Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 23
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 65
Word used by the most people to refer to the most people: "Bitch"
Previously: A bar mitzvah. Ben was (and probably still is) Jewish. Carol put bleu cheese in a hamburger which did not delight the kid and led to a nigh-incomprehensible section in the last recap where I was about to start talking about how horse milk doesn't curdle but changed my mind and ended up not mentioning the fairly basic fact that you can't mix meat and dairy and still be kosher, not that the family having the bar mitzvah appeared to care one way or the other about the food being kosher in the first place, Andrea and Carol didn't get along, the blue team won the challenge, Andrea and Carol continued to fight, Coi couldn't cook a hamburger, J screwed up and talked about himself in the third person more than ever, Lacey had a problem, the blue team won the service, Andrea nominated Coi and LA, and Coi was sent home. Whew!
Now: the chefs go back up to the dorms, and Andrea feels sorry for herself for having to nominate people. She assures Carol that although she doesn't like her personally, she doesn't think she deserves to go home yet. LA would like to know what the deal is with nominating her, and is told by Paula that she should show more passion. The red team appears to be fractionalizing, with people picking sides against each other.
The morning, the chefs line up in front of Chef Ramsay in the dining room. He claims to have prepared something "slightly special", which is a nice change from everything being the "most amazing" thing. He's got some tapas-style samples from his London restaurant. Everyone tastes them and has the sense to say they're delicious. Chef Ramsay tells them that it's six small dishes, all from salmon; so the challenge is for each team to make five small tapas-style dishes from leftovers. J tells us that J can make food from leftovers or even canned food. I think he wishes he was on Top Chef, then.
Before the challenge starts, Chef Ramsay says it's time to even up the teams. He tells Lacey that since she's been on the blue team, the women have not won, then pauses long enough to make everyone think she'll be going back. Then he sends Giovanni over to the red team, much to all the women's relief. Robert interviews: "Chef Ramsay gave the worst from the red team [Lacey] to the blue team, and the best from the blue team [Giovanni] to the red team." Anyway, go!
So each chef is supposed to make one dish. Carol tests some sauce to make sure it's soy. Lacey asks her team for someone to give her an idea and then interviews, practically in tears as usual, "I'm not gonna make it that much farther in this competition if I can't even come up with a dish." True. Ben tells her to dice some tomatoes and mushrooms. Robert interviews: "Lacey has no culinary skill whatsoever, and I'm getting kinda pissed off that Chef Ramsay is amusing himself by keeping this fat bitch." Nice. Especially coming from somebody who weighs about, I'd say, 2.3 Laceys.
Lacey tosses a pan on the counter and asks J what it needs. He claims it tastes good, but he might just not want to get involved in her Drama Cloud. People plate stuff at the last second.
Chef Ramsay judges the dishes head-to-head. First, Paula's peppered steak and eggs vs. Danny's grilled filet mignon. Both are nice, and both teams win a point. up, Lacey's mushroom bruschetta with, apparently, uncooked leek, takes on LA's asparagus and ginger soup. The soup looks and tastes dishwashery. The dishes are deemed "foul" and "disgusting". No points to anyone. Carol's Ginger-wrapped fried tuna with a ginger-soy reduction hits a snag when Chef Ramsay claims to have been up at six in the morning putting everything out, and he's positive there was no soy sauce. Apparently the stuff she tasted and thought was soy sauce was balsamic vinegar. Andrea interviews that a chef oughta be able to tell the difference. And they should! But a ginger-balsamic reduction might be pretty tasty. Anyway, Robert has pasta with butternut squash and some lamb. His is too big to be tapas, but it's tasty. Robert gets the point, and we're 2-1 for the blue team. Robert thanks his mother, from whom he got the idea.
Andrea has what she claims to be an open-faced lobster and asparagus ravioli, and I am outraged at the idea of open-faced ravioli. That's not ravioli! That's just some stuff sitting on top of a rectangle of pasta! I realize this is not something Andrea just invented, but it still bugs me. Chef Ramsay says it looks boring, but "delivers big time in taste and flavor". J has lobster with a fennel and leek broth. Chef Ramsay deems it too simple, which he hardly ever says about anything. It's now 2-2. Giovanni (for the red team, remember) is up against Ben.
Ben grilled some tuna and asparagus, which is "absolutely delicious". Giovanni did some steak and lobster. Chef Ramsay says both dishes are "delicious" and "extraordinary". He stalls a little, and declares the winning team to be [pause for commercial break] the red team. Gordon assures Ben that it was not an easy decision. Actually, he calls it "the closest ever", but I don't think he puts too much thought into going over his Hell's Kitchen decisions. Ben interviews that he is humbled to continually lose. Well, sure.
Chef Ramsay tells the blue team that there's dinner service that night, so they have to clean both kitchens, do the prep for both kitchens, and also get the smaller plates so they can do tapas. The red team ("Ladies! And Giovanni!") is going to the racetrack. You play the ponies, Gordon? The women mostly seem to dress up, although in my opinion the only acceptable attire for the track is a lime-green suit. And try to be chewing a matchstick or sucking on a lemon drop. Before they leave, Giovanni comes over to his four teammates and essentially tells them to stop fighting with each other.
