Previously on Hell's Kitchen: Cooking! Dirty mussels! Shouting! A dirty pot! A chef got thrown out by a sous chef! A lie! Mushy squash! Or possibly squashy mush! That one directorial move where the camera shakes when Gordon hits something! Tiffany went home!
The surviving chefs mope back up to the dorms. Except for Barbie, who's pretty smug about not having been eliminated. Kimmie in particular is in tears about Tiffany being gone, because she believes that Barbie's "funky ass" should be gone. I can't tell how funky her ass is, so I can't rule on that.
An insert shot reveals that it is still a full moon, the way it always is on this show. It's nice to see some traditions live on.
Everyone goes down to the dining room where Gordon Ramsay has a giant map with pictures of food in location-appropriate places. You know, Maine has a lobster and Wisconsin has some cheese. This leads to the concept of Southern Cuisine, which somehow means that we have to have a gospel choir. We are subjected to a surprisingly long segment of the chefs clapping their hands and informing us that when it comes to this little light of theirs, they intend to let it shine. Kimmie in particular is doing a lot of swaying back and forth. She's from the south, you know.
Gordon thanks the gospel choir and tells the chefs they'll be reinventing a classic southern dish. Each member of the choir has a sign with their name on it. Half of them are blue and half of them are purple. And on the other side is the name of a southern dish. This seems unnecessarily convoluted. Barbie gets to pick her opponent, and she goes with Clemenza. Barbie gets catfish and Clemenza gets collard greens. Both dishes are pronounced as if they were gospel songs. Clemenza, who is from Staten Island, tells us that he has no idea what collard greens are. Well, that could be a problem. On the other hand, it should be easy to reinvent something if you don't know the traditional preparation, right?
Brian picks Kimmie, who's ready. Brian gets a pork chop and Kimmie gets grits. She is confident with her ability to cook grits and vows to ream Brian. , Christina gets fried chicken versus Justin's mac and cheese. Finally, Robyn gets meatloaf and Dana gets sweet potato. So what's going to happen is that each person is going to cook a dish that combines the two things that were chosen. Like Robyn and Dana are each going to cook "meatloaf with sweet potato." Gordon predictably claims that all this was "amazing."
They've got thirty minutes. Barbie comments that she'd like to do a hush puppy. Dana is not sure how to reinvent meatloaf. Justin says he needs help coming up with ideas for fried chicken. Christina can't decide whether she should leave the skin on her chicken, and Barbie suggests putting an egg in the flour. Brian's first step in reinventing grits is reading the box to find out how to make grits. Oh dear.
Walking through the kitchens, Gordon tells Kimmie she should win. She agrees! It may be relevant that her pot is all boiling over. There's some other last-minute cooking shenanigans, like Christina accidentally knocking the skin off her chicken.
The guest judge is Tanya Steele from epicurious.com. Barbie and Clemenza are up first with catfish and collard greens. Barbie's dish is deemed very attractive and beautifully fried. Clemenza's catfish is a little undercooked. He tells us that Tanya "should have had an orgasm in her mouth." Barbie wins and is pretty obnoxious about it in an interview.
Kimmie and Brian: pork chop with grits. Kimmie has two kinds of cheese in her grits. Chef Ramsay says it looks pretty dull, but Kimmie assures him that it's how they eat this food in the south. Well, it's hardly been reinvented then, has it? Tanya likes the grits a lot. Brian has a "very beautiful" plate, but the pork chop is raw in the middle. Not like how Gordon will call something "raw" when it's slightly undercooked, but visibly raw. Oh, man. What are you doing here? Kimmie wins automatically, and Gordon takes a moment to praise her grits.
Christina and Justin: fried chicken and mac and cheese. Christina's chicken has soggy coating and Justin's is not. Justin wins. The blue team is up, 2-1.
