The teams have barely filed back into the dorms before Patrick is already trying to kiss ass with Clemenza, while still telling us he's going to be getting rid of Clemenza as soon as he can. Clemenza's not fooled though, but a nighttime shot of him awake suggests that he might be worried about literal knives in the back now.
So after the neverending Fashion Night of last night's episode, we're back to a more traditional episodic structure with a challenge, although it's another contrived goofy thing where there are four domes on each kitchen's pass, each with six ingredients, starting with six proteins. Each team member has to grab a protein, and then do their best to grab complementary ingredients from each dome as they're revealed.
Veal, pork, turkey, lobster, chicken and fish are apparently the proteins, and the chefs get to work. Five minutes later, the dome opens and ingredients start being revealed.
Dana's all "every woman for herself," forgetting -- or ignoring -- the fact that it's still a team challenge, and the teams should be making sure everyone's cooking up a good dish. You'll never believe this, but Royce thinks his lobster dish is amazing.
Ramsey starts introducing the judges, all of whom have earned Michelin stars. First up, Anita Lo of Annisa in New York. Barbie appears to have heard of her. "She's one of my female chef idols," she tells. There's Douglas Keane of Cyrus in San Francisco, and Michael Cimarusti of Providence. Justin says he's not the type to get star-struck -- translation: he hasn't heard of any of them -- but he at least respects the Michelin recognition.
The judges are going to award each team member's dish one to three stars, and highest total wins. Tiffany's seasoned monkfish has tarragon couscous and brown butter sauce, and quail eggs. Judges love it. Six stars for Tiffany.
Justin's got a five-spice roasted monkfish with chive ravioli, poached quail egg and heirloom tomato salad. Ramsay calls the ravioli "dangerous," and Justin talks about adapting. And the judges all like the ravioli, and he earns six stars as well.
Hen : Barbie's pan-roasted hen with a potato-shrimp hash, and she's thrilled when her hero says it's seasoned perfectly. She gets five stars (Cimarusti giving her only one), but that's still not bad.
Clemenza's herb-roasted guinea hen is served up with grilled zucchini and balsamic, with saffron herb-roasted potatoes. "I love this guy," says Cimarusti, impressed that Clemenza has served up something so elegant. Kind of a backhanded "because you're such a fat dude" compliment, but Clemenza takes no offence. All of the judges think it's a little overseasoned, but he still gets five stars. Again, Cimarusti gives him just one. I guess he's the Simon Cowell of the judges table.
Turkey breast. Roshni submits a herb-stuffed roulotte with a celeriac and carrot slaw. The turkey's dry, and she gets only three stars. Kimmie's Cajun turkey-breast pasta is underseasoned, and she gets just three stars as well.
Veal chop. Dana's got a lemon-herb veal chop, and gets six points. Brian's "ethnic fusion veal chop" -- he says "good morning" in Italian and Spanish, which embarrasses the hell out of his team for some reason I'm not clear on -- impresses the judges, and he gets six stars.
Pork tenderloin. Ramsay asks Robyn if there were any ingredients she didn't want, and Robyn opts for honesty over common sense and says she hates beets. Ramsay points out that it's not a genius move to serve something to esteemed judges and tell them you hate what you had to cook with, so she makes it worse by saying, "I could have made more love to the beets." The judges give her a collective "meh" and award her three stars. So Patrick can give his team the lead by being slightly-better-than-worst-possible with his spice-rubbed pork tenderloin. He also brightly says he loved all the ingredients he had to work with. The judges like it, and he earns six stars, meaning Blue's got a big three-star lead going into the final dish.
That would be the lobster: Royce poached his whole in saffron and thyme. And a long hair. Oh, that wasn't supposed to be there! Blue team starts to groan. "It's not curly, so I'm pretty happy about that," says Keane. Ramsay quietly asks Royce what the fuck a hair was doing in there, and it's not like there's any good answer to that question. "Look at the size of that thing. It's bigger than Roshni," Ramsay says.
It gets worse, points out Cimarusti, because Royce also didn't remove the lobster's shit sac. So he gets three stars, but that's really because the judges had to each give him at least one.
So Red still has a chance, but Christina's still got to earn six stars to tie. She's got steamed lobster tail with heirloom tomatoes and a buerre blanc. All the judges love it, and because it's the last dish the marks are drawn out a little more. The men each give her two, and Lo pulls out the first three-star ranking of the morning.
So Red wins, earning themselves a day trip to the spa, while Blue has to clean and prep both kitchens for tonight's service, but before they do that, they've got to clean up the dorms. Robyn and Barbie can't help but start taunting them and reminding them to clean the bathrooms, which apparently stink like urine. This gets on Blue's nerves, and even Roshni is all, "Thanks, we know what we have to clean." In addition, each Red member is getting a set of Meyer cookware, causing squeals all around.
