Three down, with one about to be eliminated, and despite the fact we just sat through three minutes' worth of previously-on scenes, we have to watch the elimination get set up again, with the screens dropping down from the ceiling, alight with the flames of hell and poorly cleaned barbecues.
Ramsay announces that the first chef through to the Hell's Kitchen final is Christina. She curses in surprise and gratitude, and hugs Ramsay as her portrait appears on one screen. Ramsay calls the other two chefs' names, and they respond with "Yes, chef," and Dana sounds resigned, like she doesn't think Ramsay's going to be after an all-vagina final two, and sure enough, Ramsay names Justin as the other finalist. Dana hugs Christina, and Justin apologizes, before Dana is summoned before Ramsay, who tells her she's great but not quite ready but she should hold her head up high, etc. etc. She gets to keep her black jacket, so there's that.
As we watch her montage, she tells us Hell's Kitchen was so much harder than she thought it would be, but she's proud of how well she did, plus she got to serve David Beckham, which is priceless to her, even if servicing him was more what she was interested in.
As for Justin and Christina, forty-eight hours from now, one of them will be the head chef at Ramsay's new restaurant, so they need to start thinking about their winning menu, with "four stunning appetizers, four stunning entrees, and three desserts," he tells them. Not stunning desserts? Well, that takes some of the pressure off.
Both of them are giddy at knocking out sixteen other chefs to get here, and aren't spoiling the mood by thinking too much about how the other one's going to have to go down now. Instead they pour champagne and Christina says "Take him to flavor country" and I guess that means the champagne has hints of tobacco.
So they're up to all hours working on the menu, smoking and grinning. Justin's thinking about how proud his father is going to be of him, and we see some pictures of a very young Justin and his dad, who Justin says always told him being a chef wasn't for Justin. "My fuckin' father's going to be so fuckin' proud of me," he says, and I have to say my dad would cock an eyebrow at the F-bombs, but he would yes be pretty proud of me too. He can't wait to show his dad what he's made of himself, and I hope to god this is a happy thing and not an occasion for Justin to rub his dad's nose in it.
As for Christina, she's cooked her whole life, with her mother and grandmother in the kitchen teaching her, so she's just got to put her "heart out on those plates" which sounds disgusting, and she'll win.
Late to bed, early to rise, for the chefs, and they soon get a call from Ramsay, summoning them up to his office, so they run, just in case Hell's Kitchen hinges on who gets there first.
Sitting them down, Ramsay tells them it's crucial that they go over every detail with their sous-chefs, except there's one problem: Andi and Scott aren't there. "They're waiting for you," says Ramsay, and Christina and Justin nervously chuckle before realizing that maybe there are more details available, so they ask where they're going, and Ramsay tells them they're poolside, Las Vegas, today -- it's a day of pampering (and sous-chef consulting) in Vegas, and they've got to hustle because the jet is wheels-up in sixty minutes.
They run to change -- VIP days aren't quite the same when there aren't losers doing prep in the kitchen to gloat at, I imagine -- and soon they're airborne, clinking champagne glasses with Ramsay, who tells them to enjoy the moment, and how cool would it be for the three of them to get sloppy drunk and start telling each other how much they loooove each other, and then we watch a Christina montage and HOW ANNOYING IS IT that even long after she was eliminated, I still have to have Kimmie on my screen? Christina talks about how proud she is to have made it here or whatever, and says something about putting her heart on the plate again.
Then, after Ramsay has a flight attendant bring out special chef's jackets for the two of them, we get the Justin montage, which features a lot less of people screaming at each other, which is a relief although maybe a little sexist in terms of how reality shows present women versus men but whatever, and then Ramsay asks them who's going to win and they answer "I am" at the exact same time, so I guess dinner service will be the tiebreaker.
And it's on to Paris Las Vegas, that weird place where they have replicas of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe (although to be fair, Paris has a couple of replicas of the Statue of Liberty). Justin and Christina receive hand massages in their separate cabanas, only to be interrupted by chefs Scott and Andi respectively, because it's time to get down to bidness and finalize tomorrow night's menu.
That done, Ramsay's got another surprise for them: lunch with their families (Justin's parents, and Christina's mom and girlfriend) followed by VIP tickets to a show. At lunch, Justin's mom tells him they're proud of him, which seems to touch off him expounding at length about how his making the final shows what's made of, and I'm surprised he didn't throw out a shoulder patting himself on the back like that. Christina tells us that seeing her mom and girlfriend reminded her of what she's missing, and she's got a whole new fight inside her.
