I have a confession to make: When this season started, I thought the pinball opening credits were the corniest thing ever. Now, I think I may be in love with them, and would consider marrying them -- you know, if not for society. From the terrible acting to Gordon Ramsay's quiet "Yeah!" to the way he goes from smiling to arms-folded scowling -- I don't skip them, ever.
Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, Jonathan was summarily dismissed after demonstrating the way he Never Gives Up, Not Ever, Unless He Gets a Crick in His Neck. Ramsay kicks the chefs out, but not without telling Elise, deservedly, she did a good job (a few competitors do too). Elise accepts it with her usual grace and humility. "I kicked ass and banged it out without even blinking twice," she tells us, and she points out to the other chefs that eighty-five percent of the entries came from her station. "Everything was me!" she says. Carrie decides she can't let this go, and goes on to prove she's as good at arguing and comebacks as she is at leading the team, calling Elise a "broken-ass record" and Elise calls her a "crybaby ass" and now Elise is running around the room squawking, pretending to be Carrie. Elise promises to make sure Elise is going home.
The night ends without homicide, and when the chefs reassemble the morning, Ramsay asks which of them is married. Will and Elise raise their hands, and Ramsay asks Elise if she won her man over with her cooking. Her man? That's touching on the presumptuous, these days. Anyway, Elise says it was her spaghetti that did it, which is something her husband might also answer if he's not talking only to his buddies. Then Ramsay weirdly asks Jennifer about the last time she "seduced a man" and she alludes to knowing what gets the boxers off, but then chickens out and says she's married to the job.
Anyway, food equals romance and whatnot, so the challenge this time is to create a "sexy" dessert. Like a big hollow cake with a dame right in the middle?
They've got one hour, so the chefs get to work. Will says he has no idea what he's going to do. "I fucking hate desserts!" he yells. Jamie likewise hates desserts. "I've been pushed out of my comfort zone," she says. But the two of them are fighters, yes? I want Will to create something stubbly and cigarette ash-infused that looks like a backwards baseball cap. Paul makes fun of Tommy's sticky bun plan, since everyone knows that sticky buns are a breakfast food. Carrie floats the possibility of serving herself up on a plate drizzled with chocolate. I'll tell you what: There's four -- no, five! -- dollars in it for you if you do!
Since Red Team has five chefs to Blue Team's four, they have to sacrifice one of their desserts. Carrie and Elise start their traditional battle of It's Not Personal, Your Creation Just Clearly Looks and Tastes Like Ass, but in the end it's Jennifer's banana splatter think that gets the heave-ho. Elise annoyingly says it's difficult when some people on the team are out for themselves. "At least I admit I have selfish tendencies!" she says, highlighting her exhausting "I hate it when other people act like I do" mentality. Elise: Owning up to your faults does not in itself negate your faults. But in a competition, it's OK IF YOU'RE OUT FOR YOURSELF. In the end, Elise loses the battle, and her keg-sized cream and berries dessert (described by Carrie as looking like "baby vomit") is kicked out. "We better fucking win!" she threatens everybody.
The guest judges are Jordan Kahn, chef/owner of Red Medicine, who looks miserable to be here, even as he is described as the Jackson Pollock of desserts, and Waylynn Lucas, who is the chef/owner of (fōnuts). I'm not even fucking kidding about that name. I couldn't make that up. I guess a woman named "Waylynn" could make that up. She is one of the most talented pastry chefs in the world, we're told. We don't get any reaction shots from the delighted cheftestants so I guess none of them knew who (fōnuts) and Scowly here are either.
Rather than going head-to-head, the dishes are going to be assigned one to three stars, and the team with the most starts wins, which seems a little more equitable than head-to-head. Tommy's up first, with his chocolate-soaked toffee and macadamia nut sticky bun. Ramsay outright laughs at it, and Tommy defends his Rorschach blot of a dessert by explaining that his "gal" like macadamia nuts and cinnamon buns, and a little prodding reveals that the 31-year-old Tommy has a 19-year-old girlfriend. I don't know why that's a big deal. Once a woman gets a little older than that, she'll be wise enough to see through Tommy's bullshit, so he's going to be stuck on 19-year-olds for a while.
