everything, but we don't see anyone but her talking. You'd think Louross could say "No, I want these five ingredients here, and now I'm going to go over there and make a dish out of them" if he felt so strongly about needing something. Ten minutes in, the red team is cooking and the blue team is still dividing things up. And then Matt cuts off the tip of his finger. Corey interviews that it was about a half inch of his finger. It looks pretty bad. And the medical personnel gets a second camera appearance.
The remaining members of the red team try to rally, figuring that they just have to cook the fourth dish between them. Chef Ramsay returns, asking where the fingertip is, and nobody knows. Bum bum bummmm! It's not on the floor (which is where I thought it was). It's not on the counter. Is it in the pan, cooking up with the pancetta? Rosann hopes not. We get a close-up of the pan, and none of the cubes of pancetta look particularly like a fingertip. The customized commercial bumper involves someone slicing mushrooms, although it does not end with them cutting off their finger and the blood spray forming a pitchfork. Talk about a missed opportunity.
You may be interested to know that I do not, in fact, think I can dance.
Back from commercial, I think it looks like Matt grabs the fingertip in a towel. He might just be flailing around in pain, though. I don't think I'd blame him. Strangely, we're not focusing on that; instead, we're supposed to be noticing that the red kitchen is talking to each other and the blue kitchen isn't. Really? Haven't we talked enough about how much Chef Ramsay likes communication in a kitchen? I guess not. Sous chef Scott reminds them that there's no doubling up on ingredients, which means that the preserved lemons and onions are going to have to come out of at least one dish.
Bobby interviews, "Everybody broke down and everybody was just fending for themselves. You know, we're like a wild pack of dogs." Okay, first of all, Bobby, you weren't talking to anyone either. Second, a wild pack of dogs has excellent communication and generally works very well together. At least, that's what Cesar Millan is always saying.
Matt roars out of the back room and puts on a glove. He's ready to go! He's so ready to go that Chef Ramsay kind of signals to him that it's okay to pull back a bit. Matt interviews that he's in a great deal of pain but does not want to lose. Fair enough. On the blue team, with ten minutes left, they don't have a plan for the veal. Bobby apparently had it, but he doesn't think it'll go well with his chicken. Louross mentions that he has red snapper (Wheel! Of! Fish!), which Jen thinks should combine for a surf and turf. In an interview, Louross doesn't like surf and turf, but he seems to go ahead and do it.
Panicking! Plating! Counting down! Go! Go! STOP! For the first time, we don't see people putting lids on just as the timer reaches zero; Bobby and Louross are still back in the kitchen. And Chef Ramsay orders them to serve what they have plated. The camera grabs a shot of unplated veal.
Jen asks Louross about the veal, "Why didn't you put it, like, right in the center of two pieces of fish?" That's where being a line cook pays off: you don't spend all that time obsessing on the perfect placement. Put the food on the plate and get it to the window! Louross doesn't have much of an answer for her, either. He just hems and haws and finally says he doesn't know. Then he interviews that putting veal to his precious red snapper would have ruined everything.
Standing behind the dishes, Jen mutters to Louross to say that he rendered the veal in the sauce. That sounds pretty sketchy to me, even if it were true. And Louross doesn't appear to want to lie.
When Chef Ramsay asks if the teams used their time wisely and if they used all twenty items, we see the red team answering "Yes, chef!" to the first one. Then we hear them say "Yes, chef!" while we see Jen and Louross not answering. I'm not sure I entirely believe that they just stood there sourfaced while everyone else was enthusiastically answering. That's the sort of thing Ramsay notices.
Anyway, first dish: Christina vs. Petrozza. Christina made a fried crab meat and snapper in hollandaise. She used five ingredients and we are told that it is tasty. Ramsay likes the idea of using the eggs in a hollandaise. Petrozza has made a warm crab salad with an onion soufflé. Really? That sounds weird. But it apparently came off. They're both declared winners, so it's 1-1. Then they're told to piss off, but this isn't the angry "Piss off, will you?" It's just how Gordon says "Go away now."
Second dish: Jen and Matt. Jen made a pancetta-wrapped roasted quail using four ingredients. Matt did a pan-roasted quail on top of arugula using six ingredients. Chef Ramsay feels that Matt's quail tastes weird because the liver has tainted the flavor. Jen wins, so it's 2-1 blue.
Third: Corey and Bobby. Corey made a Columbian sour lemon chicken with braised artichokes (three ingredients). Chef Ramsay declares it to be "tasty, but a bit of a disappointment." Bobby made a walnut-encrusted buffalo-mozzarella chicken with a balsamic glaze, and I think he would have kept talking if Chef Ramsay hadn't cut him off. There are six ingredients included, and I note that this is not the first time that Bobby's gone to the buffalo chicken well. The glaze is deemed "horrendous", and Corey wins. 2-2.