And then it's off to the show, which is Penn and Teller, who I saw in Vegas a couple of years ago, but not this big production with all the showgirls and whatnot. Christina and Justin are on edge thinking things can't be that simple, that Ramsay's got to have some sort of trick up his sleeve, and it comes when Penn saws Teller in half, and they reveal how it's done, which is the kind of thing that got GOB Bluth kicked out of the Magician Alliance. I guess it's OK, because who doesn't know how that trick is done anymore? And it turns out that Ramsay is playing the part of the feet, and so he hops out and now the magic show turns into a Hell's Kitchen show, and I think that if I'd paid to see Penn and Teller, I'd be pretty annoyed at this bullshit, and then Ramsay calls Christina and Justin up on stage because it's time for their "final challenge."
Christina wonders what kind of "idiot pill" she took this morning to think that Ramsay would give them a day off -- sentiments echoed by Ramsay once they get up on stage -- and then Ramsay tells them they're going to have an hour to cook five stunning dishes, so they go running off while everyone in the audience applauds, probably because they came for some magic, not for a couple of schlubby cooks on a reality show.
The challenge is to prepare their own takes on five menu items that could appear on the menu at Ramsay's new Las Vegas restaurant: a salad, seafood entrée, ribeye, filet and a fish entrée.
Oh, I spoke too soon. That poor audience is now watching the two chefs on screens above the stage and by this point I can only hope that the Penn and Teller show was a free thing, because I can't see any other reason why the audience hasn't emptied out as disgruntled gamblers demand their money back after being forced to watch a cooking show.
Justin talks about how Christina likes to keep things simple while he's much too fucking awesome for that, and he says "balls to the wall" which has never been a phrase I've ever understood anyway, and Christina is having some sort of cilantro crisis, the nature of which I'm not sure of but its inclusion pretty much ensures that the judges are going to deem one of her dishes to have too much cilantro.
When the cooking is done, the chefs run back out on stage, where Ramsay starts welcoming the judges. For the salad: François Payard, of Payard in Caesar's Palace. Justin seems to have heard of Payard and can't believe this guy is going to taste his dish, comparing it to being a high school basketball player who's really good getting to meet Michael Jordan. Nice how Justin's analogy includes a compliment for himself.
Justin's made heirloom tomatoes, charred, feta crumble, compressed watermelon and vinaigrette. "I have a lot of finesse in my food. That's just my style," says Justin, whose cockiness is really starting to wear me. "Yeah, my style is to be awesomely talented, but that's just me," explains Justin. Payard deems it a nice summer salad.
Christina, meanwhile, has made a charred asparagus and fried egg salad with baby arugula with fresh shaved pecorino. Payard calls it a little too vinegary, and the crowd STARTS BOOING THE MASTER CHEF for calling a dish they haven't tasted "too vinegary," and Payard picks Justin's salad as the better one.
The judge, for the seafood appetizer, is Michel Richard, who just opened Central in Caesar's Palace. Christina says he's an idol of hers.
She's made a coconut shrimp ceviche, and she steeped it in ginger, jalapeno and cilantro, and Richard's eyes bug out at the mention of cilantro, because he hates cilantro, and so he kneels and crosses himself and tastes it anyway and declares her a great chef.
Justin has made an Ecuadorean-style ceviche, where they poach the shrimp first, and then use the water to make the ceviche mixture, which is ketchup, orange juice, and the shrimp juice (is it always ketchup? Because I don't know anything about ceviche, but "ketchup" isn't exactly on anyone's list of mind-blowing ingredients, Mr. Justin), and then he classily gets in a dig at Christina by pointing out there's no cilantro it. Richard says it's delicious, and picks Justin as the winner, giving him a two-to-zilch lead. "I win one more, it's over," Justin tells us, displaying a superhuman ability to figure out how many points out of five he needs to win the match.
After a commercial break, the judge comes out to judge the seafood entrée: Julian Serrano, executive chef of his namesake restaurant in Aria as well as Picasso in the Bellagio. And it's too bad we're done with the French judges, because listening to Ramsay doing his best to wrap his English accent around proper French pronunciation has been the high point of the episode so far.
Christina has made a pan-seared halibut with a purple Peruvian potato puree (too bad alliteration isn't a factor in deciding the victor) and grilled spinach. Serrano says it has good balance and good flavor. Justin's got fingerling potatoes, Dover soul meuniere and wild asparagus with olive oil and lemon juice. Serrano says it's good, but the fish is a little overcooked, and he picks Christina's dish.
