Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 28
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 27
Times Robert has had to be rushed to the emergency room so far: 2
When everyone's sent back to the dorms after last episode's decidedly undramatic departure, Chef Ramsay wants another talk with Amanda. He counsels her to bounce back, and she continues to claim that she's not weak. Up in the dorms, Robert is talking a great deal of trash about the red team and their lack of cohesion. Sure enough, Tennille is ranting at her teammates about how she doesn't feel that she's getting enough respect. She complains to us that "They're not going off of who's a good cook. They're going off of past services! Well, ladies, the past is the past!" That's a very catchy slogan. Of course, the past is also the time when everyone saw whether or not you could cook. Also, I'm pretty sure Gordon told them to base last week's elimination on past performance. Tennille continues to grouse and complain and shout.
The day, it's time for a low-calorie challenge. Each team will create three dishes, which cannot be more than 750 calories between them. Robert takes exception to this in an interview, talking about how he takes 750-calorie bites, and how he's "a chef that likes to cook with butter, cream and fat!" Yeah, that's great. Hey, remember last season, when you had to quit because your morbid obesity gave you a heart attack and almost killed you? Just thought I'd bring that up. No reason. Anyway, shut it. Chef Ramsay lays down the rules (one appetizer, one entree, one dessert) and points them to where all the ingredients are laid out and labeled. Did you know that one ounce of mushroom is six calories? The teams have 45 minutes while being monitored by nutritionists. Go!
Robert, for all his woofing about high-calorie meals, is right in there making suggestions with everyone. He thinks a seafood grill is a good idea. I think he's right. The blue team splits up into teams of two: Kevin and Robert on appetizers, Jim and Van on entrees, and Dan and Andy on Desserts. On the red team, Sabrina reminds us that she works at a health club and spa, so she's very used to paying attention to calories and carb counts and all that sort of thing. Well, that's great, but all Gordon cares about is the calorie count. After that, he's giving the win to the team with the best-tasting food, not the one with the most, um, beta carotene or whatever.
The blue team's appetizer is a seafood salad. Their appetizer, according to Van, is a pork chop with soba noodles. And at that point, the men are already over a thousand calories, even before the dessert. Apparently the soba noodles are 546 calories. Jim starts trimming the pork chop and pulling out noodles. Meanwhile, the red team is cooking things already, even though Amanda is having trouble wrapping her head around a fruit-based dessert.
The men finally get their dishes approved and start cooking. Dave complains about not being able to add sugar to his dish. Food gets plated, and it's time for the tasting!
The men's menu is 597 calories, and the women's is 694. The men could have been much higher. Tennille brings up the red team's appetizer, which is a seared scallop with a mango chutney. Chef Ramsay likes it. Kevin's got a grilled Key West seafood salad. Key West isn't anywhere near LA! Gordon likes it even though it doesn't contain fresh, local ingredients, and awards a point to both teams. 1-1.
Ariel brings up a pork chop stuffed with cottage cheese and mushrooms, and Gordon compliments the women on having something that looks like a full-sized portion but is only 308 calories. The women nod to each other, agreeing that they are awesome. It is delicious. Jim has what he describes as a pork "cutlet" with soba noodles and broccoli. There are three soba noodles. Gordon thinks it looks like a child's portion. The women again nod to each other. The women win. 2-1 Red Team.
So you're never going to believe this, but it's come down to the final dish! Again! For the thirtieth challenge in a row! Amanda brings up a fruit dish, which is distinguished by its lemon-ricotta cheese. Chef Ramsay seems to like it: "That's turned a boring, bland cheese into something zesty, vibrant, professional." Nice! Dave brings up something that prompts Gordon to laugh and say "Oh, come on. What is that?" It looks like a crepe. Or maybe half a pop tart, covered in Pepto Bismol. It's an egg-white crepe with a compote inside, and Gordon hates it. He mocks it as being food you get served when you come out of a heart attack. Rejected! The women win! And pretty decisively, too.
All three of the women's dishes will be going on the menu that night, so the men's punishment is to go to a store and buy the ingredients. Oh, and prep both kitchens for that night's dinner service. Meanwhile, the women will be going to Venice Beach to get a volleyball lesson. Weird.
