Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 33
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 10
Ramsay Quote of the Night: "What the [bleep] is that? What in the [bleep] is that?
Last week: Everyone became one team. Jen won the challenge and took Corey to Las Vegas to meet Rock. Dinner service went south again, Corey caught fire, and Matt was as annoying and dysfunctional as he's ever been. Out of Corey, Christina, and Matt, the worst was Matt, so he finally got the boot. And now I only have to see him in the opening credits, climbing out of the soup and smiling uncomfortably.
Walking out of the kitchen, Christina berates herself for always crying. Back in the dorms, Petrozza and Bobby are pleased about Matt being gone, while Christina wants to talk about how much she hates Jen.
Jen interviews in a shouty manner that she's not here to make friends or be part of a team. However, she believes that when it comes to cooking ability, "I got all of them faded. All of them." Faded? I only know that slang from the craps games in Guys and Dolls. Anyway, Christina and Corey whisper mean things about Jen while they get into bed. It's a lot like a slumber party.
The morning (we're told that it's "a new day" by the increasingly useless voiceover guy), the chefs are brought into the kitchen to be told that lobster spaghetti is being added to the menu. Chef Ramsay demonstrates the entire procedure for them, and it looks relatively straightforward. The chefs all claim that they could make the dish, and it turns out that the challenge is for the chefs to teach lobster spaghetti to someone. The students are supposedly housewives, but they're the kind with miniskirts and enormous fake boobs. Gordon refers to them as "domestic housewives", but I think he was trying to reference Desperate Housewives. The point is that these women don't cook, so it will be hard to teach them, I guess.
Gordon takes a Chihuahua from one of the women and assigns each chef a student. The student that cooks the best spaghetti lobster (he says both "lobster spaghetti" and "spaghetti lobster", so I don't know which one is "correct". He also says "spaghetti of lobster", which sounds more formal in that weird grammar of fancy food. Like "duo of beef") will win the challenge.
In the frenzy of teaching, Jen is taken aback by the size of her student's breasts. Corey's student interviews, "I've never made pasta in my life. I've... heard about it?" And then there's a kind of bwoooomp! drum noise intended to indicate that someone in the editing bay thinks she is stupid. The chefs aren't allowed to do any of the work themselves, which is hard for them. Christina thinks her student is going to cut her hand in half, while Petrozza seems to really be enjoying having a lovely women do what he says.
Bobby's student squeals theatrically at having to kill a lobster. I can understand that. For one thing, not everyone assumes that they'll be killing a living animal just because they're walking into a kitchen. Also, lobsters look like giant bugs, which is icky. In more show-related drama, Jen is caught on camera doing some of the slicing herself. It seems like delegation would be an important skill for a chef.
Everyone finishes at the last second, and most of the students claim it was the first time they'd ever held a knife. I think that's laying it on a little thick. Petrozza's student cooked the lobster well, but the pasta was overcooked and a little thin. Petrozza doesn't care, because his student was "way hot". Christina's student did well, and the pasta was cooked "perfectly". Jen is inserted bragging in an interview about how great she is. Bobby's student did not do well, and Bobby naturally blames her for all of it. Corey's student gets a "well done". Finally, Jen's student's dish is bland and the pasta is all one big lump. Jen disclaims all responsibility in an interview. And I realize she didn't, in fact, cook it herself, but it certainly appears that Jen feels that whatever goes wrong, it's never Jen's fault.
So the two best dishes were Christina's and Corey's. Chef Ramsay heaps praise on both of the dishes and declares Christina the winner. Corey looks a little sour and is not mollified be the extra praise she gets. The punishment for the losers is to clean the grills and other filthy parts of a kitchen. Bobby interviews that he hates having to do that stuff and does not appear to realize that if he'd occasionally win a challenge (which he hasn't done even once), he wouldn't be punished. It's like he doesn't even think of winning as an option anymore. Christina's reward is to eat lunch with Chef Ramsay and two Los Angeles restaurateurs. She interviews that she's excited to pick brains.
Oh, and the housewives get some Gordon Ramsay Brand Cookware. They pretend to be happy.