The blue team does prep. Ben sniffs food for some reason. J cooks risotto, verifying that it involves half-and-half water and chicken stock, three boxes of both. Hmm. I always go through the rigmarole of measuring the water, blah blah blah, but this method of using the chicken stock boxes for the water, thus ensuring that you have the same amount, makes a lot of sense. I'm learning! We see shots of Lacey standing in the kitchen not doing anything, alternated with her interviewing tearfully (yes, again) that there was a lot of work to do.
The red team is at Hollywood Park, and Chef Ramsay is hanging out with them picking horses. I don't think he should start betting on horses, because this is where his insane competitive streak will kick in. The blue team gets the new plates from the truck. Lacey doesn't know what to do and asks for instructions. Upon being given them, she proceeds to complain that everybody orders her around. She's sent off to polish plates. At the track, Gordon's horse ("Stress Free", ho ho ho) loses to Andrea's horse ("Victory's Lady"). I imagine you could figure out what day this was shot on from that information, but I'm not going to bother. Andrea gloats.
Back to the blue team. Lacey is putting cookie dough in something (I think it's probably a proofer) and being told she's doing it wrong. She left the paper on, which we don't get a good look at, but I think it means that instead of putting the dough directly on the pan, she left paper between the dough and the pan. I don't guarantee that any of this is correct, although I have actually worked as a baker. It would be easier if we got one of those Amazing Race-style insert shots showing us what was happening. Anyway, whatever she did, Robert and J want her to fix, but she insists that if it's a mistake, she'll be the one who goes home. Robert interviews that he's going to use a Jedi mind trick and "choke the [bleep] out of that bitch. Mentally." I don't think you can get away with threatening to choke your competition just because you added "mentally." Lacey's interview includes calling Robert a "fat ass," so no one's really got the high ground here. Although Robert's also calling her a bitch in person. Lacey claims that if she fights with anyone, she'll leave. Everyone is in disbelief, and J calls her bluff. When she starts shouting, he answers, in a relatively calm voice, "This is a professional kitchen. If you wanna [bleep] go, go. I'll [bleep] do everything." She doesn't leave, but she does shut up. For a moment. Then she needs Ben to tell her where the fennel is, and he reacts with exasperation because it's literally right in front of her. So she declares that she hates them all because they are mean, and stomps out, saying she quits.
So Lacey's walked out on her punishment, which is the second time she's decided not to prep. She interviews (more tearfully than before), "I'm not going to compromise my health and happiness for [bleep] two hundred fifty grand! It's not [bleep] worth it!" Hey, but what about that imaginary executive chef position? You wouldn't want to forget about that. Back in the kitchen, Robert comments that Lacey needs to get her ass kicked, and I'm thinking maybe Robert could cool it with all the talking about how much he wants to beat her up. Just throwing that out there.
Ben reluctantly goes up to talk Lacey off the ledge. Lacey's tearful interview continues, with her showing a bit of self-awareness: "I don't want to be 'The Bitch from Hell's Kitchen'! Because I'm really not a bitch! I'm really a nice, cool person." Aw. She knows what her actions are going to look like on the show, and she wishes things were different. You normally don't get that until the contestants see the footage, so that's sort of interesting. Ben looks her in the eye and asks if she can pull it together, because the team needs her. We get a flash on this exact scene from two weeks earlier, where Ben had to get back down there. She finally drags herself down there.
Dinner service time! Giovanni peps up his team. Chef Ramsay tells JP to open the kitchen. There is no shot of a full moon for me to mock. Here we go! Customers everywhere!
The blue team's "Yes, Chef!" is less enthusiastic than it's supposed to be. But that's nothing compared to Carol's risotto. The rice is wildly overcooked and clumpy. Poor J is working away in the blue kitchen, unaware that Chef Ramsay is about to come over and shout at him for overcooking all the rice for both teams' risotto. And there it is. J starts to get more rice on, but Chef Ramsay has JP take the risotto off the menu. So that's what it takes to have a Hell's Kitchen menu without risotto!
JP brings back some undercooked pasta, which is apparently Andrea's fault. But Carol gets shouted at. She interviews her displeasure at this setup, calling Andrea a [bleep] bitch several times. In the kitchen, Chef Ramsay calls Carol a "nasty bitch" and sends her and Andrea out of the kitchen and into the dining room, where he makes them sit at a table and eat the undercooked pasta. He tells them they're not allowed back in until they've eaten it all, and they just eat it as quickly as possible.
In the blue kitchen, J undercooks and overcooks salmon and tuna. He generally screws up a lot and gets a private shouting session in the pantry. Is that the pantry? Well, it's a room for food storage, so that's what I'm calling it. Back to the red team: LA has not provided enough sauce for the John Dory, and zones out while people yell at her to get more sauce to the pass. She interviews that in the real world, you wouldn't get called a "silly cow" or a bitch or any of the other names that have been thrown around, because in the real world, she would punch whoever called her that in the face. In this situation, though, she does not.
