Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 26
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 44
Times I Want to See Robert on My Television Ever Again: 0
Last week: Jim went home because he wasn't crazy and shouty enough for Gordon Ramsay.
Sabrina is relieved not to have been sent home, and resolves not to undercook any more food. Interesting strategy! She tells her team that she's sorry she screwed up and promises to do better in the future, which everyone accepts. Over in a bedroom, the men are plotting to get rid of Robert. How hard can that be? He's still in the hospital!
The morning, the challenge involves an intriguingly covered table. A craps table. But the dice are twelve-siders (dodecahedrons, if you want to be geometrical about it) and they're covered in letters, not numbers. Each chef will roll a die and pick an ingredient that begins with the letter they get, then the teams will make a dish that combines all their ingredients.
Suzanne's first roll is "R", and she picks rabbit. Amanda rolls an "H" and picks something called "Haricot Vert", which turns out to be French green beans. Tennille's "P" gets the potatoes, then Sabrina's Garlic and Ariel's Ham Hock finish it off. I agree with Tennille here: "That sounds tasty. That sounds like something you could work with." Sure.
Blue side! They'll miss a roll because of Robert, who's in the hospital. Andy rolls an "H" and blanks for a second until he comes up with Haddock. Dave's "F" leads to a long pause, and over Kevin's desperate hope for Fennel, Dave comes up with ... Figs. Hmm. Not a great start. Van gets an "A" for Angel-hair Pasta, and now the women are openly laughing at them. Kevin also rolls an "A" and promptly says "Apple". Well, that's kind of an easy one. Andy goes with Tomatoes for "T". Well, okay.
Now, each team has thirty minutes to split up the work. Ariel sketches out a plate and the red team all seems on board, although Suzanne is micromanaging everyone. The blue team is a bit at sea, and Dave is working extra-hard to justify the figs. Suzanne claims that she dislikes her team just as much as they hate her. On the blue side, Kevin adds figs to a sauce, and everyone agrees with surprise that it actually tastes pretty good. On the red side, Tennille thinks that Ariel's garlic puree is too garlicky. Oh, whatever.
Tension! Countdown! Plating! The women have a... thing combined with all the stuff I said earlier. Van is pretty enthusiastic about his competition: "I look over at the girls' dish, it's so beautiful, it looks like it came out of a cookbook!" Chef Ramsay comments approvingly on the moistness of the rabbit leg, and Suzanne says "cooked to perfection." That's weird. Chef Ramsay's only negative comment is that the garlic puree is a little strong. Kevin agrees with Van that it looks perfect.
The men's dish is all the men's ingredients, combined into food. Kevin introduces it, explaining that the sweetness of the fig balances the acidity of the tomato, which Gordon allows is "very clever". Both dishes are termed delicious, and the winners are ... the blue team! They are exultant and a little disbelieving. The red team lost because of the garlic, which leads to some gloating by Tennille.
The men's award is to go to Las Vegas. You can imagine what manner of hooting that generates. Meanwhile, the women's punishment is to clean the kitchens and bring in food from the trucks. This happens every season, and it always strikes me as odd that the losing team has to carry the food in through the dining room. Anyway, watch for the moment when they didn't check the manifest carefully enough. That's always television gold!
The first box breaks open when Tennille puts it on the parking lot, and spills lemons all over the place. That's pretty boring, but I'd rather watch it than the endless "Vegas, baby!" nonsense. Van is shrieking pretty much nonstop. And are the guys leaning out of a limo, throwing devil horns at the camera? Oh my yes. It's almost a relief to return to the women complaining about carrying boxes.
The men are in a big, crazy suite with a basketball court and a pool table with black felt. Black felt. What a time to be alive. And speaking of time, it's 1:15 AM when the women are rousted out of bed for another delivery. Tennille feels that this is some [bullbleep]. And she's right.
The men return without quite as much taunting as we usually see in this situation, either because they feel bad for the women or because they're hung over. Robert isn't back yet, and they don't miss him.
During prep, the women are getting sick of Suzanne, and she's getting sick of them. Meanwhile, the men are trying to psyche each other up and using the word "team" a lot. And just as they're telling each other how much they don't miss Robert, guess who comes through the door. (The answer is "Robert". Robert comes through the door.)
So now the men are all complaining about Robert being back as he cheerfully tells them that apparently his heart is too small for his body. Robert gets his chef's clothes out and does not miss the fact that nobody's talking to him. Incidentally, Sous Chef Scott is showing everybody a dish with cheese on top of fish, and he tells them to be sure to "take all the plastic crap and everything off of it." Andy tells us that he does want Robert to be healthy, "but as a team member, he's gotta [bleep]ing pull his weight." You can make your own weight joke here if you want.
With the chefs lined up in the kitchen, Chef Ramsay checks in with everyone, particularly Robert (it wasn't a heart attack, which is good to hear since I was so mean about it last week) and drops the bomb that they'll be having "the most amazing" chef's tables in the kitchens tonight. Have you seen these? They're tables actually inside the kitchen, which is supposed to be particularly classy and upscale. But the people eating at them are some of Gordon's own executive chefs, so they're presumably used to the shouting and cursing. And if they don't get their food fast enough, I imagine they might just get up and cook it themselves.
The customers start coming in! JP schmoozes with the chefs, and Dave chats with them for a second. Chef Ramsay asks Dave what the chef's table's appetizer is, and Dave claims it's two risotto. The two customers (who are actually chefs, but I'm calling them customers in this context) didn't actually order risotto, and mildly wonder if they get a choice. It appears that they do not. Nice work, Dave! I mean that sincerely, because it appears that the wait-staff will not be coming into the kitchen to take orders, so the chef on the appetizer station is supposed to talk to the chef's table customers and get their orders. So while Dave committed a bit of a faux pas, at least he's making them some food. Unlike Red Appetizer Chef Ariel, who is ignoring them completely. Chef Ramsay finally clues her in to the fact that she's supposed to go chat with them, recommend something, you know the deal.