All of the losing chefs sit around the dorms and bitch about how much better they are than Christina. Jen in particular seems to believe that Christina can barely hold a knife.
Christina meets Chef Ramsay in the blue kitchen. Ben Ford and Mark Peel will be cooking for them, and she'll be hanging out with both of them and Ramsay. Meanwhile, the other chefs are in the red kitchen cleaning things. Christina enjoys learning about what Ford and Peel are doing and the little techniques they use, while Jen sneaks over to that side of the kitchen to eavesdrop. I mean, maybe she was supposed to be over there, but the camerawork certainly makes her appear like an illicit observer. The soundtrack doesn't help either, since it's practically a direct rip-off of the theme to Jaws while Jen circles around the room.
When the first dish is finished, Bobby is called over to clean up the plates. Jen slips over and tastes the food, which she justifies as "You gotta do what you gotta do to win." Really? Is stealing food from someone else's plate going to help you win?
Christina interviews that she will exploit her reward to its greatest advantage, but I'm not sure how that will work. Maybe one of the chefs gave her really helpful advice like "Don't undercook the food" or "Try not to set yourself on fire."
During prep, Jen and Corey are annoyed by Christina asking questions like "Do we have enough food prepped?" That question seems fine, but she does go on to talk about how her new best friend Mark Peel told her that it's safe to blah blah blah.
Before the dinner service, the chefs are gathered to receive the ominous news that there will be a twelve-top. Really? We have so little confidence in these people that "a table of twelve people" is so tough it might destroy them? I realize it's more difficult, but wouldn't it be nice if the top five chefs were all so good they just shrugged it off?
We're told that Hell's Kitchen is booked to capacity, which makes it exactly like every other night. Chef Ramsay walks through the kitchen and prods the various chefs, encouraging Jen to move around a little more and not stand flat-footed. Before we can see if that generates anything interesting in the way of outraged responses, Jean-Philippe walks face-first into the kitchen door. It's a clear door, but it's still funny to see.
On the first dish, Christina is a little smug that being on hot appetizers means that she's making the lobster spaghetti, which means she's the "special station". After missing one order (she made one spaghetti instead of two), she seems to get in the groove, and she and Corey serve appetizers with no difficulty. , Bobby is on meat, Jen's on fish, and Petrozza is on vegetables, and it's time for entrees. Bobby's first dish is cut wrong, and he interviews that that means Chef Ramsay will be on him all night. Well, maybe, but we just saw Christina get her first thing wrong and proceed to shake it off. Bobby, however, gets more things wrong and gets stuff rejected left and right.
up, Jen is caught trying to deliver raw John Dory. Jean-Philippe hears her being yelled at (because he is A: in the same state as her, and B: not deaf) and instructs the servers to "push the meat". Can you say that at work without Human Resources getting involved? It looks like he's right, though, because the fish that Jen brings to replace the raw portions? It's overcooked. JP is very firm on the meat.
Actually, the meat might not be such a great idea, because the beef wellingtons that Bobby brings up are practically unidentifiable. They're so cooked that you can't even see the redness of the meat, and JP tells the staff to push the chicken. Ramsay shouts at Bobby for awhile while the customers sit and grouse.
Petrozza brings some of Jen's John Dory to the pass ahead of the other dishes, which prompts Chef Ramsay to ask Jen what it's doing there. She answers, perfectly rationally and correctly, that she didn't bring the fish up, but that just makes Ramsay demand to know if she wants to argue. She interviews that it's really hard not to argue when she knows Chef Ramsay's wrong, but she just held her tongue and told herself to shut up and not even look at him. That's a good call, I think, because even though she's totally in the right here, there's no way she'd win the argument.
Unfortunately for Jen, Chef Ramsay keeps on her, demanding to know what she was thinking. And when she tries again to explain that she wasn't the one who brought the fish up, he tells her not to yell at him. This is a very hard situation to walk away from, and Jen can't quite do it, cornering Chef Ramsay in the back of the kitchen. He tells her he doesn't want to hear her cry and "If that's your attitude to customers waiting for food, that's why I'm pissed off" and doesn't let her get a word in edgewise. It's a rough situation, and I don't blame her for being frustrated.