The red team is very pleased with themselves, especially Sabrina. As well she should be! Jim has some kind of pig-in-a-prom-dress metaphor he'd like to share with us, which I think means he doesn't like the looks of some of the women. Noted. The women get into convertible Minis, go through the usual "I've never been in a convertible!" gushing, and are whisked off to Venice, where they are met by Annett Davis, Olympic Volleyballer. Balls are volleyed.
The men are interrupted during their prep to get on this really goofy-looking eight-way bicycle deal that I think I saw on The Amazing Race a few years ago. Robert and his 450 pounds are right to Dave and his broken thumb. You know, considering these guys got two pretty serious injuries just washing a fire truck, I'm not sure it's a good idea to strap them into an experimental torture device like this. Sous chef Scott tells them to follow him, and zooms off on a scooter of some sort. It's a Piaggio MP3, which has two wheels on the front and one on the back. It's weird. I prefer my regular Vespa. Anyway, the guys start whining when they have to get up a hill. Hey, is it a good idea to put this much stress on the guy that had a heart attack last season just walking from room to room? Meanwhile, the women are on a suspiciously empty beach. And when they get back to the dorm, they get gift baskets with fancy blenders in them.
When the men return to the kitchen, Robert sits down for a while. Well, sure. He says he's short of breath and feels dizzy, so he gets sent off to the hospital. This is not a surprise, nor is it a dramatic twist.
Gordon gathers the two teams in the kitchen to tell them that Robert will not be back for dinner service tonight. So it's five on five. Okay, break!
Waiting for the orders to come in, the various chefs assure each other that they will show intensity. The first order for the blue team has two scallops, which Andy confidently assures Chef Ramsay is only one scallop. Andy tells us that the problem is that Gordon talks too fast and has an accent. Well, it's a good thing that everybody who works in a kitchen always speaks perfect, unaccented English then, isn't it? Chef Ramsay gets in Andy's face and shouts at him a little. As he does.
On the red side, Ariel's first scallops aren't seared enough for Chef Ramsay's liking. Do it again! Shout shout shout. Blue side! Jim's risotto is too peppery. Shout shout shout. Chef Ramsay gives him an order: "Show some emotion, will you? Or piss off." On the red side, Ariel has solved her scallop problem. But Tennille provides too much spinach, since she was just doing a big batch to provide spinach for all the orders at once. Chef Ramsay shouts at her to wake up, finishing with "Do the spinach to order, you lazy cow!"
Now, Ramsay's already yelled at Andy, Ariel and Jim tonight, and they all shook it off. But Tennille seems to be taking offense at this, especially when he gets in her face and enunciates, "[bleep] you!" I bet you didn't know it was possible to enunciate a bleep. Tennille complains in an interview that Ramsay doesn't show respect. Man, they have got to find some chefs who've seen the show before, or at least who have heard of Gordon Ramsay in passing.
Jim's got some more risotto, which is bland. That's "an insult to a grain of rice!" Apparently. So the blue kitchen hasn't sent out any risotto yet. Meanwhile, the red team is doing fine, except for Tennille on the garnish station. Her mashed potato pan doesn't have enough in it for Chef Ramsay, so he does his usual stomping around, bemoaning his fate, and she claims that she was compensating for being told that there was too much spinach earlier. He asks her (well, shouts at her in kind of a questioning tone of voice) if she's upset, and she allows as how she is. He tells her it's because she's crap. Tennille: "You're crap!"
All together now: Oh no she didn't!
Tennille tells us that Chef Ramsay isn't going to keep talking to her like that. I think he probably is, actually. He tells her to get out, and she says "[bleep] you" and leaves. As she leaves, he continues to tell her to get the [bleep] out. That's a less effective line when she's actually leaving, you know?
Tennille tells us that she was trying to retain her cool, which for her means saying "[bleep] you" a lot, but stopping short of "slapping him in the jaw". Chef Ramsay follows her to the back, where they have a bleep-filled discussion, highlighted by "Shut your fat [bleep]ing mouth" and "Let me back in that kitchen!" Ramsay finally gets Tennille to shut her mouth and tells her that if she can't hack it, she can leave. But if she can, she can go back in the kitchen.
