Welcome back! What did you do between episodes? I just sat here on the couch for a minute.
Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 24
Contestants' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 36
Guest Judges' Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter:1
Autumn is overwhelmed with emotion to still be in the competition, and her team is pleased to have her around. Even Benjamin is happy, since Autumn is better than Fran. Holli calls Fran a [bleep], and I guess it's up to us to decide how offensive she's being.
Roll call. Gordon has enormous lobsters. Ten pounds! Look at those horrifying sea monsters! He names them Salvatore and Siobhan and hands them off to Jason and Nilka. The challenge, logically enough, is for each team to do lobster. They have to split up the meat among the team members and then everybody makes a dish. Well, there should be plenty of meat in there. Jason explains to us that he's about to surprise Jay and Ed, who he feels have been underestimating him. On the red side, Nilka and Benjamin both want the tail. Everyone wants the tail. It's yummy! They compromise, which means that Benjamin rips all the meat out of the tail and gives Nilka a small piece. She had been planning to leave the meat attached, but now she can't. That might be good for her, because I happen to know that Gordon Ramsay doesn't like having things on his plate that aren't food.
Everything gets plated at the very last second, if you're the sort of person who believes the things they put on the screen in a reality show. Because the red team has one more chef, they're told to decide whose is the weakest. And this time, they have the sense to taste the food before deciding. It's Nilka's, which she describes as "a potato puree with some lobster on it." Gordon says it sounds disgusting. Then he brings in three chefs with at least one Michelin star to do the judging. Gordon Ramsay is obsessed with Michelin stars.
Holli's butter-poached lobster is good. Ed has poached-then-grilled lobster tail medallions, which are slightly rubbery. Holli wins, so it's 1-0 red team.
Jason's dish uses the entire lobster tail, and it's a little intimidating. He describes it as a "family-style appetizer" and gets the very high praise of "surprisingly, it's not too bad." Autumn has a stir-fry, which is apparently not refined enough. Jason wins, so it's 1-1.
Benjamin has a poached lobster tail and gets his presentation criticized. Jay's looks great. In fact, it's the only dish this season that looks like something you'd see on Top Chef. It's a lobster knuckle and a cup of cappucino. It's an interesting idea, but apparently the lobster's raw. He decides that neither one gets a point, so guess what? It's still a tie! And this time, Gordon decides that the tiebreaker goes to the person with the best dish overall. In rounds, he's given the tiebreaker point to "the loser with the best dish" and "whether or not the team correctly chose which dish to not bring up." He's capricious! This time, Holli wins it for her team.
The red team's reward is to go to a caviar house and then get a thousand-dollar shopping spree. Autumn is a little giddy about the way she keeps switching to the winning side. The blue team's punishment is to clean the dorms and prep both kitchens. I feel like we've seen this one already this season, but I'm not going to check.
Jay is shocked that he didn't get a point and brags about how great his presentation was. Shut it, loser. The red team loads into a limo and shrieks about how excited they are. The blue team cleans the dorms, and I don't feel that bad for them being forced to clean up after themselves. How do you think those toilets got so gross in the first place?
It is not particularly exciting to watch people eat caviar. Especially since we learned last episode that these people don't have particularly exciting palates. Holli talks a lot about how caviar is an aphrodisiac, although she admits that it's probably just that she's excited about being out of the kitchen. Nilka thinks she'll probably stick with cheeseburgers and fries.
Prep time! Sous Chef Scott has instituted a new rule: the blue team has to prep the other team's kitchen completely before they're allowed to start on their own. I like that rule. It keeps them from shorting the enemy's supplies. Meanwhile, the red team shops for stuff. Mostly girly stuff, which means that Benjamin has to settle for a string of pearls for his girlfriend. Or it might have been wife. You get the idea, anyway.