Robyn vs. Dana. Meatloaf and sweet potato. Robyn's has too much salt. Dana has a "bacon-wrapped mini-meatloaf" which sounds great. And it looks great. Her sweet potato puree is also apparently great. Gordon heaps the pressure on Tanya for the final decision because he really likes having a tie, but Dana's dish is too good to be denied. The red team wins, 3-1. Tanya says Dana's dish was the best of the night, and it will be featured on epicurious. Robyn is a sore loser.
The reward for the red team is a photo shoot with Gordon, followed by lunch at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. Shall I assume from that that they're not actually in Las Vegas the way the exterior shots keep pretending?
The blue team's punishment is to prep both kitchens for the night's dinner service, which will feature an entirely new menu based on southern cuisine. And they'll be baking fresh bread and hand-churning butter. As usual, they will whine about doing prep, even though it's more likely to make them familiar with the new menu than going out for a photo shoot.
Sous Chef Scott directs the blue team to some stools and butter churns. This reminds me of a Dana Gould routine. The photo shoot is in the dining room, which is weird. Although I guess it has all the lights already set up. The red team gets their hair and makeup done, which prompts Kimmie to complain that she has natural beauty and doesn't need "this [BLEEP] glob of [BLEEP] on my face." I would be remiss in my job if I did not tell you that during this speech, there was a shot of her with her ass crack blurred out. The team puts their chef jackets on over their fancy Beverly Hills Lunch outfits and poses for some pictures. Then they're off.
The blue team continues to churn. Clemenza is already extremely sweaty, even for him. The red team has some food on the Four Seasons, and they appear to enjoy it. Barbie continues to dislike Barbie.
Once all the butter is churned, the blue team has to make a bunch of one-ounce balls. Clemenza eats some.
The red team comes down and, if you ask me, does most of their own prep. Chef Ramsay calls everyone together for some more repetitions of the word "amazing." He would like Kimmie to do well, because she's from the south. She tells us that she's freaking out a little. That's perfectly understandable.
The dining room opens. The menu has things like a crab cake appetizer, a catfish entree, and fried chicken. Dana's on appetizers for the red team and her first crab cakes are acceptable. Things look fine on that front. Justin's got appetizers for the blue team and Brian claims he's going to show the oysters that he's "Big Daddy" on the fish station. Nope. He overcooks his first thing. Brian calls himself an idiot. Then he gets some good ones up. He vows to whip ass all day all the time.
The red team moves to entrees. Kimmie's on fish and Christina is on meat. For the first table, they have one of the most productive, to-the-point conversations I've ever seen on this show:
Chef Ramsay: How long?
Kimmie: How long you need?
Christina: I need four minutes.
Kimmie: Four minutes is good for me.
See that? They communicated well and tightly. Barbie has the garnish at exactly the time for the dishes and things are beautiful. Unfortunately, Kimmie's catfish is burnt. Oh no! Barbie says Kimmie can't cook, but she says it in an interview instead of to Kimmie's face.
The blue team also has some entrees. Robyn's on meat and Brian's still on fish. Clemenza's on garnish, but the problem is with the catfish, which is burnt on one side. Brian is forced to eat some and gets called a [BLEEP]wit. When Chef Ramsay asks him how it tastes, Brian says, "It tastes like fish, chef." Oh, does Gordon Ramsay like people who talk back to him in the kitchen? No, it appears he does not. Brian is thrown out amid a storm of bleeps. This is not mock-angry Gordon Ramsay; this is the real thing. I can tell because he's not shouting. He just immediately threw Brian out and then bleeped a lot. My advice to future contestants is to not be flippant at Chef Ramsay. Especially don't do anything he could perceive as a joke while he's yelling at you.
As Brain mopes out to the lobby, James the Maitre'd stops him and tells him that Chef Ramsay wants someone who will fight. So Brian turns around and goes back into the kitchen. Naturally, this results in Chef Ramsay asking him what he's doing there. "I'm not done!" shouts Brian, which is nearly the correct answer, except that you're not allowed to shout at Chef Ramsay either. Brian admits that the fish tasted [BLEEP]y, and vows that it won't happen again. He is not making friends here.