Bobby thinks the kitchen is like a war. I only mention that because the whole four-star general thing still bugs me. Everyone's getting together and the twelve-top strolls in. It's a good thing they got there after everyone else, I guess. The appetizers come in and Christina and Corey have to stop washing up and get back to cooking. Chef Ramsay is watching them like a hawk, pointing out when they don't have enough spaghetti going. Normally he just lets people cook themselves into a corner, but here he's stopping problems before they torpedo the whole service. Meanwhile, out in the dining room, the twelve-top (who are all Hawaiian Tropic models) all flirt with Jean-Philippe. All the appetizers get to the window, and Corey interviews that even though she and Christina hate each other, they still work well together. Good for them! And now they switch to desserts while Bobby, Petrozza, and Jen handle entrees. I'd been wondering what the appetizer people did when their jobs were done.
Jen delivers more raw fish, and Chef Ramsay yells at her for moving too slowly. Then he yells at Petrozza for... for something. It's hard to tell, but it might be his posture. There's something he's not happy about, anyway. Then Bobby's pan catches fire (which doesn't seem to startle him, since he just continues taking the meat out of it) and he comes in for some abuse. Chef Ramsay claims to have had enough, but he doesn't shut things down. It's time to do entrees for the twelve-top. Service! Everything seems okay.
Dinner service is over (which implies that the desserts all went fine) but Ramsay is still annoyed at how spotty things are. Like everyone else, he's disappointed that the top five contestants are lucky to finish a dinner service. Christina is the standout of the night and is told to nominate two teammates for elimination. I'm guessing Jen and Bobby. Is that racist?
In the dorms, Christina interviews Petrozza, saying that she didn't see much of that side of the kitchen. Then she talks with Corey and they reflect on what Bobby's whole deal is. Jen thinks she'll be sent home, although she doesn't think she was the worst.
Down in the dining room, the five chefs are lined up according to height, making them look like the Cingular symbol. I'm pretty sure I stole that joke from someone in the forums, but I forget who it was and the forums search isn't helping. Sorry! Anyway, Christina nominates Jen and goes into detail about why. Christina's second nominee is Bobby "based upon his performance tonight", which is what they always say when they really want the other person to go.
Jen! Why should you stay? "I'm gonna keep giving you my all and I'll give 100%." Aren't those the same thing? It doesn't mean anything to begin with, but I don't think it helps if you just rephrase it and say it again. Chef Ramsay feels that when Jen gets criticized, she slows down.
Bobby! What's up? Bobby admits to being bad tonight and tries his hand at some sucking up: "Thank god for you for being at the pass for stopping that food, because you stopped it before the customer got it. I didn't look at you like you were yelling at me. I looked at you like you were saving me." Chef Ramsay cuts him off, asking "Are you running for office?" Yeah, he laid it on a little thick there. Bobby claims that he's a better cook that Jen because he doesn't crack under pressure. Jen claims she's better, since she's organized.
Chef Ramsay asks Christina for her opinion, and she says that she feels that Jen should go home. Chef Ramsay says "The person leaving Hell's Kitchen... the person leaving Hell's Kitchen... is Gen...eral Bobby." See, because the "Gen..." sounds like "Jen". It doesn't come across in writing, really. If this were a Weecap-on-tape, you'd have been properly misdirected. Point is, Bobby's going home.
We see a montage of Bobby's greatest hits, which are mostly that time he said he was the Black Gordon Ramsay and the time he picked Petrozza up and dragged him back down to the kitchen. Then he calls himself a general a couple more times and alleges that he's leaving with his "joy".
week:. demanding customers, alleged celebrities, burning pans, a serious mistake, and Chef Ramsay has enough of something.
Browse our gallery of TV's Top Chefs to get a look at people who actually know how to cook. Or if you can handle more Gordon, find out why we'd never be caught dead eating that that establishment.
Montykins is just glad Matt's off the show. Monty also watches a lot of movies, which he writes about on Monty on Movies. You can email him at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.