Hey there, donkeys, donuts, and [bleep]-heads! It's time for another season of Hell's Kitchen the show that supplies 95% of the world's overcooked risotto! If you're new here, I'll sum up: sixteen delusional chefs, one guy who's a brilliant chef but a jerk, and a bunch of people whining about not getting their free gourmet food fast enough. And more bleeps than you can shake a [bleep] at.
Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 50
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 30
Contestants with Weird Hair: Four
We start with a lot of Coming This Season action. Apparently there will be shouting. And a giant fish. And hot tub shenanigans. And a blimp! The addition of airships means this is a steampunk show now, right?
Jason, 37, is a personal chef who says he's not nervous. Stacey, 38, is a private chef who says she's going to win. What's the difference between a private chef and a personal chef? While you ponder that, also ponder who the "representatives from the media" are that take the chefs' pictures as they walk into the dining room. I mean, I'm practically the only person still writing about this show, and they didn't invite me. I feel left out, is what I am saying. Oh! And here's Ed, 28, a high school cooking teacher, which means they've renamed Home Ec, I guess. Scott, 32, is an executive chef. Man, there's nothing like a well-cooked executive.
The fake paparazzi have been joined by fake fans so that the chefs get a lot of cheering as they enter. Nilka, 28, is a line cook and claims to have been dazzled by the experience. I'm kind of dazzled by her hair, which is kind of like a pompador. Anyway, since she's a line cook, I figure she'll be fine for the ten or eleven episodes as we eliminate the people who can't work on a line. Then she'll get eliminated as Ramsay says nice things about how hard she works. She's only third in the Interesting Hair Stakes, though, as a guy from Maui has a big weird mohawk but only on the front of his head, and someone from Boston has blue hair. The fake media pretends to write down everyone's credentials.
It's time for the first Big Fake Dramatic Moment as Gordon officially guarantees that they'll finish their first dinner service. Jason (we've already had him!) seems skeptical. Autumn, 29, personal chef, is also not confident. Anyway, it's time for the Signature Dishes and also the credits. I'll run through them this one time so that I don't have to remember which contestants I've introduced already.
Mikey has the mohawk. Holli is a cute brunette. Jason is a largish African-American gentleman with kind of a goatee. Ed seems perky. Siobhan seems very perky and has long hair, possibly in either cornrows or dreads. Nilka may well be sassy. Stacey looks like a soccer mom. Andrew has kind of a Kenneth-the-Page vibe. Fran is the one who just said she was 44 years old. Maria looks kind of like a younger Fran. Salvatore is younger than I was hoping for from his name. I like Autumn and I have no basis for that. Benjamin is the one I will confuse with Andrew a lot. Jamie gets short shrift here because I'm distracted by the little bat-winger Jean-Philippe there. Jay has blue hair and I'm pretty sure that's the only interesting thing about him. Scott winks at the camera so I hate him. I think that's everybody. I'm not going back to check.
Okay, here we go! Everyone's cooking! The men are in one kitchen and the women are in the other, because Gordon Ramsay has no interest in changing even one tiny aspect of his show from season to season. Stacey says she'll "make it work" (wrong show, but nice try) and brags about cooking for Nathan Lane and Don Rickles, among others. And Martha Stewart, for some reason. Holli can't find the trash can and pretends in an interview that she was "being cute." One of the basic problems in our society, if you don't mind me going slightly off topic, is that the concepts of "cute" and "dumb" are too easily confused. By the "cute," if you know what I mean. Although I've just noticed that I did, in fact, call her cute in the paragraph. Anyway, Holli has heels on and falls down. Always funny!
The dishes are finished and the press has been hustled outside to change clothes so they can pretend to be dinner guests later on. Gordon grills the contestants. Who will be this season's gag entries? One of them is a stay-at-home mom who writes cookbooks but has never worked in a restaurant. Her dish is scallopini of some sort and Gordon tells her it's delicious. Gordon gives her a hug and Maria tells us that it's completely un-Ramsay-like, which tells me she's never watched The F-Word. Then Gordon kisses her on the cheeks. Then the lips. Then he starts making out with her. She turns out to not be a contestant at all! It's his wife in a wig! Feel free to make snarky comments about that affair he was supposed to be having. Incidentally, his wife really does write cookbooks.
So now that we've gotten the gimmick out of the way, Gordon assures the chefs that he only cares about the food, not the resume.