Waylynn says it's a bit of a mess, and it's chewy and undercooked, and the two judges each give it one star. Jamie brings a croissant with red pudding and chocolate with a strawberry-champagne glaze. One star from Jordan, two from Waylynn. Paul: banana polenta cake with lemon-mascarpone whip. Three stars from each judge. "Bam! Sexytime!" says Paul. I imagine he probably ruins any sexytime opportunities he gets by yelling exactly that.
Elizabeth has a ricotta strawberry Napoleon that gets two stars from Jordan, one from Waylnnn, and Natalie's chocolate espresso bread pudding gets one from Jordan, two from Waylynn. Carrie brings up a blondie with butterscotch chips. "It's not sexy sexy, but maybe it'll be sexy in your mouth," she says, undercutting herself before they even try it, and Ramsay covers his face in shame. The judges give it one star apiece, panning it for being bland -- just one component. Carrie walks back to her team and gets some abuse from Elise. "I love my team. They love me so much," she says.
So with the score 11 to 8, Will only needs four points to seal the win. He brings up a plate of -- I don't know what it is. Beige pears in beige cream with salt and pepper? It's not pretty, and Waylynn uses the word "rancid," so he only gets a star apiece. He's sanguine about it with us, acknowledging they're the experts. Then he points out that Babe Ruth doesn't hit a homerun every night, so at least he's got some perspective on his own talent.
Still, Blue Team now has a five-point lead with just Jennifer's banana splatter left. There's some chocolate and bourbon in it, and Jennifer immediately earns praise for putting some thought into her presentation. She gets three stars from Waylynn, and then...
...commercial break...
...three stars from Jordan, who calls it the best dessert so far. Red Team wins, but there's still the matter of Elise's rejected coronary in a glass with berries. She brings it up, and Ramsay mocks the size of it, and apparently the berries are in liqueur and ... vinegar? Ramsay pours it out and calls it a disaster and says Red Team made the right decision in rejecting it, since they would have had to award zero points. This puts a smile on Carrie's face.
But the best is yet to come for the team, because the prize is a trip to Las Vegas, where they'll stay in a villa in Caesar's Palace (pager-friendly?) with five bedrooms and butlers at their disposal. As for Blue Team, they have to prepare the dining room for Date Night, which is a first-time theme for Hell's Kitchen, or something. Like the theme ever means anything ever, except for a slight modification to the things Ramsay screams at the chefs while they cook.
Will feels bad for letting his team down. Paul feels bad that Will let his team done. Will is scrubbing oysters in punishment.
The Red Team jets off (well, Southwest Airlines off) to Vegas and -- well, holy shit if that villa is not, as Jamie calls it, "the sickest thing I've ever seen." There is a billiard room, a grand piano, an indoor pool. There is a naked woman on a table with dessert on her. (You know, the Carrie special!). I start A) planning my trip to Vegas and B) calling my credit card company to increase my limit. "The suite is big enough for me to not even know that Carrie exists tonight," says Elise. It's almost big enough to hold Elise's ego! The women toast Jennifer for earning the victory. Then the doorbell rings, and the visitor, who we'll see after the break, starts the women screaming.
And then it's a blond with a boob job who comes in and she is someone who is famous for taking her clothes off, apparently, so I can see why the women are so impressed. After all, she looks like every Playboy model ever and has the most generic Playboy model/porn actress name ever, so I hope I can be forgiven for not having any idea who the hell this is. But isn't it a bummer that career chefs have no idea who the Jackson Pollock of desserts is, even after he's been introduced, but utterly lose their shit over Holly Madison? Shouldn't their reaction, at best, have been, "Oh, hey! That's Holly Madison. Isn't that something."? Instead they react like a donated organ has just come through for a dying relative. "I'm a really huge fan of Playboy!" gushes Elizabeth, without any further explanation. I mean, I'm not against naked women as a concept either. I'm just curious what it is about Playboy that Elizabeth is a fan of. I've seen nothing to convince me that Elizabeth, for example, knows how to read, so she can't even plausible use the standard "I read it for the articles!" defense! No, I suspect Elizabeth has fallen victim to the idea that getting naked for money is empowerment on the same level as getting paid the same as men for the same work in every other job other than sex object. Beauty fades, but dumb is forever, Elizabeth. Anyway, Holly Madison has prizes for them, like her book or something, and tickets to her show, and a three-day trip back to Vegas for each of them and a friend.
Back at the restaurant, Blue Team have at least shaken off the crabbiness -- and are joking around and having fun, whilst prepping roses and an ice slab.