The red team gets back and starts helping out on prep. With 15 minutes to go, the blue team doesn't have any prep done. Then Chef Ramsay shows up to interrupt them. He has news: everyone's cooking in the red kitchen. Does that mean they're all one team? And supposedly all the night's customers are going to the theatre after the dinner. So that puts a hard limit of two and a half hours on the evening. And Holli will be serving caviar tableside right before the appetizers, which will help somehow.
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We are not told what show, if any, the crowd is going to. The two teams are still in red and blue. Nilka's got some raw scallops on the first table and Chef Ramsay threatens to ride her all night. Save it for the XXX parody, pal. Autumn gets backed up a little by Nilka, but recovers. Nilka then has some raw turbot. He hands it to her, and rather than put it back in the pan, she drops it.
An hour in, entrees are having trouble. Nilka drops some lobster taking it out of the oven, and Chef Ramsay shouts at her about not giving up and urgently needing lobster. And she's got the wrong sauce, which means she gets a private pantry-berating from Chef Ramsay. He orders her to get a grip, which is reasonable. When she's out in the kitchen again, everyone tries to calm her down. Even Jay, who is on the opposing team!
It's time for some non-Nilka action. Ed burns some asparagus. Then his station catches fire.
Out in the kitchen, a big guy in a tuxedo demands food. Better get a bucket. In the kitchen, Chef Ramsay makes Jason do more talking. Holli's still out there on the tableside action, chatting with the customers about caviar. Jay tries to get Nilka to tell him when her turbot will be ready, and she starts to shut down again. Chef Ramsay seems almost reluctant to harass her about her raw lobster, but he does. He throws her out of the kitchen and follows her out through the back. He tells her to take her jacket off and she begs him not to say that. I hope he follows her all the way, because I don't think I've ever seen Gordon in the dorms.
There's a great shot where we can see how close the "patio" is to the kitchen. It's maybe 20 feet down a corridor! Okay, anyway, Nilka walks along darkened corridors. Then she walks back into the kitchen and begs to still cook. Chef Ramsay tells her to leave, and she stand right to him shouting "Please! Please!" Chef Ramsay again tells her to leave, and she just shouts "I wanna cook!" This isn't helping, Nilka. She claims that she gave her whole life for this. No you didn't. You gave your whole life for cooking. Not Hell's Kitchen.
The remaining chefs get their last dishes out with time to spare. The customers go off to the "theatre." Nilka packs her stuff and walks out a back door. And Gordon Ramsay is there, waiting to a taxi. Incidentally, the door is labeled "Hell's Kitchen Deliveries", even though they always try to pretend that the deliveries come in the front door when the chefs have to bring them in. Also, this is clearly not really the loading dock. Why would the deliveries come to a door that's up some stairs?
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Sorry. I get distracted with the unreality sometimes. Gordon tells Nilka to walk out of there with her head held high, because although she's not ready for the Head Chef's job, she's done very well. That's nice of him. Then he makes her hand over the jacket. There's a truck to them that might be full of the video crew.
The remaining chefs line up in the kitchen, and Chef Ramsay congratulates them on their best service. He sends them up to the dorms (or over to the patio) to pick two people to nominate for elimination. Jason suggests Ed and Autumn, and Ed objects on the grounds that he fought back and gave 110%. I'd vote him out for saying 110%. Autumn says Jason and Ed. Jason is shocked and appalled at the suggestion that he had even one ticket drag. I don't see how it matters, since Nilka already left.
Dining room. Benjamin nominates Ed for slightly slowing down service. The second nominee is Autumn (Gordon: "Not again") for being the weakest overall cook. Ed, why should you stay? "I keep battling back, like you said." Gordon complains about Ed letting his pans burn dry. Autumn, why should you stay? "Tonight, I did a good job." Gordon has Ed take his jacket off, then gives him the black jacket for being in the final six. No one's going home. Gordon calls everyone by crazy nicknames, and no one's sure who "Mr. Happy Face" is.
So this is your top six, Savoy. Are you excited?
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Monty's daily blog is Mysterious Exhortations. You can email Monty at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.
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