Out to judge the ribeye round is Ramsay's right-hand man, Stuart Gillies, who will oversee the opening of Gordon Ramsay Steak. Christina's got a port-wine ribeye (Gillies says it's "nice and visually good" even though Justin to us sneers at it, calling it "just steak on a plate" and "completely old-school" and he's "not about that at all" like SHUT UP JUSTIN) going up against Justin's rib-eye, which is so not old-school or steak on a plate because he PUT SOME ONION RINGS on top. There are also nettles and chorizo. "That's me on a plate right now," says Justin. Gillies says it's well-done but since this is a steakhouse and it's gotta be "about the steak" he picks Christina's dish, throwing Justin for a loop. But in a TOTAL CHANGE, he's completely confident about his dish.
For the filet, Ramsay announces he's bringing out a living legend, someone who's got six restaurants in Vegas alone. Who else is going to be but Wolfgang Puck? (The on-screen graphic goes with Spago for Puck's restaurant of choice.)
Justin has a charred filet mignon with a butter-poached lobster and a glazed carrot dressing. "I like it," says Puck. Christina counters with a pan-roasted filet, haricots verts (sounds classier than "green beans") and gorgonzola mashed potatoes. "Not bad. Mmmm!" says Puck.
He thinks they both did a fantastic job, and once we get through the commercial break, we see that he's having a hard time making a choice. For the presentation alone, he would pick Justin, he says, but for taste, he'd go with Christina (which to me makes the choice obvious, but I'm no Wolfgang Puck). Ramsay urges him to make a decision, and Wolfgang decides to go with taste and picks Christina.
And since Justin lost, he's dismissive of the contest, calling it "preseason" and that tomorrow is really the contest and Christina had better watch out. "I have what it takes and I've never been so determined in my life," he says.
After that, it's back to the hangar with Ramsay's but before they go back to L.A. there's one more thing they need to do: pick their team from the gang of arseholes eliminated before them: Dana, Barbie, Clemenza, Robyn, Brian, Kimmie, Royce and Patrick. Christina alludes to the real important part of picking your squad: avoiding the people who will sink your chances rather than help you. "Their future lies in your hands," Ramsay tells them.
Robyn sulks that she wasn't surprised to see Christina and Justin in the final, but she's not going to jump up and down about it. It's cute that Robyn thinks anyone might care if she'd jump up and down for Christina and Justin.
Since Christina won the challenge, she gets first pick. Even better, she's not stuck with last pick. Big surprise, she goes for Dana first. "We're only, like, best friends," Dana reminds us. Also, "She's awesome, I'm awesome."
Man, I'm not going to record the bullshit little reasons Justin and Christina give for each pick, I'm just going to give you the teams in order of selection: Christina: Dana, Patrick, Kimmie and Robyn. Justin: Barbie, Brian, Royce and Clemenza. The last pick is dragged out beyond all reason, although to be fair to Christina, she's trying to decide whether she wants fast and annoying or slow and good. Eventually she goes with Robyn, and Clemenza's pissed that he's the last pick. "If you don't like me, fuck you," he tells us, and Ramsay stokes it a little bit by giving him a high-five and saying he didn't expect Clemenza to be picked last. Clemenza's all, "I know!"
So the chefs jet back to L.A., where Brian holds a meeting of his teammates presumably so they can all express their gratitude for having been chosen by him. Christina starts going over her menu, some peach-goat-cheese-pepper salad thing that sounds disgusting, and Dana starts getting all shouty because Christina decided to combine the troublesome scallops and troublesome risotto into one mega-troublesome appetizer. "This menu is going to be a lot of work," Dana shouts at us, and she suddenly sounds like she's not super-interested in helping her friend anymore. She's also got a fourteen-ounce bone-in veal chop, which makes Kimmie go practically apoplectic, because that's an enormous chop, and maybe all the chefs who have already been eliminated should stop criticizing the decisions of their chef since she's still, you know, IN THE THING.
Over in Justin's meeting, Clemenza's yawning and unable at all to keep up with anything that Justin's saying. He could not look less interested in the menu. "I need Clemenza to stay focused," Justin tells us, and then he throws out a question to the group: Who's there just to be there, and who's there with something to prove? It's directed at Clemenza, who knows it, and he snaps that he doesn't have anything to prove to anybody, and at some point Justin tells him to shut the fuck up. Things don't get better: Clemenza, annoyed that Justin is taking issue with his lack of interest and shitty attitude, eventually takes Justin up on his suggestion that if he doesn't want to do his best, then he should just get out now. "I'm done with this fucking kid," Clemenza announces as he gets up and walks off. Well, if Clemenza leaves, what Hell's Kitchen will save in laundry costs they can use to hire another chef.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He's really sorry he missed recapping this episode when it originally aired. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.