As usual following an elimination, there is talk of someone being thrown under the bus. Robyn is outraged that a teammate who they put up for elimination (albeit one who volunteered, but make not mistake, the team would have marched her up there) would then express a difference of opinion as to who the worst chef is. Robyn goes off in a rant while the rest of them would rather just sit and smoke and soak their feet in the hot tub. Everyone's too tired to engage her, and she eventually burns her anger out.
The day, Barbie's up and prepping the kitchen at quarter to six while passive-aggressively stomping around and rattling plates to wake people up. When sleepy teammates stumble down to the kitchen, bleary-eyed, to call her on her shit, she self-righteously explains that she wants everyone to remember why they're here. They're here to beat you for head chef at Ramsay's Vegas steakhouse, Barbie.
Tiffany starts screaming and stomping around and yelling about choking out Barbie instead of looking for a bra to put on, because damn. Before any actual choking-out can happen -- with Tiffany doing the thing where someone pretends to come at you and pretends to be blocked by someone in the way -- Ramsay calls the kitchen and orders everyone downstairs in their jackets.
Outside the kitchen, he motions for them to be quiet, and then brings them into Hell's Kitchen, which is festooned in flags and bunting with people singing "America the Beautiful" and a judge presiding over a fake citizenship ceremony that everyone dutifully claps for. Guy in particular is moved, because he just got his American citizenship four months ago, so he knows how hard it is to get.
Ramsay tells the new citizens that in honor of their new home country, they will be serving an all-American meal. Clemenza for some reason looks slightly panicked at this. Jesus, what time is it? All the new citizens sit down and Ramsay tells the teams that the first one to finish serving their diners wins the challenge.
Each team has to cook for sixteen people: A Cobb salad appetizer, choice of entrees: Nebraska beef sliders, thin New York style pizza, or a Wisconsin grilled cheese sandwich. Grilled cheese, how fancy!
Royce has to finish his Cobb salads before the team can get the entrees out, but on the Red side, Barbie is plowing ahead on her pizzas without worrying about the appetizers, it seems. Ramsay yells at her and she apologizes. Robyn says it was time to step up, but which she means start yelling at people, but the salads start getting out, and Red Team moves on to entrees.
Royce is still working on it, and talking about himself in the third person. Then he serves up a Cobb salad that has mushrooms on it, which is a no-no, and Ramsay dumps it. Clemenza, unbidden and to Royce's annoyance, starts helping out on the salad, because it's mind-boggling what an idiot Royce is, he tells us. Guy also helps out, and their salads pass muster, letting Blue get to work on the entrees.
As for Red, now Barbie is not getting them cooked fast enough, although Kimmie's on the station too but it's all Barbie's fault I guess. Kimmie calls her a bitch enough times to make me take Barbie's side pretty much no matter what, but no one on the rest of the team is very enamored of her, and Ramsay kicks her off the pizzas.
We now spend some time exploring Clemenza's Italian heritage and his family pizzeria and the many pizzas that helped construct his arguably heroic gut, which means we can expect him to fuck it up. Which he does by not cooking the pizza enough.
While he gets back to work, Red team is communicating better and making me hungry with the Nebraska sliders going out. Brian's responsible for the sliders in Blue. "This is easy. It's mini-burgers," he says. Ah, hubris.
Ramsay's convinced that all the new Americans are going to return their citizenship over Brian's raw sliders. "The ground beef is RAW!" yells Ramsay, wondering if anybody will take control. Patrick says he will, since it's hard to watch "grown-ass men," a phrase that always makes the person saying it seem like the opposite of what he thinks he seems like, serve up raw sliders.
Patrick's sliders are nicely cooked, so Blue's back on track, but they've got three tables left while the women are on their last table, and no amount of editing trickery makes it seem like this one is close. The women close it out by serving up their last pizza, and then Ramsay orders them into the other kitchen to help the men close out their orders. There's a little reluctance at first, but then presumably the Blue idiots realize they've already lost the challenge so there's nothing to be gained by refusing to work together to help feed the people still waiting on their food.
Everyone gets fed (Ryan makes big babies Blue thank the women for helping them out). After lunch is over, Ramsay announces that their prize is a trip on a private jet to go on a safari in San Diego. They screech and leave to go get ready while Ramsay chews out Blue, wanting to know who the leader is going to be. After a lot of foot-shuffling, Patrick says he'll take over. "I need to see it," says Ramsay. Royce, who can't cook spaghetti or mashed potatoes or SALAD, thinks PATRICK is in over his head.
Ramsay has volunteered them for some hard labor at the Ballona wetlands, which is not something I'm familiar with, but I don't claim to be an expert on American treasures.