First up, Salvatore vs. Maria. Maria has a filet mignon, which Chef Ramsay praises as being cooked perfectly. Salvatore is from Italy, which means he gets reaaaaally generic music. He's got a thick accent because he believes that women like it. Gordon hates his undercooked pasta. Women lead, 1-0.
Second, Benjamin vs. Holli. Benjamin cooked lobster, and also made his own pasta (unlike Salvatore). Holli made halibut wrapped in a banana leaf, and doesn't do a great job of defending it before Gordon spits it out. Men 1 - Women 1.
Third! Scott vs. Jamie. Jamie made a creamed chicken Kiev and left a toothpick in the food, which Gordon immediately assumes could stick in someone's throat and kill them. Scott's duck breast is also bad. No points!
Fourth! Mikey vs. Siobhan! Gordon wants to talk about the mohawk, and the soundtrack guys put some electric guitar on because they think a mohawk means punk rock. Actually, Mikey's got a rockabilly thing going on. Gordon asks about all the tattoos he's got, and Mikey reveals ... (pause for commercials, which are announced by a shot of a cow being branded with the Hell's Kitchen logo) ... a tattoo of the Hell's Kitchen logo! Also, a big piece of tape that's doing double duty holding a microphone cord and also covering up some undoubtedly vulgar tattoos. Like, I'm pretty sure that one right there is a pair of testicles wearing a top hat.
Everyone reacts with shock and horror. Mikey eventually gets to present his brie stuffed with lobster, which is apparently good. Siobhan does have dreads, which also appall Gordon. She's got seared ahi tuna wrapped in mint leaves. It works, and they both win. Frankly, I think the head-to-head angle is a little spoiled by the way Gordon hands out points. Anyway, both teams have two points now.
Fifth! Stacey has overcooked fish to go against Jay's well-seasoned steaks. Sixth! Fran has an unnamed food and Jason has grits. Men 4 - Women 2. Ed loses a point to Autumn.
Nilka vs. Andrew. Gordon is promptly appalled by the idea of steak tartare, which Andrew made because he likes to eat his animals raw. Gordon's final objection is that it's bland. Nilka made spicy chicken wings, They're too spicy for Gordon, and no one gets a point this round. The men win!
Okay, let's move on. The winner will get to be the head chef at the Savoy in London. I mean, they obviously won't really be the head chef. But we like to pretend.
The chefs are led to the dorms, which are just hideous. I don't know if I could sleep with wallpaper that loud. They all get chef's jackets, menus to study, and knives. We break for a knife infomercial, then the women study their menus. People who care deeply about the pronunciation of "mascarpone" will not enjoy this section. The men seem more panicky. Then there's a fire alarm. I wonder if it's a real fire alarm or just another wacky gimmick the show is throwing at them.
Ha ha! It's a gimmick, of course. Gordon is on a television screen showing them how to make the dishes. This one is the lobster risotto, and it's got rice, shallot, mascarpone, garlic, lobster stock, and white wine. That looks awesome. Less awesome is the way the contestants keep getting dragged out of bed at 2:00 AM to watch another video.
The women's sous chef this time is named Andi. Because lord knows we have to divide the contestants by sex and the women have to have a sous chef who's one of them. She's introduced waking up the women at 6:17 AM so they can make breakfast to serve to the men in bed. It looks pretty good, frankly.
Prep! Maria is not great with the pasta. Over on the blue side (the blue side is the men, by the way), Scott is talking a lot and telling people what to do. End of prep! JP opens up the dining room and it's on. We're told that Chef Ramsay has "brought back to the menu some of Hell's Kitchen's favorite dishes." That's fascinating! Also inevitable, since the menu does not change all that much from year to year to begin with! I mean, the news that there's a Lamb Wellington and a risotto doesn't exactly stun me, you know?
Oh, there's tableside Caesar salad action. That's Nilka and Ed. We'll see if that matters. Stacey messes up some scallops as she interviews about how great she is. Jamie talks a good game about everyone getting into the groove. Stacey's scallops are rejected for being uncooked and covered with too much curry powder. On the blue side, Salvatore burns a couple of dishes and gets sent down to salads.
Fran brings potatoes up to Chef Ramsay, and they get rejected for a variety of reasons. When he asks how long the replacements will be, she doesn't answer. That's the worst. All he wants is people to talk to him. Chef Ramsay takes exception to the way Fran removes the potatoes from the oil and she explains that she was afraid. Afraid of the oil? No, afraid of him. Autumn takes a position of leadership and tells the team to take a breath.
