I like how they don't bother recutting the episodes at all when they show them back-to-back. Because I feel like I need the Previouslies even less than I normally do, but they're still there. Just in case.
Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 30
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 23
Dinner services finished so far: Four for four! A step up from last season, at least.
Fran now believes that Chef Ramsay has kept her around for a reason. Is this going to turn into some sort of Joan of Arc thing, where she's convinced she has a destiny?
As the men file out, Gordon tells Salvatore that he shouldn't crumple when he gets yelled at. Fight back!
The morning, Scott and Salvatore are the only ones awake at 5:23 am. They go over the menu and Scott explains that Gordon Ramsay's idea of fighting back is saying "Yes, chef" and getting back to work.
Everyone's lined up in the dining room. The challenge will employ the craps table from before. In fact, we're just reusing a challenge from last season. Each of the chefs will roll the twelve-sided die, then name an ingredient that begins with the letter shown. Then each team will make a dish employing those ingredients. There are currently six chefs on each team, which I have just noticed means that the episode title is wrong. Oh, well.
Scott asks Gordon to blow on his die, and he declines.. He gets an H and goes with Halibut. Jay thinks that's boring. Jason adds Endive. Ed gets Salsify, which is something fancy chefs like. Benjamin throws in Crab, then Jay gets P and goes with Peas. Finally, Salvatore's B gives them ... Bacon. Everyone seems to think this could be a pretty good dish.
Fran kicks off with a B and panics, finally coming up with Beets. Nilka adds Shallots, and skepticism is starting to reign. Autumn's M blanks her and she finally comes up with Mango. The men high-five at that, and Gordon suggests a couple of other options she could have gone with. Siobhan comes up with Ham, then Maria adds Turnips. The women don't seem all that enthusiastic about their dish so far. Holli finally steps up to the table, rolls a D, and throws out Duck. Everyone loves it, because at least it's a real ingredient.
Gordon sends everyone off and tells them to make sure that everyone has input. That's not a problem for Autumn, who is giving suggestions even as they enter the kitchen. To be fair, her idea of saving the duck fat to add to the turnips sounds pretty reasonable. She also tells Nilka how to butcher the duck. Meanwhile, Salvatore is wandering around the blue kitchen looking for something to do. Scott gives him a simple, repetitious task and tells him not to mess with the stuff Scott is stirring.
Autumn wants to slice the duck, but Chef Ramsay sticks his nose in and says not to slice it too early. All the other chefs take Ramsay's side, which is understandable, but Autumn wants to plate now. Dishes get brought to the pass.
The men have made a pan-roasted halibut with a bacon, pea, and crab ragout and a salsify puree. Chef Ramsay seems to like it a lot, except for the salsify chips. Nilka introduces the women's dish as a mango-glazed pan-seared duck with pureed turnips and some other stuff. The turnips look boring but taste good, and Autumn's idea to put duck fat in the turnips turns out to have been a good one. Nilka's duck looks good, although it's a little fatty. Both dishes are quite good. The blue team wins, because there was some fat on the duck.
The red team's punishment is to clean the entrance hall and prep both kitchens. The men, meanwhile, will be going skydiving. Jason is afraid of heights, because it's a reality show and there's always one.
JP introduces the women to the cleaning supplies, and they don't do a lot of complaining. They mostly just clean stuff. Maria would rather be doing prep than cleaning, which I approve of. Doing prep isn't a punishment! It's more experience working in the kitchen with each other!
The men arrive at one of those wind tunnel tubes that simulate skydiving. I feel like I should be making fun of it, but I think those are really cool.
JP goes around with a white glove. The men fly around in a plastic cylinder. The women finally get to do prep. Maria is now complaining about how long it takes to slice mangoes. I think the more they work with the food during prep, the better they'll work with it during the dinner service. When the men get there, Maria tells them they're "really sorry in advance." They don't like the sound of that. It turns out that they haven't prepped the men's stuff yet. Sous Chef Andi tells them to snap it up because they only have an hour. Maria starts crying a little from the stress, and Fran tells her to get out of the kitchen before she makes them all cry. She goes off and has a brief breakdown.
Sous Chef Andi takes her into the patio (where I guess there's a little sunlight visible after all) and listens to Maria panic. Will she give helpful advice? "You need to stop being emotional. It's gonna kill you." Well, thanks a lot. She knows that. "It's simple. It's food." Well, it seems to have worked on Maria since she's back in the kitchen. Chef Ramsay refers to her "lovely face" and now she's in a good mood again.
It's time for the dinner service, and tonight they will have (the most amazing) chef's tables. That's when people get to sit inside the kitchen, which I don't really think sounds all that pleasant and relaxing on this show. Anyway, the red team gets the host of Entertainment Tonight, Kevin Frazier. And the lovely Mrs. Frazier. The blue team gets "a star who's in Entourage." Guess who! Nope. Guess again. Nope. Not him either. Nope. It's Debi Mazar! And her husband, who we're told is a chef. So that's what's up.
We appear to have a lot of celebrities in the house tonight, although Debi Mazar is the only one I've heard of. Still, if you're interested, there's Carrie Preston (actress on True Blood), Jay McGraw (author, TV host and son of Dr. Phil), his wife Erica McGraw (a former Playboy model), Debi's husband Gabriele Corcos (chef), and of course Debi and Kevin. I can call them by their first names, right? We're all pals here.