Fourth: Rosann vs. Louross. Rosann has a pan-seared veal (bone-in) with a cream sauce, garlic, onion, watercress, and oven-roasted potatoes. "Six ingredients" says Chef Ramsay, which does indeed make twenty. Chef Ramsay thinks it looks bad with the bone in. Louross did red snapper with oyster mushroom sauce and preserved lemon. And then he keeps talking, trying to decide if he's going to claim to have used the veal. He ends up not doing so (good for him!) and Ramsay likes the dish. Louross cops to only using four items (Jen: "Stupid ass." What's with all the ass talk?) and Chef Ramsay demands to know where the veal is.
Jen immediately sells out Louross, saying that the veal was supposed to be on his plate, "and at the last minute, he didn't put it on." Louross: "[bleep]". Chef Ramsay: "What did I say? It is the Twenty Item Challenge." Jen: "Yes you did, chef." Not sure I approve of the sucking up right there. Who's the manipulative ass-bitch now?
Anyway, Chef Ramsay is theatrically appalled and declares the blue team the losers. They will do laundry. Corey is aghast at the idea. I think it's weird that they have to launder the tablecloths, since all the tables are already set. Oh, and they'll be doing it all by hand. Will they be banging the tablecloths on a flat rock in the river?
The red team, on the other hand, gets to go with Chef Ramsay on a photo shoot and an interview with InTouch magazine. I hope they've decided what their fave dream date is!
Louross breaks down for a bit, crying in the hallway and in an interview. Meanwhile, Jen is lecturing the rest of her new team on how selfish it was of Louross to do that. The veal was cooked, in her view, and all he needed to do was put it on the plate. Petrozza also does some complaining, but it's mostly Jen while Bobby looks on.
While the red team is off to Hollywood, judging by the exterior shots, the blue team does laundry. There is an artsy shot of the bubbly champagne juxtaposed with the sudsy water. There are no flat rocks, but they are using washboards. Jean-Philippe suddenly appears to taunt them with a live crab, which doesn't generate much of a response from anyone. Petrozza interviews that Jen is a volcano that could mess up their "whole little kitchen village". I choose to believe that's a reference to Pompeii, and you can't convince me otherwise. Petrozza's even Italian. It all fits.
The photo shoot seems to go well. I personally have never seen that cover of InTouch magazine, but to be fair, that goes for every other cover as well. So I can't prove that this photo shoot never appeared in the magazine.
The laundering includes one of those hand-cranked wringers, which I'm disappointed does not generate talk of the pasta challenge. Jean-Philippe (sans crab) pops back in to ask Jen if he can see a smile on her face. On ascertaining the answer ("No"), he asks if she's going to be bitchy all day. It would appear so, since she explains, "It's not fair that I'm here. My dish was flawless, as usual. As [bleep] usual, my [bleep] was flawless. I don't give a [bleep]." Then she throws in a "stupid-ass" and a "punk-ass" at Louross. Charming!
As the red team returns, they're all wearing some kind of matching T-shirt I can't identify. The power of HDTV is useless against this So You Think You Can Dance ad taking up a quarter of my screen. Jen sulks in an interview, and Bobby feels that she should shake it off.
Hey! The moon is not full! It's pretty big, but it's not full.
It is morning and everyone's getting ready for dinner service. Jen is all over Louross, telling him what to do and everything that she feels he's doing wrong. Petrozza interviews that he does not care for the bickering. On the red side, everything's fine. Except that Matt still kind of bugs me even when he's happy.
Chef Ramsay asks the red team what it's like not having Jen. After a pause, Christina decides to go with honesty: "Great, chef." Jen narrows her eyes and nods a little. I think Christina just got added to a list of some sort. Corey bites her lip with glee, which doesn't sound entirely safe. Jen claims that the blue team is working together, which I doubt.
The twist tonight is that there will be food critics in the kitchen, and they'll be informing Chef Ramsay's decision. Then we get to the real meat: Jen's inevitable vindictive ranting interview about Christina: "What did Christina say, how did it feel without Jen, great? Yeah. Oh, hell no. The minute I switched over to the blue team, them bitches was backstabbing me and now I'm just the enemy. It is on tonight." Yeah, yeah, you hate everyone. Got it. Hell's Kitchen is open!
As the diners arrive, we're tipped off that the critics are: a woman in pink (Sophie Gayot, Gayot Guides) and a bald gentleman in a grey shirt (Merril Schindler, Los Angeles Zagat). They order the same thing from each kitchen, which seems like it would make it easy to tell which table is theirs: it's the one with two of everything on it. It's also the only one getting both blue and red dishes. Anyway, they order scallops and risotto (both times two).
