Where were we? Oh, yeah, Ramsay tells 'em all to fuck off. I don't think any one of us will ever forget that episode!
The chefs drape themselves all over the furniture and feel sorry for themselves. The women in particular seem to be a little concerned about what's going to happen with Elise, because all of them except for Elizabeth said last time they all want Elise to go. Jonathon tells her he still loves her (not that he can be roused to a sitting position to say so), and Elise is... unpacking wine, or something, perhaps strategically placing bottles so they're handy when she gets in a fight and needs to break one off at the neck? She sees the strategy now: Go after the strongest one. It IS pretty much the opposite of her own strategy, which has been to devour the weakest one (i.e. Carrie). "If that's how we're going to play the game, and start trying to cut the competition, well let the games begin, because someone's going home week, and it ain't gonna be me."
For the Red Team, the air is thick with cigarette smoke and recrimination, where Jamie wants to know if Elise is OK, and Elise starts going on about how she's happy to find out she doesn't have any friends, and she's much better than Carrie, who's sitting right there, and not saying anything to defend herself that we can see. Elise tells the group that she learned a valuable lesson tonight. "Which is?" asks Jamie. "Bring it on," says Elise, which makes sense on precisely zero levels.
The morning, the chefs are greeted in the restaurant by Ramsay standing amid bubbling beakers and flasks -- science-fiction mad scientist stuff -- because today they're going to be working with chefs who are notorious for combining science and food. And just as you're thinking, "Monsanto has chefs?" out come Ben Roche and Homaro Cantu, who at least Natalie recognizes as being the chefs from Moto. She seems excited about it. Me, I'm intrigued by what Ramsay said about the frozen pizza they created; apparently the flavor changes as you eat it, to taste like dessert. I kind of wish this show had some sort of "Buy It Now!" pop-up, because I would have been dialing in seconds.
"They do the craziest things I've ever seen done in a kitchen," says Natalie. The chefs then go on to blow the chefs' minds, and this is easier for some of the chefs than it is for others. They're making a "dreamsicle sorbet," and they use a sound-generator to liquefy the oranges' innards. Jonathon hilariously stares at the chefs. He looks like he's witnessing actual witchcraft. "Soundwaves, dude? Are you kidding me, man?" Jonathon tells us. He may actually be expressing skepticism that such magical things exist.
Then they use liquid nitrogen to make ice cream in 45 seconds. Krupa says she might have done better in chemistry class if it was cool shit like this. Uh, my chemistry class was nothing BUT cool shit like this, so I have no idea what she's talking about. Tommy says the liquid nitrogen is dangerous because you can freeze a body part and have it shatter, possibly because he thinks comic books are real.
However, after showing them the cutting edge, Ramsay is going to take them right back to the basics: fire and water. "You can steam, you can boil, you can poach. All other cooking methods are off-limits," says Ramsay, and Jonathon's bummed because he was "fixin'" to use "this things [sic] from the future." Oh, and he apparently thinks boiling water was invented just a hundred years ago.
The chefs have 45 minutes to create a unique dish from one of six proteins, using the aforementioned methods. Since the Red Team has seven members, they'll double up on one protein and then taste-test the two dishes to decide which dish to present. Obviously, Carrie is going to be one of the two cooks doubling up (with Elizabeth, on prawns). There is a minor scuffle between Gina and Krupa over who's using the guinea hen ("Bitch, get off my guinea hen," Gina tells us. I hope Gina doesn't consider herself charming). Over in the Blue Kitchen, Monterray seems to be wandering around somewhat aimlessly.
The dishes are finished, and the Red Team gets down to selecting. Ramsay calls out Elise for saying she preferred Elizabeth's prawn dish over Carries without even tasting Carrie's, and Elise gives us a ridiculous justification for tasting with her eyes first instead of her mouth that amounts to, "Carrie sucks, so obviously her dish is going to suck." The team does eventually go with Elizabeth's dish anyway, and Carrie grouchily says that's fine, clearly not believing it, and she tells us that nobody on that team has any faith in her. In her defense, she hasn't given them much reason to.