Benjamin tastes his dish and puts the spoon back in the pan. That's not going to fly, as Chef Ramsay explains at length. Fran is working on some lobster risotto, which does not look right to me. And I don't want to brag, but after three seasons of this show, I'm somewhat of an expert on what risotto is supposed to look like. I still don't know what it tastes like, though. And Fran puts a few handfuls of lobster meat in, which I 'm positive is wrong. Chef Ramsay stops her because she's putting crab meat in the lobster risotto. I object to the meat being in there at all, since it wasn't on that ingredient list in the video.
Fran seems stressed and angry in an interview. Now she blames Autumn and Chef Ramsay and generally everyone other than herself. We jump through a time hole and arrive at entrees. Jamie's first one is no good, so everyone on the red team has to come feel it. Chef Ramsay says it feels like cold cream on a hot steak, and Maria laughs. Chef Ramsay shouts at her for laughing and she apologizes. Then she laughs nervously and Chef Ramsay loses his mind with rage, throwing three of them out of the kitchen. I think it's Jamie, Maria, and Fran. Fran tries to claim she's not leaving her team, but she doesn't have a choice. JP goes out to collect Nilka, telling her to "Get in the cage."
Up in the dorms, Jamie, Maria, and Fran rack up the bleeps. They could be spending this time studying the menu. Just a thought.
Scott is being officious at Mikey, explaining that he's on garnishes, which means he's in charge. Mike didn't want to serve this halibut yet, but Scott made him do it. "RAW! RAW! RAW" shouts Chef Ramsay, sounding like a cheerleader from the 1950s. That's an awesome joke you just read and I hope you appreciated it.
The red team is running smoothly and they're getting food out. The blue team is having problems, though, because Benjamin and Salvatore are screwing up appetizers. And they won't answer when Chef Ramsay wants to know how long the last appetizer will be, so they get tossed.
Red side. Stacey says the salmon will take five minutes, which she immediately cuts to three upon being shouted at. No good; she's sent to the dorms. Mikey's got some cold halibut, and yet again, Chef Ramsay goes with "Do me a [bleep]ing favor. Get out!"
The red kitchen is down to four chefs and the blue kitchen has five. Chef Ramsay calls everyone together and says they're all [bleep]ing useless, but he's still determined to achieve what the voiceover guy calls "his dream of a complete service." You know, he might stand a better chance if he didn't keep throwing people out of the kitchen in an attempt to generate drama. Anyway, the surviving members are merged so that they can work together. I'm sure that helps everyone cook better. You know, constantly being in fear of getting fired in the middle of the service and then getting moved from kitchen to kitchen.
The dorms are full of ennui. The kitchens have pep. Ed is shouting a lot. He's also successfully cooking meat. Come to think of it, teaching high school might be excellent training for wrangling reality show chefs. So they finish the service, although we don't see any dessert action.
The chefs are lined up in the kitchen for the traditional dressing-down. Chef Ramsay decides, fairly arbitrarily, that the red team lost. They are to come to a consensus on two of them to nominate for elimination. Up in the dorms, Maria defends herself on the grounds that she got thrown out before she ever got to cook anything. Autumn suggests Fran and Stacey, and Fran gets extremely defensive. She accuses Autumn of "just standing there." Well, Autumn was on the dessert station, and that barely even exists. It's not her fault she got hidden on the easy station on the first day. Fran now thinks Autumn should go home because she's not a team player. I suspect Fran's definition of "not a team player" is "nominated me for elimination."
Down in the dining room, it's elimination tome. Chef Ramsay goes to Autumn for the names. Up first, Stacey, because service started badly. After the commercials and a long pause, Fran goes and gives a lovely eye-roll.
Fran, why should you stay? "I don't think I did the worst today. I don't know why I was sent upstairs." This just gives Gordon a chance to make fun of her again for not knowing the difference between lobster and crab. He asks her how many legs a lobster has, and she dries up. Her new excuse is "I was a kosher chef." Stacey, why should you stay? "I'm a team player and I have nowhere to go but up here." Fran threatens to show Gordon her testicles. Stacey is sent home. Fran vows revenge on Autumn.
Stacey admits that she screwed up and also gives herself kudos for being so great at admitting that. Jason claims that they "kicked the girls' butts," which does not really describe what happened. Gordon says that Stacey was a private chef because her food wasn't good enough for the public.
week: Gordon shouts at people!
Monty's daily blog is Mysterious Exhortations. You can email Monty at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.
Watch the full episode here if you missed it.
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