Jason starts on appetizers, and Scott is immediately coaching him, which means that he's telling him what to do at all times. Scott's calling out the times and absolutely micromanaging Jason's action. He's also getting on everyone's nerves. Jason's capellini is cooked perfectly, though, so that's something. On the red side, Siobhan's capellini has lobster in it, not crab. Awkward. She's allegedly keeping Playboy models waiting.
Blue side. Salvatore panics over some fish, and Debi Mazar thinks he's going to have an aneurysm. On the red side, Siobhan has lobster in the capellini again! To do so once may be regarded as a misfortune; to do it again looks like carelessness. Anyway, she claims that the bin she pulled the meat from said "crab," but is willing to admit that it does appear to be lobster. Kevin Frazier is laughing, but he's trying not to show it.
Salvatore's got more snapper. Chef Ramsay shouts "Salvatore!" a million times and then says the snapper is cooked perfectly. Scott interviews with incredible smugness that Salvatore is his pet project and that with the proper guidance, Salvatore could be an attribute to the team.
More celebrities! Well, I assume they're celebrities because they get their names captioned. If you're a fan of Barbara Niven ("Actress") or Jamie Little ("ESPN Reporter"), you're excited right now.
Nilka's on meat, and Chef Ramsay calls out three beef, one halibut, all three beef medium well. Autumn coordinates the action vocally, and Nilka's meat is cooked perfectly. I enjoy when Gordon curses casually, instead of furiously: "Beautifully cooked, now [bleep] off, will you?" Nilka's response is appropriate: "Will do!"
Salvatore has some more perfect salmon. Things are going too well for Chef Ramsay, so he shouts at Ed about the state of the potatoes. Ramsay never seems to enjoy himself in the kitchen on this show.
Now Chef Ramsay spots Autumn doing something wrong with the fish. Specifically, she picked up the fish with tongs and dropped it. He tells her about using the spatula to pick up from under the fish, and showing respect for the ingredients. She seems a little flustered by it. Meanwhile, Kevin Hamlin ("Dallas Cowboys") is getting impatient.
Scott delivers three beef that are supposed to be medium, but all the chefs agree that it's rare. Scott claims that it feels medium rare to him, which is not only not what anyone else says it is, it's not what was ordered. Just say "Yes, Chef!" and get back to work, remember? Scott interviews that he's sure he's only being picked on because he has so much experience.
Brian Vickers ("NASCAR Driver") tells his tablemates to go ahead and start eating.
Nilka gets the wellingtons done for the chef's table and serves Kevin Frazier. He tells her she's doing great. It's nice to hear encouragement in the middle of this, isn't it?
Scott brings up a pair of lamb wellingtons that are raw, not rare. Jason interviews that Scott messed up twice, and therefore should be gone. Jay is also gleeful that Scott the Know-It-All got in trouble. Salvatore continues to get praise and brings Debi Mazar and Gabriele Corcos their food. And he gets to talk to them in Italian, which he wisely doesn't do for too long.
The red team cooks like a well-organized kitchen. Scott finally has some well-cooked beef wellingtons. Both kitchens are allegedly on their last tickets, and we even see a brief glimpse of desserts. The red team gets complimented by both Gordon Ramsay and Kevin Frazier. The blue team also shuts down to slightly muted praise.
After the service, Chef Ramsay says he's amazed at how good the contestants were. He specifically praises Salvatore and Nilka. So they're supposed to go up and pick one person each from their teams. No consensus; it's up to Salvatore and Nilka.
Up in the dorms, the women seem pretty relaxed about letting Nilka choose. But when Nilka says that Autumn got a lot of riding, she says it's unfair. Siobhan says that her crab/lobster thing was because there was crab on top of the container that had lobster in it. Nilka's plan is to go speak her mind. Sounds fair.
On the blue team, Jay tells Ed he [bleep]ed up. Salvatore talks to Scott about how he made mistakes tonight. Scott admits that he was too busy keeping track of everyone else and lending helping hands everywhere. He interviews that Salvatore is his pal, and he trusts him. Then he tells Salvatore he's happy that Salvatore had a good service, with the clear implication being "...because I, Scott, helped you so much."
Down in the dining room! Nilka nominates Autumn because "tonight she didn't perform to her full potential." That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of Autumn getting fired. Salvatore throws Scott out, because "the meat was not cooked well." Okay. Autumn strikes Gordon as the appendix of the red team. He doesn't feel that she has affection for food. He also calls her soulless, which seems a little harsh. She says she gave up everything to follow her dreams. Scott claims that he's the strongest leader, but that he's learned his lesson and, well, [bleep] everyone else. Gordon says he sounds like a politician and tells him he's not as good as he thinks he is. Gordon counsels humility. Then he tells them both to take their jackets off, in an obvious swerve prior to having them switch teams.
Nobody's going home tonight, which means that the number of contestants will be back in line with the number in the title. There's the usual vows about showing people who's awesome.
week: piggies!
Check out part one of the double episode here, discuss it in our forums, and see why we'd never eat here!
Want to immediately access TWoP content no matter where you are online? Download the free TWoP toolbar for your web browser. Already have a customized toolbar? Then just add our free toolbar app to get updated on our content as soon it's published.
Monty's daily blog is Mysterious Exhortations. You can email Monty at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.