The joking around in Vegas, at least from how it's edited, kicks off with Elise's mock-surprise at Carrie sharing the champagne, followed by a non-proportional response of Carrie calling her a slut, and the other women half-heartedly trying to get them not to fight in Vegas.
Blue Team has a powwow, led by Will, in which they pledge to take responsibility for themselves. "If you fuck up, you fuck up," he says. That's going to be on U.S. currency someday. The morning, as Blue Team's prepping the kitchen, Red Team saunters in, and imparts the news that they get to go BACK to Vegas later! Natalie's quite bummed, but Paul thinks she should suck it up, and he tells us he didn't come here to eat, drink and relax, but to do what he's gotta do. He's not WRONG.
And now it's time to open Hell's Kitchen for Date Night, with couples that are on their first date or that have been married for long time. Some couples have different genitalia, some have matching sets. The menu features a raw seafood bar -- all the better to induce horniness, obviously. In the Red Kitchen, Jennifer overrules Elise's commandeering of the appetizer station and takes the lead herself, hoping to show that she's the leader she needs to be. Elise doesn't say anything about it, at least not that we see yet.
In fact, her silence extends to pointedly refusing to answer Carrie's questions on how long her dishes are taking. "I just can't work well with Carrie, and I've tried," says Elise. Maybe at some point we'll get to see an example of Elise trying, but it ain't happened yet. Ramsay angrily asks if the service is going to be affected by their personal relationships, and they say it won't, but Elise goes right back to giving Carrie the silent treatment.
Meanwhile, Tommy screws up scallops, and then screws them up again.
Despite the Elise-Carrie cold war, appetizers are flying out of the Red Kitchen, at least until Ramsay finds a hair in some beans delivered by Jamie, who at first tries to duck responsibility for it. Ramsay accuses her of giving up, a viewpoint endorsed by Elise, who says she's never seen Jamie just knock it out. Not like Elise does, according to Elise.
Blue Kitchen: Tommy starts cooking an entrée for a table before they've received an entrée, prompting Ramsay to kick him out to get some fresh air to clear his head, and amusingly calls him back just to tell him to fuck off again. "I just don't see where there's any room for improvement at this point," says Natalie. "Romantic dinner. More like a [bleep] dinner," says Ramsay. I would REALLY love to know what that bleep is hiding. Probably "Fuckup" or "cockup" or some such. Anyway, instead of fucking off, Tommy apparently decides to go flirt with women in the dining room. They are A) on dates and B) older than 19, so I'm not sure what his plan is here.
The Red Team is already pushing out the entrees, though, but then Carrie burns some fish and tries to hide it on the underside. Ramsay angrily kicks her out. She pleads to be allowed to stay. She may think she's trying to show how she's willing to fight, but she comes off as whiny, and it would be safer to head up to Alaska to poke some grizzlies. Eventually, she stomps out -- Ramsay gives her the burnt fish so she can enjoy her romantic dinner on her own, but she dumps it -- and goes on an apron-hurling rampage. In her defense, I'm not sure how a burnt piece of fish warrants expulsion over a hair in the food, but that's assuming everything else is equal, and Carrie's kitchen transgressions occupy a bigger column than Jamie's.
Anyway, Tommy explains that he was going to go outside, but then the pull of the hottest women he's ever seen compelled him to stay and flirt, at least until he remembered that he has a girlfriend who may watch this episode, maybe not during the week when it's on past her bedtime, but on the weekend on the DVR, and he heads back into the kitchen and gets back to work. The break seems to have done him good, and the appetizers start heading out of Blue.
But in Red, the orders are being held up by Jamie on garnish, who has turned into a zombie. A zucchini-burning zombie. "Get it together!" Ramsay orders her, and she seems to do just that.
In Blue, Paul serves up some undercooked chicken, and he makes everyone gather round to revel in the rawness. "Romantic dinner!" snaps Ramsay, although if I'm looking for a romantic dinner, a place where cameras are going to be filming us while an angry Brit yells at sweaty reality show contestants is not going to be very high on the list in the first place. Paul gets the boot: "Pink carnations, maybe. Pink chicken, no chance," says Ramsay. Heh! Ramsay sends Tommy after a door-kicking Paul so Paul can eat the raw chicken.