Back in the kitchen, someone is covering the garnish station, and Tennille just barely keeps it together when she shouts "Get off my station! ...please."
Back on the blue side, Jim's risotto continues to fail. Sous chef Scott is assigned to do the risotto for Jim so that the guys can get at least one appetizer out the door.
The red side are on entrees, and some chicken has vanished. Sabrina swears she brought it up, but Chef Ramsay does not have it. Huh. That's weird.
On the blue kitchen, Dave is jumped on for cooking the wrong garnish. Kevin tells him what to do, and Dave tells us that "When Kevin yells at me, I could give a [bleep]. It goes in one ear and out the other." Is that really something to brag about?
In the red kitchen, Sabrina has trouble carving the chicken. Chef Ramsay shouts at her to "Just cut it nicely! Don't butcher it!" I would like to point out that, in fact, butchers are very precise with their knives. If you want your chicken disassembled expertly, you would ask who? A butcher! So lay off them. Chef's Ramsay thinks it looks like a dog's dinner. Lucky dog!
On the blue side, Andy undercooks more halibut. Kevin complains. Apparently the red team is also undercooking pork, but it's making it to the customers. Suzanne sneers about how very, very wrong it is to send out raw pork. At least she didn't send it to a pregnant woman, right Suzanne? Chef Ramsay taunts Sabrina about the raw pork for awhile.
Andy's halibut, that was raw? It's overcooked now. When he works on a new one, Kevin shouts at him to cover it. Andy interviews, "Kevin needs to, like, chill out. Like, god, rawr, rahh! Dude, it's cool, man!" Is it, man? Then how come this new piece of halibut is also being rejected by Chef Ramsay?
More food comes back to the red team, which is being described as "undercooked lamb." Really, it's lamb that's a bit more medium than medium-well. Chef Ramsay shouts at Sabrina for defending her lamb (because how dare she say a customer is wrong!) and then drags Andy over for some more abuse. Suddenly, he tells both kitchens to shut it down. And we're done with dinner service!
The chefs are lined up in the kitchen after all the customers have left. My guess is that each team will have to select one or two people, those candidates will get shouted at, and then we'll be told that Robert won't be coming back so all the nominees will just be receiving a stern-talking to before rejoining their increasingly edgy teams. Let's find out!
Chef Ramsay announces that "the losing team tonight is the Blue team. And the Red team." Each team is told to come to a consensus on one person each.
The blue team thinks Andy's the obvious choice. Andy agrees that the night's failure was his fault and doesn't seem to have a problem being the nominee. Kevin thinks Jim is more useless, though.
On the red team, it's between Sabrina and Tennille. Tennille's argument is that Sabrina was the one that took them down, and also that she didn't technically walk out on her team, since she was ordered off her station and came back as quickly as she could.
Andy has one more pitch: Robert missed the service, so he should go. Right? See, I think that's a losing strategy. You let Chef Ramsay tell you Robert's gone. I don't think you'll impress him by telling him to fire the sick guy. Just a hunch.
The teams line up in the dining room. Ariel puts forward Sabrina and talks a bit about how dangerous raw pork is. When Van is asked who the blue team is nominating, he answers with a question: "Where's Robert at?" Classy!
Chef Ramsay gently explains that Robert is not there, and that it would be unfair to judge him since he wasn't in the kitchen. But he promises that if Robert isn't in the service, he'll be out. So, Robert aside, who's weakest, Van? "I'd have to go with Andy tonight. He got a little flustered under pressure."
Fine. Sabrina, why should you stay? "I am a team player." Andy? "I own the piece of crap I did tonight." The person who lacks the passion and is leaving tonight is... Jim! Who wasn't even nominated! Swerved ya!
Gordon tells Jim that he can teach someone how to cook, but he can't give him a heart. Well, all right, then. Jim tells us that it wasn't fair, and that he never wavered on who he is. Whatever.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see how vlogger Sean Crespo thinks the season finale of HK will play out in No Prior Knowledge!
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