Meanwhile the women are boarding the G4 and Kimmie classes things up by continuing to wear pants that require discreet pixilation of the backside and singing that they're going to rock out with their cocks out. If she should actually be on Blue, best she tell everybody now, don't you think?
So while the men work their asses off chopping down acacia trees or whatever, the women go on safari and look at a rhinoceros, which Tiffany laughs at and says looks like Clemenza. If that's a size joke at Clemenza's expense -- well, Tiffany's not exactly in a position to be making them, but we already know how highly she thinks of herself. There are also giraffes that lick the women -- Dana amusingly calls it the most action she's gotten in a week, and it's nice.
Sitting down for supper, Ramsay congratulates them all and makes them swear, hands in the air, that they will complete their dinner service. Barbie then yanks the spotlight over to herself and apologizes for waking them up this morning, and the spirit of camaraderie flicks off like a light switch, it's amazing. Even Ramsay seems taken aback that she did that.
The men are chopping, chopping, chopping and taking issue with Patrick's leadership. At least Guy is, because he says Patrick is leading simply by telling other what to do instead of doing anything himself. Justin, however, is proud of Blue for eventually chopping down the tree, so congratulations on some shit work done grudgingly and time-consumingly!
The day, the teams prep their kitchens, with the rest of Blue, getting angry at Patrick, who they say isn't doing anything to lead. What that actually means is they resent the fact he's trying to tell them what to do. Royce, who can't cook spaghetti or mashed potatoes or salad, wants everyone to know how much Patrick sucks. He doesn't want anyone telling him what to do, least of all Patrick, because he wears a bandanna.
Ramsay gathers the teams to tell them James is tired of apologizing to diners for dinner not getting out, so he's going to assign one person from each team to serve as waiters. That's brilliant! They haven't completed a dinner service yet, so why not take some of the kitchen help out of the front of house to help not serve the food that isn't getting cooked right? He selects Tiffany and Don from Red and Blue to fill those roles.
Then, as the teams get ready, Ramsay places a call to Royce's boss -- and Season 1 runner-up -- Ralph Pagano, to tell him how terrible Royce is doing. Royce takes the call and calls Ralph "bro" but it's not hard to see that Royce feels like Ramsay just called his dad. Ralph gives him a pep talk that includes such totally helpful and specific advice like "step up and knock it out." Still, Royce tells us that he feels like he can do better tonight. Better than not being able to cook anything? Shouldn't be hard.
Hell's Kitchen opens, with some firefighters and marines in the crowd, who will be pleased to know that Royce is bringing his "A-plus-plus" game tonight. First up, some delicious risotto, so he's off to a good start. "I wish you'd spoke to Ralph earlier, fuck me," says Ramsay. Heh.
Things aren't going so well on the Red side. Dana serves up some spaghetti that's more like spaghetti soup, and Ramsay says it's just like piss. I think he might need to see a urologist.
As for how Don the waiter is faring, he seems to be Charlie-Kelly-level illiterate, but to be fair, you can't expect someone who works in the restaurant industry to know how to spell "appetizer." It takes him some time to get his ticket-writing in order, but he does, and Blue kitchen is running tickety-boo, earning a "phenomenal start" from Ramsay, at least until Clemenza gives him a cooking time of "twenty minutes" for some lamb, much to Ramsay's chagrin. Under Ramsay's withering glare, Clemenza drops it to fifteen and then 10 and you get the feeling he would have kept going right down to "the lamb went out five minutes ago." But he serves them beautifully, so no harm done.
Dana has already forgotten her spaghetti soup and calls herself the best for not screwing up any more appetizers. Not so for Barbie. Perhaps because she seems more concerned about Ramsay identifying her as a "sexy bitch" for some reason, she messes up scallops -- again, mind you -- and Ramsay is disgusted because those are for firefighters. The "Why do you hate America, Barbie?" is implied.
Then Clemenza's not ready with the Wellington for Patrick's cod, which isn't good. But Red's still working on appetizers, and Christina elects to help Briana out, who I guess has taken over for Barbie there and is proving just as useless. Christina starts getting shit done.
Then Clemenza slices the Wellingtons too soon, which means they'll "bleed out" (holy shit! That's gangsta!) before the cod is ready. So he's got to do them over again -- trouble is, he needs three and there are only two prepped.
Briana's on cod, but she screws up things for Red's entrees when she burns a bunch and then serves up a half-portion of cod (which isn't even done right). Briana apologizes to Kimmie, who is, as usual, moments away from committing homicide.