First up is filet mignon, Jennifer against Jonathon. Jonathon provides the most basic of basic: meat, potatoes and vegetables. The Moto chefs shit all over the presentation, calling it not restaurant-caliber, but decide that it's cooked wonderfully. Jennifer's made a basil fondue sauce, and says she's never boiled beef before. Apparently she's got it just right, and the Moto guys give the nod to Red Team for Jennifer putting more thought into it.
Monterray and Elizabeth go head-to-head on prawns. Monterray has made prawn eggs benedict, which prompts Ramsay to bury his head in his hands. Not that he endorses criticizing dishes without tasting them first. Oh, but the food isn't any good either. Overcooked prawns. Elizabeth, meanwhile, has made spaghetti with prawns, and it's tossed in olive oil. The Moto guys aren't big fans of that either, and you know what's going to happen now: Ramsay calls over Carrie's dish, which involves bell peppers and a béchamel sauce? I think? And of course the judges all prefer it to either of the dishes that have been presented, and Carrie nods pointedly at Elise, who stares at her with raised eyebrows. No points for either team.
Jamie makes poached salmon with a citrus jasmine rice. Overcooked salmon. Will has some egg with his, and the judges praise the flavors and the textural components, and Blue Team ties things up at one.
Guinea hens: Gina vs. Tommy. Gina's got lightly poached guinea hen with mushrooms while Tommy has made poached chicken leg with breast. Ramsay asks why he'd serve leg and breast at the same time. "I don't really think when I do things, I just do them," says Tommy, looking like he thinks that might impress someone other than a high-school girl who loves his bitchin' Camaro. Ramsay doesn't look particularly enthused by his response. The verdict? Less would have been more, and Red Team gets the point.
Elise and Paul bring up their lobsters. Elise's is a little rubbery, while Paul's earns a "bravo." Score's tied at two.
It's down to the veal dishes, Natalie versus Krupa. Natalie's made a veal terrine, wrapped in greens, which has the added benefit of rhythm and rhyme. "Don't take it personally, but the terrine kinda comes off as having that cat food texture," says one of the judges. I forgot which one each one is. Why would anyone take THAT personally? The other judge doesn't like it either. As for Krupa's poached veal, it's an awful lot of brown. So no points for presentation, but the judges all like the taste of the dish. But Ramsay has something else to say: "I have one big issue with that dish, and it's not funny," he says, and naturally we go to commercial first.
What's the big reveal? That the dish isn't veal at all, but filet mignon. And we revisit the Red Team's fight over the guinea hen, and see Krupa exasperatedly grab what she says she thought was the veal, but was actually the filet mignon. Ramsay makes Carrie go fetch the veal from the Red Kitchen as proof.
"I just wanted to crawl under a rock. I'm very, very ticked off with myself," Krupa tells us, and she has to sit there and take it while Ramsay wonders how it is that she doesn't know the difference, and he chews out the rest of the team for not noticing that no one was cooking veal. To their credit, team-wise, no one points out that Jamie noticed, but Krupa assured her she was on the veal. Ramsay's also pissed off that he served two esteemed judges what was supposed to be veal. "How dare you!" he tells them. I'm kinda curious why neither of the two guests said, "Uh, that's not veal," but let's all assume that they know when you're in Hell's Kitchen, you leave the profanity-laced outrage to Ramsay.
The score is tied, but because Red Team screwed up the veal and left Carrie's better dish on the sidelines, Ramsay awards the victory to Blue. Their reward is a trip to one of the finest spas in Beverly Hills. "Dude, I love fuckin' massages!" Jonathon tells us, and I'm hoping this one is a little more upscale than the rub-n-tug he's probably used to.
Team Blue heads out while Team Red feels sorry for itself in advance for having to scrub the hot tub, the fountain, and prep BOTH kitchens for tonight's service. Elise starts running her mouth about how Krupa's dish was the tie-breaker, conveniently forgetting that Krupa earned just as many points towards a victory as Elise did.
So over at the spa, much sport is made over what a rockin' rocker Tommy is, and how he's too punk for hot stones on his asses, and he doesn't care about spas and "rich people" but it wouldn't be a tough sell to get him used to it. I've gotta say, Tommy's rebelliousness level is much lower than his tattoo volume (and placement) would have you believe. The team enjoys a nice, relaxing mineral bath...