On the red team, Corey acts like a leader, asking if anyone needs help. Chef Ramsay messes with her head a little, but ends up complimenting her risotto. After an extreme close-up, the critics approve as well. Now the blue team needs to generate appetizers for the critics (and, presumably, all the other tables as well). So Louross and Jen need to work together. Louross's scallops are a bit slow to plate, but Chef Ramsay heaps praise on them, calling them perfect. Cut to a Louross interview where he doesn't even talk; he just smiles at the camera. Well done, editors. And the critics seem to like it.
As the red team starts up on entrees, it's Matt's turn. And before he even starts cooking, he gets yelled at for having beef that's wildly different sizes. The three pieces we see do span a pretty wide range. The small tenderloin is about half the size of the big one. Ouch. After Chef Ramsay walks away, Matt tells the rest of the team, "Let's wake up, guys." Just as I'm about to type something mean about him, he adds "Especially me."
The blue team hits entrees, which is Petrozza, and Jen is over his shoulder scolding him immediately with "I really wouldn't do that if I was you, Petrozza." He's cutting the tenderloin three minutes before Louross will be ready with the fish (which lets out all the juice, which is where the flavor lives). Chef Ramsay calls him on it, and Jen goes into a festival of smirking. Petrozza's explanation is that he wanted to look inside, although Chef Ramsay prefers the less intrusive method of touching the outside. There is a two-minute wait for the salmon, which Chef Ramsay prefers to spend berating Petrozza. Even the commercial bumper focuses on delicious meat juices.
Back from commercial, we're told that it's 55 minutes in and all the customers have finished their appetizers. Bobby is trying to calm the blue team and keep them from panicking and Jen is doing better than Petrozza at keeping track of what will be needed. On the red team, Corey is acting as leader, which means that when Chef Ramsay doesn't get an answer for how long the salmon will be, Corey makes Christina answer him. The salmon shows up, but it's burnt on one side and Christina says it will be seven minutes for replacement fish. Chef Ramsay can't believe Christina can't cook two things at once. She tries explaining that she's already got several things cooking, but gets told to shut up.
Chef Ramsay and Corey harass Christina into putting more salmon on immediately, and it ends up acceptable. This does not keep Ramsay from calling her a "[bleep] lazy cow" and asking her, "Tonight's not your night, is it?" Christina enthusiastically answers "No, chef!"
The critics don't seem to love the salmon (from Christina). Schindler (male, grey shirt, Zagat -- you are paying attention, aren't you?) says it has a "vague flavor, but not a great flavor," while Gayot opines that "it's very, um, peppery." Louross's salmon does better, being described as "more flavorful". And the critics are also noting that the red team is slowing down, since the blue side's diners all have entrees and none of the red side's do.
The slowdown appears to be at Rosann's station, because no one has garnish. And there's a big fire in her pan. It sure seems like this season has had a lot of fires, doesn't it? And she's out of carrot puree, which seems to be depressing Chef Ramsay.
On the blue side, things are going well. On the red side, Chef Ramsay can tell from across the kitchen that Matt's beef is raw. Christina wants to know how long it will be, but Matt is dispirited and says he doesn't even know anymore. The replacement beef is overcooked, and it enrages Chef Ramsay. Would Matt serve it to a critic? No? But he would give it to Ramsay to serve to a critic? And so on. Matt is thrown out of the kitchen. No, the whole red team is thrown out.
Matt feels bad. So does Corey. The blue team is hustled over to the red team's side to finish out the service. In an interview, Jen cackles with glee. I'm serious: actual cackling. It's hard to come off well when you cackle, and Jen doesn't come close. For some reason, the phrase "That's what you get, bitches" doesn't make you very appealing.
The last dish is creme brulee, which I'm too tired to bother putting the fancy accents in.
Down in the kitchen, the red team gets beaten down while the blue team is pleased with themselves. Corey is declared "best of the worst" and is in charge of picking the nominees. The negotiations aren't very complicated, because she has to pick two of the other three people. So each person takes a turn to say "Here's why you should pick the two people that aren't me" and then we're back down in the dining room.
Corey's first nominee is Matt "for his performance tonight" and her second is Rosann because "I never wanna work with her in a kitchen ever again during service". Ouch! Chef Ramsay also wants Christina to step forward, because he really doesn't care that much about the rules on this show, whatever they are in the first place.
Christina, defend yourself: "I can do better." Also, she's a fighter. Rosann? "The more I stay in Hell's Kitchen, the more I'm learning here." Apparently, that's good enough. Back in line, Rosann. Matt? Matt has nothing specific to stay. So who's leaving? Rosann is. So why'd he send her back to the line? That was weird and pointless. And it made Matt smirk, which I do not approve of.
Jen shouts in an interview some more, which I think I've had about enough of.
week: Jen annoys people. Dueling menus. Things are raw! Things are disgusting! Someone's sweaty! Chef Ramsay does some kind of pointless stunt during the elimination! Just like this week!