On the blue team, J's scallops are rubbery. Chef Ramsay has had enough and tells J to take his jacket off and get out. This involves seven "outs," one "[bleep] off," a commercial break, and then three more "outs" and a "[bleep] off." Well, some of that was recycled. Still, the message is clear: Chef Ramsay would like J to leave now. J interviews that he has a wife and son. Then he packs his bags and leaves. He claims he doesn't need Chef Ramsay anymore. Then he refers to himself in the third person one last time.
Chef Ramsay reassigns the blue team to new positions. Everyone's a little thrown off and it is chaotic.
On the red team, Giovanni is very vocal and keeps everyone in line and synched-up. He sounds good, but admits that he's barely keeping his head above water. Sous chef Gloria comments that at least his hair's still standing up. Back on the blue team, Ben's late with the Beef Wellington and is told to stop opening his oven door. Chef Ramsay tells him to use the convection oven, and adds, "You're [bleep] . You're [bleep] ." Paula has perfect Wellingtons on the red team, which I think is the first compliment Chef Ramsay's given out during the dinner service.
Chef Ramsay demands wellingtons from Ben. Ben says they'll be five and a half minutes, and Chef Ramsay reminds him that "I'm watching you like a [bleep] hawk tonight. D'you know why? D'you know why?" Then he puts his mouth right up to Ben's ears and says, "I want you out." Wow, that's harsh even for this show. But I guess I have to defer to Chef Ramsay's instincts, because the thing we see is Chef Ramsay stopping Ben from putting some beef wellingtons in the oven. Because when Ramsay picks up the food, we see that the pan is absolutely filthy. Oh, Ben. The Duke of Wellington would not be proud. Chef Ramsay drags Ben off to the room I've decided to call the pantry to ask him what his [bleep] game is. It's like Chef Ramsay is open to the idea that this is an elaborate sabotage plan. He makes it clear to Ben that he is on the edge. He also calls him a "dirty pig", to continue the animal theme tonight.
Somehow, both teams finish the dinner service, and they finish in a fairly limp and lifeless way. The red team wins, but Carol and Andrea are still at each other's threats. Carol shouts in an interview that she's very close to losing her cool. I think she lost it some way back. Essentially, both Andrea and Carol believe that the other one won't ever admit when she's wrong.
Chef Ramsay lines up the teams in the kitchen and declares the blue team the losers. He directs everyone to go up to the dorms and think about someone they want to go home. In the dorms, Ben apologizes to the rest of his team for being awful tonight. Danny points out that Ben talks a huge game (remember that time that Ben started shouting at Danny for daring to think he might be better than him?) but doesn't do great at dinner services. Lacey complains (No! Really! She complains!) that she doesn't know who to put up, because everyone but Ben did a good job, and Ben tells her that if she puts him up after all he's done for her, he'll... well, it's not clear what he'll do. But he won't think it's fair. Robert is still furious at Lacey, and they have a fight. Robert tries to soften the blow by saying that she's tried sometimes, but she wants to focus on how he keeps saying he hates her. Robert: "If all you're hearin' is all the negative, you're a moron." So that doesn't go too well. Lacey rolls her eyes and Robert shouts. Robert also promises that if Lacey somehow wins, he'll hang up his coat and become a crack whore. Well, he'll certainly lose some weight that way [cue laugh track].
What's left of the blue team lines up for Chef Ramsay to yell at them. Robert, who don't you want on your team? "Lacey, because she's a cancer." Chef Ramsay wasn't there for prep, so he's kind of taken aback by the torrent of dislike. Lacey, in return, wants Robert out because "We don't understand each other as people." Danny also picks Lacey, because "she has a piss-poor attitude." Ben? Lacey. "She's not a team player." So Chef Ramsay tells Lacey and Ben to step forward. We go to commercial, and my expectation here is that he'll tell them both to shape up and get back in line because he already sent someone home today. Let's find out!
...and we're back! You're lucky you missed that commercial for The Osbournes: Reloaded, because it is the worst thing ever created. Ben, why didn't you nominate yourself? "I bring a solid foundation of food knowledge." Chef Ramsay asks him if he's willing to be honest, and makes him admit he did the worst tonight. Lacey, why should you stay? "I came here to learn and grow, so that I can win and become great." Chef Ramsay says he has choice between someone who can't get along with their team and someone who can't cook meat. And he sends both of them back into line. The blue team claims they can work together. Lacey promises more drama. Robert calls her a bitch a couple more times. Carol says that Andrea is out to make herself look good. Ben thinks he's being attacked because Chef Ramsay sees something in him. I think he's wrong.
Chef Ramsay tells us that he didn't send Lacey or Ben home because sending J home in the middle of service put the team in a hole they couldn't recover from.
week: Shouting! "The most unpredictable Hell's Kitchen yet!"
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Monty has a blog devoted to Movie Novelizations, cleverly entitled Monty on Movie Novelizations. You can email him at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.