On the blue side, Dave's risotto is a success. And he's still working with a broken hand! Ariel's scallops and crab are criticized for not having enough salt. Because these chefs, having worked for Gordon Ramsay for years, are very particular about how to cook scallops. Also, they don't look that thrilled about eating something they make all day in their own restaurants, but I might just be guessing.
Timeskip! Both teams are moving to entrees, and Van (the fish cook) is feeling pretty confident on the fish station. Oh no! But he has failed to remove the plastic from the cheese before cooking it onto the fish! That's what Sous Chef Scott was warning them about earlier! Oh, the hubris! Doooooom! Robert participates in the usual hyperbolic panic: "Somebody coulda ate that, choked on it, died. You want that on your shoulders?" Shut up, Robert. Incidentally, I always enjoy when Chef Ramsay is standing over someone's shoulders as they're trying to cook, shouting at them to concentrate.
Suzanne might be on desserts or something, because she's in the back of the kitchen cleaning counters and yelling at people to be peppy. Instead of, y'know, cooking.
Another blue table has some plastic on one of Van's dishes. Chef Ramsay is apocalyptically angry. I may have gotten that phrase from Top Gear. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did. The point is that Van is getting yelled at a lot here. On the red side, Sabrina gets called a pig for reusing a pan. Gasp! And on the blue side, they completely forget about the chef's table. Van gets sent over, and he pours on the Southern charm: "What're y'all having?" Unfortunately, they don't even have a menu, so the answer is just "I dunno. Whaddya got? We have no idea." Van lists off the entrees, but they want more information than just "sea bass". So Van tells them "it's all right. It's not that good." Classy! Van is flustered and can't remember everything that's on the plates. See, that's why you hire waiters to describe the food. Eventually he makes them settle on something. Off he goes! The customers are not impressed.
Amanda has apparently already served the chef's table on the red side, and they like it. Good for them. Amanda is getting annoyed by Suzanne, but things seem to be going pretty smoothly, really. On the blue side, Robert is dripping sweat and screwing up lamb. He and Gordon have a relatively incomprehensible exchange, which I shall now relate for you:
GORDON RAMSAY: IS that the best you can do?
ROBERT: Hell, no, it's not the best I can do!
GORDON RAMSAY: Well, give me the [bleep] best!
ROBERT: I am, chef!
Nice work, everyone. Robert goes on to explain in an interview that he feels like [bleep], but "me giving you 75% is still better than half the people here." Yeah, but you're graded by results, not tonnage. Zing!
Timeskip! The red team has only two tables to go, and the pasta is like twenty seconds late. Amanda blames it on "your princess", which means Ariel. Little Mermaid reference! Meanwhile, the blue team is stopped by some raw rabbit. When Chef Ramsay calls everyone over for a little intimate shout, he gets mad at Kevin, who has not put his dish down to give Gordon his undivided attention. This results in Kevin being called "cocky". There's a bit more shouting (mostly at Kevin, although it was Robert's rabbit), and the blue kitchen gets Switched Off.
The red team successfully finishes the service, so when everyone's lined up for the postmortem, they're a little pleased with themselves. This is enhanced by the news that the customers at the red chef's table would happily return, although the blue side's customers said "thanks, but no thanks". Gordon complains about the "rabbit with fur still on", and designates Dave as the best of the worst. Dave will nominate two of his team.
Everyone is sent off to the dorms, and there's a full moon. But we haven't been seeing it every night, so I'm going to allow it. Robert shouts at us in an interview that he doesn't deserve to go home. Robert and Van appeal to Dave that Andy should go up instead of them because he's been worse than them on nights. Robert tells Andy to "suck a [bleep]" several times. They shout and bleep at each other for a while, and Dave doesn't want to get involved. He's a low-key kind of guy, and I appreciate that.
Down to the dining room! Dave's first nominee is Robert, for having a weak service and health problems. Dave claims to be concerned about Robert's health. His second nominee is Van for the night's service. Van and Robert step forward, and Gordon tells Andy to join them. Because Gordon cares nothing for your "rules". It's all about crazy swerves, remember?
Robert mutters "Thank God" just loud enough for Gordon to hear so that everyone knows how much better he thinks he is than Andy. Chef Ramsay tells Andy he's probably not going to win. Then he asks Van what the deal was with the plastic, and Van says he doesn't have an excuse, but that he does have talent. "You've got twenty-something years in this business, you can spot talent!" Gordon sends Van back to his team. Van doesn't argue. Okay. Robert, why should you stay? "I've never been on the block once." Well, okay, that's -- oh, you're not finished? "And I'm disgusted that I even share the same [bleep] stage with this guy right here, all right?" Among his points is that Andy is "not there for the team". That seems like an opening for a counterattack.
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Yep. Andy: "Chef, can I address that for a second? If you ask my whole team, they'll all tell you that he does nothing during the day. He barely does anything." At this point, Robert starts shouting obscenities, but I'll stick with Andy's speech: "He says he reserves his energy, which means he does [bleep]." Robert makes a big spectacle of himself, shouting at Andy about how inadequate he is. Andy gets sent back in line and Robert gets sent home. Finally! His goodbye speech is about how it was an honor to come back and we're supposed to find him inspirational or something. Personally, I'm sick of him. Get off the show, Robert.
You can email Monty at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.
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