Then Clemenza again screws up the Wellingtons and he has no more. Ramsay's not impressed. "Baby rhino screwed the marines. It's the U.S. Marines!" he yells. Well, in that case, they're probably able to handle hardship a little greater than "Sorry, but we're out of beef Wellington, sir."
James marches Clemenza out into the dining room to explain himself to the marines, and it's presented as though Clemenza might not make it back alive. Fortunately, his suggestion of the New York strip instead earns a "Yeah, that'll be fine" so DOMESTIC CRISIS AVERTED. Clemenza is genuinely relieved to not have been murdered.
Briana gets the firefighters' cod right, which means it's up to Roshni on garnish, but she forgot the dumplings. "Pathetic," snaps Ramsay.
And while Clemenza and Patrick get the marines' cod and strip steak out, Red team takes another crack at the cod and dumplings. But the dumplings are cold. "You can't even poach a dumpling! Brutal!" yells Ramsay. Red sucks it up and gets back to work, except Kimmie's Wellingtons are four different types of garbage while Brian's cod is boiled on one side and burned on the other. The nice thing about Kimmie screwing up is we don't have to listen to hear complain about all the other bitches who can't cook. It's enough for Ramsay, who kicks them out with a "Get out! Get out! And one more thing: get out!" to the shock (really?) and delight of the diners. Obviously, much like watching autoracing for the crashes, you go to Hell's Kitchen not to eat but to watch Ramsay scream at sweaty line cooks. So I don't feel too bad for any diner sitting there going, "It's been over two hours."
Red's ejection doesn't guarantee a Blue victory, though, so the men still anxiously await Ramsay's thumbs-up for their last entrée. They get it, and start hugging each other, being the first team to complete a dinner service this season.
Post-dinner, with the teams assembled in the kitchens, Ramsay tells them it was another painful evening, but at least with a couple of highlights bobbing up and down. Among them: Royce, and Christina (although Ramsay adds that her team didn't jell). "You went so far backwards you couldn't get any entrees out," he says. He tells them to piss off and figure out two for elimination; he can think of six off the top of his head.
In a remarkably restrained discussion, Briana almost immediately volunteers. She tells us that she feels the team would be worse off without her, though, and hopes Ramsay believes her. As usual, it's easier for one person to step forward than it is for a second person, so finally someone decides it should be Barbie, at which point everyone does. Kimmie in particular feels that Barbie fucked her tonight. Barbie considers herself a scapegoat and suggests Dana instead, prompting the team to remember that oh yeah, Dana was the first one to suck tonight! We don't get to see what they decide before they file back into the kitchen.
Ramsay asks Robyn for their first nominee -- it's Briana, for the cod, and then (thankfully) rather than waiting until after the commercial break to find out who the second one is, Robyn says it's Barbie, because of her continued scallop-related shittiness.
Ramsay calls them both forward, saying they're as good choices as any, but then adds that there's one more person who deserves to be there with them. And that's who we have to wait until after the commercial break to see.
Ramsay tells Roshni to get her ass up there. "You, madam, were shocking tonight. I mean, really shocking," he says, telling her she's way over her head. Roshni says she cooks with her heart. She screwed up today, but she wants him to see what she's got.
Briana says she's a team player and she knows she's a good cook, and she learns from her mistakes. "Bravo," says Ramsay sarcastically, who's of the opinion that she just disappeared tonight.
Ramsay calls Barbie "the appendix" that her team all wants gone. Barbie admits making some mistakes, but she's tried to do everything she's asked to do. "I am a fighter and I'm not going to stop," she says.
Ramsay calls it a tough decision, and then finally decides on Briana. It's not a fakeout; he asks for her jacket, telling her she's not getting stronger, and he needs someone very strong.
She leaves, and tells us she came here to challenge herself, and she doesn't think Ramsay got to see how passionate she is about it, acknowledging that she didn't show herself to be enough of a fighter.
Ramsay sends Roshni and Barbie back in line before lecturing everyone on how he's looking for a leader and more than one of them disappeared tonight. He says the challenge will test them unlike ever before, so they should get some sleep, because they're going to need it. The teams leave, Red still pissed that Barbie's hanging around. Barbie says Dana wants to get rid of her because she's intimidated, but she's not going home until Ramsay sends her there.
Meanwhile, Royce's ego, undiminished by an inability to cook mashed potatoes and spaghetti, threatens to consume us all as it grows, feasting on the delicious meat of dinner-service victory.
"Tonight, Briana had a battle with a cod, and the cod won. And that's why her time in Hell's Kitchen was a short one," says Ramsay.
week: somebody dies, apparently! (Probably not.)
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He thinks everyone should try cod tongues. No, seriously! Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.