Red relaxes while Blue works. Robyn gets allegedly wacky with bath suds on her head, and then gets pissy because Barbie's not into sharing a bathtub with a bunch of other people. Robyn makes an issue of it, because only Robyn again can't just bask in the glow of victory. God, what is her deal?
Back at HK, Blue has finished cleaning and are prepping. Their grumpiness seems to have faded now that they're actually working with food, although I don't trust many of these guys to have washed their damn hands before they started handling food.
The women arrive with two hours to go until dinner service, and Robyn starts snapping at Barbie over whether there's supposed be another frisee salad in the station. When Barbie basically ignores her, Robyn starts nattering about sinking or swimming, and Barbie seems aghast that Robyn appears not to give a shit if her team member blows things tonight. I guess. Who has the energy to care?
Dinner service is just about ready to start when Ramsay gathers the chefs to tell them he's invited some special people to sit at the chef's tables in the kitchens for tonight's service: Blue will have former UFC light heavyweight champion of the world Tito Ortiz. God, is UFC still a thing? How many contrived ways can allegedly straight guys think up to allow themselves to watch half-naked men touch each other without feeling too weird about it? Anyway, Red team will have six-time world boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard. Robyn and Justin are entrusted with serving the chef's tables. Robyn's excited while Justin seems very, very nervous.
Dinner service opens, with Christina's seven-star lobster dish added to the menu. Blue gets off to a lousy start, with Clemenza serving up chewy appetizer pasta. Christina sends up some delicious risotto, though. In Blue, Brian rolls his eyes at Clemenza's pasta struggles, since Clemenza, being Italian, has probably cooked pasta "17 billion" times.
Sugar Ray Leonard arrives with his wife (the on-screen graphic HILARIOUSLY identifies him as author of The Big Fight. Because everyone thinks of Sugar Ray as a boxer. You just KNOW that promo was a condition of him being on the show), and Ramsay cautions Robyn to "show some grace." Look, you picked Robyn, you live with what you get. In Blue, Tito Ortiz arrives with some other dude and orders an Arnold Palmer, and a nervous Justin manages not to drown in flop sweat.
Christina's worried about the Leonards being so close to her station, because if she screws up their food, she's dead. She figures Mrs. Sugar Ray can throw a punch too. Naturally, she messes up the risotto, and an angry Ramsay brings it back to the kitchen so everyone can taste what a pile of undercooked shit it is. I love how, in interviews, the contestants are always non-ironically going, "Are you kidding me?" whenever it comes to someone else's screwup. Christina starts over.
Brian's much more confident, but then he serves up a soupy risotto and Ramsay chews him out, much to the apparent delight of Tito Ortiz.
Christina tries again, and this time serving up a perfect dish, and Brian similarly serves a perfect dish on his second attempt. A non-copyright-infringement version of the Rocky theme kicks in, and Brian goes over to the chef's table to apologize and say, "I'm a [bleep] sometimes," and Ortiz tells him everyone makes mistakes, and then Brian does some boxing moves, which is bad enough, and he only makes it worse by adding squeaky little "pew! pew!" explosions. Ortiz can only shake his head in bafflement after Brian leaves.
Red has moved on to entrees, but Ramsay spots Tiffany absentmindedly tapping a knife against her lip and then using it to check the Wellingtons. Or, as Robyn puts it, she is basically "making out with the Wellingtons," and then Robyn elegantly starts rapidly thrusting her tongue out of her mouth. Robyn the apple-polisher loudly agrees with Ramsay that it's unsanitary.
Over in Blue, Patrick on fish and Roshni on meats are starting on their side's first entrée. But Roshni serves up raw Wellington and overcooked strip steak, prompting a tirade from Ramsay, asking her if this is the beginning of the end. More shots of Ortiz smiling. He really seems to be getting off on this.
Roshni starts over. Clemenza, who earlier screwed up pasta, can't believe Roshni screwed up steak. Is there anyone who finds steak easier to cook -- to get the correct doneness -- than spaghetti? At least Clemenza's solution is to try to help her.
Over in Red, Robyn seems to have gotten the idea that the chef's table is the table where VIPs sit so some annoying cook can blather on about herself and seemingly every single job she's had or training she has done. Amusing montage of Sugar Ray looking awkward and trapped. Robyn is oblivious (like she's oblivious to the fact that "conversating" is not a word) and thinks the Leonards loved her.