Kimmie has another couple of catfish, but some oil spatters her in the face. Yikes! She gets the fish up to the pass, and it is acceptable.
Back to the blue team, still working on their first table. Supposedly. Brian tells us that he doesn't make the same mistake twice. Unfortunately, the chicken for that table is raw. That's Robyn's fault. Chef Ramsay is starting to despair. And even though it wasn't his fault, Chef Ramsay leans on Brian: "Hey, comedian. Crack a [BLEEP] joke now. I [BLEEP] dare you." Brian says he has nothing amusing to say. Clemenza needs two minutes to do this garnish for the third time.
On the red team, everyone sounds kind of surprised that they're all ready to go to the pass. But some of the garnish is lacking salt. Kimmie shouts at us about how much she hates Barbie. They're still on the second ticket.
Robyn brings up more chicken for the blue team. It's raw again. She's really going out of her way to take Brian off the hook. Chef Ramsay throws the blue team out of the kitchen. Robyn asks him to just throw her out, but it doesn't go well. Chef Ramsay: "Listen. Don't you [BLEEP] dare tell me what to do." Out they go. He does shout "Get out!" as they leave, but I still think he's sincere about that. Up in the dorm, there is finger-pointing.
So. The red kitchen. Chicken, catfish, and garnish all go up to the pass at once. Chef Ramsay tells them to stop. He claims he could just cry. The catfish is raw. And burnt. At once! The red team is also thrown out of the kitchen. If the show isn't lying to me, the red team and blue team combined got through one entree. And that's why you eat before you go to Hell's Kitchen.
Up to the dorms. Brian's surprised to see the red team up there. Kimmie's beating herself up, and Clemenza gives her a hug. Sous Chef Scott comes up to drag everyone back down to the kitchen. Chef Ramsay stops them in the pantry, which I'm delighted by. Because we hardly ever get to see it! He tells them that he and the Sous Chefs will be finishing the service themselves. He wants one person from each team for elimination. And he hopes everyone feels like [BLEEP]. Most of them do!
On the blue team, it's between Brian and Robyn. Robyn admits that she sent up raw chicken, but Brian's the one who got kicked out of the kitchen. Well, technically you all got kicked out, but she's got a point.
Red team. Christina wants to vote for Kimmie because the catfish was the problem. Kimmie claims again that Barbie slacks off all the time and brings them down. Oh, did she make you screw up the catfish over and over again? Dana mopes about how she could vote for who she wants on her team, but if she votes for Barbie there's a deadlock.
Down to the dining room. Gordon tells them that it "all went south," which is probably the reason they went with southern cuisine in the first place. Dana has the red team's nominee, and it's Kimmie because of all the fish problems. Sure. Justin has the blue team's nominee, and it's Robyn because of all the raw chicken. Also logical. Robyn, why should you stay? "I'm not ready to go!" She claims the chicken [BLEEP]ed her, and Gordon explains that she [BLEEP]ed the chicken. Okay, Kimmie, what happened? "I lost control of it." But it's her first nomination, and she thinks she's better than Robyn. And she has more passion, drive, and fight-back, none of which matter. Robyn's whole argument is "I'm not ready to leave Hell's Kitchen, chef. I'm not!"
Gordon: "The person leaving Hell's Kitchen is...[long pause]...Robyn." Robyn starts to take off her jacket. But he's not done! "Back in line. Kimmie. Gimme your jacket." He's not even trying to make these swerves make grammatical sense. He tells Kimmie that she has a big heart and lots of passion, but that she's not ready for Gordon Ramsay Steak. She thinks Barbie should have gone home because she's been up so many times. Yeah, whatever.
Everyone claims they're ready to fight back. week: The most somethingest something ever!
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.