In Red Kitchen, Ramsay needs to explain -- as patiently as you can imagine him doing -- to Elise that no, the vegetarian capellini ought not to have lobster in it. She manages to spin this to herself as Ramsay being mad at her because he expects more out of her than he expects of anyone else. At least she's pissed off at herself instead of blaming others. Tommy delivers, somewhat apologetically, the chicken to Paul and then races back to the kitchen to find Ramsay cooking the food for him, and Ramsay makes Tommy yell at him that he's ready to take things back over. Is it me or does it seem like every talking head with Tommy in each episode was done in one shot? Head tilted to the side, eyes bugging out? He looks EXACTLY the same every time.
Elise delivers some overcooked oysters to Ramsay and he boots her. With the oysters. "Nice romantic plate of oysters for our little superstar. Bon appetit, princess!" he says as she leaves.
After a commercial break, the three remaining Red Kitcheners work to send out the final entrees, and Blue Kitchen has improved. "I just took Chef Ramsay's challenge to step up and I did it," says Natalie. I love the way reality show contestants always talking about "stepping up," like you just decide to step up. I decided to increase my stepping-up by fifty percent, and it really paid off for me.
And then some guy in the dining room proposes to his girlfriend via drizzled chocolate on their dessert, and she says yes, and he slips a ring on her finger with trembling hands and everyone smiles. Even Will is all, "I'm gonna fucking cry." I think Will could make for an excellent line of Hallmark wedding congratulations cries. "Fuckin'-A to the happy couple!" Everyone in the kitchen and dining room applauds.
But after everyone is gone and the cooks are lined up, Ramsay says if that's the best they can do for a night of romance, he wants a divorce from all of them. He slams Elise's lack of concentration and respect. She blames Jennifer, who took the lead, who counters by asking how many of her appetizers got sent back, to which Elise can only respond "whatever." Ramsay thinks Jamie's performance is getting worse, and he yells at Elizabeth to come out. He's fed up with Carrie's arrogance and attitude. "You're not even a chef," he says, pointing out that she didn't even know she burned the bass. "I would have never served it if I saw that, chef," she says. Uh ... yeah, that's his point, dingbat. He calls her a fucking sandwich girl, and awards the victory to the Blue Team.
The teams disperse, with Red Team angry as they discuss who's going up for elimination. Jennifer wants to send Carrie, who can't believe she's being nominated for screwing up one piece of fish. But it's also the arguing, points out Jamie and Jennifer. "He kicks you out, you get the fuck out! You don't fucking argue with him!" Jennifer explains, loudly. "I'm sorry that I like to fight for my position," says Carrie, and Jennifer gets in her face to tell her that she can fight for herself out there. She accepts her nomination.
When the Red Team reassembles, Jennifer tells Ramsay that Carrie is the first nominee, for disrespecting Ramsay and embarrassing the team. Second nominee is Elise, she of the pursed lips and shaking head as Jennifer talks about how they're tired of the drama and attitude.
Ramsay brings them forward. "Sounds like the three ladies behind you want rid of you both!" Carrie says she's determined to prove him wrong. "I am talented! I do deserve to be here!" She blames her problems squarely on Elise's sniping. Elise says she never makes the same mistake twice and isn't in over her head. ("Unlike Carrie," she adds.) Ramsay tells her she has a problem with her ego and has trouble taking orders. She apologizes for her performance and begs for another chance. "The person leaving Hell's Kitchen is ... both of you," he says, and they step forward, but of course it's another fakeout and Ramsay sends them back in line and kicks Jamie out instead, saying she's going backwards and he can't deal with it anymore. The rest of the contestants stare in open-mouthed surprise and then applaud Jamie as she relinquishes her jacket and walks out, with a wave over her shoulder.
She tells us that it hurts deeply to be told by one of the best chefs in the world that she doesn't have what it takes. "Let that be a lesson," Ramsay tells the survivors. Elise tells us she's a better chef than Jamie, but she's here to kick Red AND Blue ass. Speaking of Blue ass, Will says that if what happened to Jamie happens to him, they'd better call security because he will not be going silently. Carrie whines about Elise about hating her. "Sorry, honey. I'm not going anywhere," she tells us.
Man, even Ramsay's Jamie sendoff is lackluster, as he vaguely talks about her lack of "fightback" and says it's not what cooks have done before they got here but what they do here that counts. No puns? No plays on words? Worst date night since Date Night
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. His recent vacation, despite not being in Vegas, involved waterslides, mountain climbing, ferris wheels and beer, so it was still pretty cool. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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