Tiffany rebuffs Barbie's attempts to come into her meat station, but then Ramsay gathers the team around (he has to repeatedly call over to Robyn before she stops bothering the Leonards) so he can show them Tiffany's shitty Wellingtons. He doesn't want to yell at them in front of Leonard the legend (a problem that he doesn't seem to have with Ortiz). Luckily for Tiffany, Barbie showily takes it upon herself to start fixing the problem, prompting Ramsay to wonder why Tiffany is letting someone else run her station and giving Tiffany the chance to blame Barbie for the Wellingtons she just screwed up.
Roshni's struggling, but she's taking inspiration from the fighters at the chef's tables, who get up when they're knocked down, or whatever. Sadly for her, Patrick serves up some stone-cold lobsters. With no hint of irony, Royce grouches that it's like Patrick has never cooked shit before. Did anyone remind him that Royce literally cooked and served lobster shit, like EARLIER THAT DAY? God, I hope so.
Tiffany serves up perfect Wellingtons, and Ramsay tells her so, but he's in no mood to laugh about her earlier screwup. It's kind of awesome the way his steely glare shuts down her giggliness. Red's entrees are heading out at a nice clip.
But Blue is still trying to get on track, and Patrick serves up some more subpar lobster, so Ramsay calls everyone to attention to tell them that not one of them knows what the fuck is going on, and they're embarrassing him in front of the tough guy at the chef's table. Ortiz smiles, and then gets out his cameraphone so he can videotape Ramsay throwing the lot of them out of the kitchen for serving up cold lobster for the second time tonight. Justin says, "I don't want to get out, chef." Dude, you do not want to die on this hill. Ramsay asks with a growl if Justin wants to argue with him, and Justin wisely decides to make himself scarce.
Red team finishes up their last table, and then Ramsay shoos them all into the Blue kitchen to finish the orders for the other diners. They're firing on all cylinders, and round out the service.
In the dorms, Justin's scared. "He's really mad," he says. Like even for Ramsay, Ramsay is mad, is what he means. Chef Scott shows up to send everyone downstairs so Ramsay can talk to them, but Ramsay meets them in the hallway before they can defile the kitchen with their presence. He tells them Red finished brilliantly for them, and wants to know how Red can be so much better. Blue tries to say they're not, but Ramsay starts listing off Exhibits A through ZZZ, and no one on Blue can really argue in favor of soupy risotto and cold lobster. Ramsay orders them back upstairs to come up with two people for elimination, and advises them not to take long.
Patrick, hoping to shift focus away from him onto ANYONE else, immediately nominates Brian and Clemenza for the appetizers. The others seem to agree, and Clemenza starts objecting, calling it fucking insanity. Brian is similarly unimpressed, saying people are overlooking their own mistakes. He nominates Patrick and Roshni, and Clemenza agrees. Not surprisingly, Roshni does not.
They file back into the kitchen, and Ramsay asks Brian for the first nominee. "First nominee is myself, chef," he says. Ramsay's absolutely gobsmacked, and Brian, no dummy, makes sure his tone of voice has an appropriate "I know" incredulity to it, as he explains, with a shrug, that it was explained that his screwing up the first ticket was what slowed them down. "That doesn't make any sense," says Ramsay.
Anyway, the second nominee is Clemenza. "Whaaaat? I don't understand that," says Ramsay, adding that the appetizers weren't the stumbling block. He says Brian and Clemenza don't deserve to be up there, but we'll wait until after commercial to find out who does.
Ramsay calls Roshni and Patrick, meat and fish. Patrick says he keeps the team on track and on point, and has a lot more to offer. Roshni says she has improved since joining Blue. "Tough one tonight," says Ramsay, and then starts going to the Blue team to ask who he should send home. Justin: "Roshni." Brian: "Roshni." Royce: "Patrick." Clemenza: "Roshni, on what I've seen two days on our team." Roshni angrily -- and tearfully -- reminds him that she and Brian finished dinner service on their own the first night, after everyone else got kicked out. Red applauds their former teammate. Seriously, Clemenza should be looking to send Patrick home. Bad move by Clemenza.
"The person leaving Hell's Kitchen is ... Roshni," says Ramsay. He asks for her jacket, tells her she's got a lot of heart and to keep her head up high. Roshni tells us she's disappointed because she never got involved in all the drama, and was just there to be the best but never got a chance to prove it.
Ramsay sends Patrick back in line, and warns them not to fuck with him, before sending them off. With Blue team, yet again, walking off full of doubt and anger at each other, Red team is high-fiving. At least until they get back into the dorms, where Robyn's mouth will find a way to cause some tension.
"Roshni is a small lady with a big heart. Unfortunately, her performance tonight matched her stature," Ramsay tells us. Yeah, plus Roshni was likeable, which is clearly more and more a liability on this show.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He's pretty sure Royce's Hair and Lobster Crap dish isn't going to catch on. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.