...While Red Team is at work cleaning the fountain and the hot tub. Most of the shots we see show Elise standing around looking disappointed in everyone. Meanwhile, Krupa feels awful about what she did, but she's not about to take any shit from Elise about it.
Back at the spa, there are now foot baths and scalp massages and manicures going on, and Jonathon makes sure everyone knows he is turning down the waxing because he is a manly man who uses a razor. Uh -- aren't manly men supposed to leave the body hair on and not use a razor either? Will goes in for the waxing, and so does Tommy, and they have nicely sculpted eyebrows (two each!) to show for it. The entire spa experience is refreshingly free of happy-endings jokes and professions of manliness, apart from Jonathon's manhood-assertion.
Blue Team strolls back into Hell's Kitchen, loudly extolling the virtues of spending the day at the spa instead of toiling in a kitchen, and you'd think they'd be a little more careful, given the availability Red Team has to the boiling pots and sharp knives.
< p>Sadly, no blood is shed. Jennifer says morale is low, so they have to win tonight to prove they belong here. Maybe they should take baby steps, and prove they can tell the difference between veal and filet mignon?Hell's Kitchen opens! Special tableside service tonight of halibut sashimi, provided by Jennifer for Red and Natalie for Blue. Paul seems to be leading things in the kitchen, and Krupa's looking to prove herself after the veal debacle, but the first risotto she serves up to Ramsay is like soup. "Soupy risotto? What the fuck is wrong with me?" Krupa asks us. An increasingly long list, it appears. Ramsay offers the opinion that even someone who can't tell the difference between veal and filet mignon should be able to tell the difference between risotto and soup. The man's not wrong. Fortunately, the one's cooked perfectly.
And while the halibut sashimi sounds absofuckinglutely delicious, it probably appears less so when Jennifer is sweating all over it. She chalks it up to stress, Ramsay to heat, no one mentions (no one really has to) that Jennifer isn't the smallest daisy in the room either, but that's definitely a factor, and Ramsay, with some restraint, tells her to wipe her face (not in front of the customers, though).
Blue Team has knocked out the appetizers forty-five minutes into the service, and they hope to keep things going with entrees, but Jonathon has trouble remembering the menu, and it doesn't escape Ramsay's notice that Paul has taken over Jonathon's garnish station, so he orders Jonathon to make it on his own.
Krupa and Gina are still working on the appetizers in the Red Kitchen, with Gina pushing stuff out really quickly without any timing coordination with her team, so Krupa blames Gina for the undercooked spaghetti that she's "forced" to serve up.
Monterray's on meat, and since we're getting a talking-head of him explaining the rhythm he has and how comfortable he is there, we know he's going to fuck things up. Sure enough: raw Wellington. Ramsay goes on a half-hour cursing tirade at him. You know, it really only takes an episode or two of watching this show to realize that any competing chef needs to know how to cook beef Wellington, risotto and scallops almost above everything else, so it's amazing that it's been a problem so often already this season.
And then Krupa screws up another pasta so badly that Ramsay calls everyone around to marvel at how terrible it is. Too much sauce, not enough pasta. "It looks like baby food out of a fucking tin. It's disgusting!" he yells. Krupa goes back to work, but then he orders her to fuck off upstairs, since he can't bear to look at her anymore. "I do know I'm better than this," says Krupa, crying, adding that she's digging her own grave pretty deep.
Appetizers start to improve from the Red Side, so it's back over to Blue, where Tommy, on fish, is shutting down and not answering anyone (including Ramsay) on how close he is to finishing things. But he shrugs and tells us he'll be noticed by not letting anything leave his station unless it's perfect. Real rock 'n' roll spirit right there.
But Red Team's not communicating either, with most of the blame (heaped largely by Elise on garnish) going to Gina. "Talk to each other!" Ramsay pleads.
Then Monterray screws up two more Wellingtons, and Ramsay calls over Tommy because of the cod he had to refire, and he sends them away to go play Yahtzee or whatever it is that chefs do when they've been banished by Ramsay.
Monterray blames Tommy because he kept pushing the time back, but Tommy feels he's collateral damage for Monterray's mistakes.
Gina and Elise are still squabbling. "Like two cats fighting," Ramsay observes. And then Gina brings up "raw fucking bass," and Ramsay shows it to everybody and slaps it with his hand, sending it flying. So he invites Gina and Elise to fuck off out of the kitchen as well. Elise acknowledges that their performance was sub-par, but not so much so that she deserved to get thrown out of the kitchen.
On the patio, Elise demonstrates again her amazing inability to grasp the concept that it takes two people to communicate, and continues to complain that nobody was communicating with her. Krupa essentially tells her to shut up, despite not being the current focus of Elise's amazing Blamey Sense (it's like Spidey Sense, but much more powerful and annoying).
The remaining team members on both sides manage to finish up the service, which seems like a minor victory in itself, but Ramsay, addressing the assembled teams afterwards, rips on their lack of communication and says he doesn't see a leader on either side. Nobody won, you both suck, go away and come up with two people to nominate.
Paul has no idea what's going to happen. He figures two people could get eliminated, or four, or they might come back to Ramsay spraying automatic weapons fire at them. It's all possible.
So the blame game: Jonathon and Paul both suggest Tommy and Monterray, with Paul explaining how when Tommy ignores Ramsay, he might as well be raising a middle finger to him. I think I would pay good money to see what would happen if someone were to actually give Ramsay the finger. I wish I could wager money on things like whether that chef would still actually have a middle finger left after doing that. Anyway, there is very little yelling going on here, but when Ramsay has kicked two people out of the service, it's fairly easy to decide who's going to be sent up for elimination.
Over on the Red Side, Elise is not taking kindly to the suggestion that she should be on the chopping block, and she wants to see Gina and Krupa up. Gina seems to be a consensus choice. What discussion we do see is dominated by Elise explaining to everyone how she herself doesn't deserve to be on the chopping block. Carrie says it just feels good not to be there herself.
So: the rose ceremony. Whoops! Sorry about that. Force of habit. Ramsay asks Paul who the nominees are: it's Monterray, for lackluster performances in the last two services, and Tommy, for his terrible communication.
Carrie tells Ramsay that the first nominee is Krupa, for the challenge, and her crappy appetizers tonight. The second nominee is (after a commercial break) Elise, for failing to communicate and holding up entrees. Carrie doesn't seem to take any pleasure in putting Elise forth; she's probably annoyed that this is going to be one more thing for Elise to hold against her when she's not sent home tonight.
The nominees step forward. Elise says she should stay because she has a lot to give, and she guarantees she won't be up there a third time. She says Gina is the weakest member of the team. Krupa admits she's had a rough twenty-four hours, and Ramsay asks her who the weakest chef is. She says Elise because of her attitude. "I wasn't looking for the weakest attitude," he tells her, so she says Gina is the weakest cook.
As for Blue Team, Tommy says his zoning out doesn't mean he's given up, it just means he made a mistake. As for Monterray (Ramsay checks his watch, like he REALLY wants to get out of here), he says he's not the weakest chef. "I think I'm a great cook," he says.
So Ramsay says, "My decision is... Elise," but nobody believes it's anything but a fakeout. Carrie smiles sardonically and shakes her head. Elise steps forward, but it's just so Ramsay can say he agrees with her, and tells Gina to take off her jacket because her time in Hell's Kitchen is done. Yeah, it's always great when the nomination process is a big waste of time.
Ramsay tells Gina that she has no fight-back, no voice. She thanks him for the opportunity, and he coldly says good-night. She tells us Ramsay should have eliminated Elise, because she's a problem for Red Team, but she'll walk out with her head held high: "I gave it everything I had," she says.
Ramsay tells the survivors that he has not given up on them. Well, that's a relief! The cooks don't get TOO excited over this (Stockholm syndrome). "Yes I'm pissed, because I've seen flashes of brilliance!" he says. He asks if they're ready to fight back, and they all yell "Yes, chef!" and he bids them adieu.
Krupa feels like she dodged a bullet, and promises we won't see her up for elimination again. Monterray is also dancing on Gina's grave, and Elise says something about "bringing it" again. Then Ramsay mocks Gina's height by saying her talent matches her size: tiny. Look, YOU guys chose her to be on the show. That's on you.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He doesn't know what Jonathon's problem is; he believes in good grooming. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.