"Piss off!" says Ramsay, and the teams piss off. Jacqueline is sweating her near-death experience and says she can't let that happen again. Jessica is near tears over being put up for elimination. The rest of the team seems to agree, and she actually gets an apology from her teammates.
Meanwhile, Blue is celebrating its first dinner service win, with Dan talking about getting the monkey off their backs and Anthony -- you know, the one who looks like Seth McFarlane -- calling it a new beginning for Blue.
The morning in the dining room, a protein marketplace has been set up with shelves and shelves of meat: Ramsay says what separates the chefs from the cooks are their palates, and each team is going to have to correctly identify the mystery protein under each dome. Ray, for one, isn't worried since this is what he's been doing all his life -- and remember that he's older than the rest of his team put together. "I could tell you if it's cat or dog," he says. This would be the point where I vow never to set foot in any restaurant where Ray is cooking.
Teammates will go up in pairs, decide what the protein is, then head over to the market to pick it out. If they're right, a green light will go on underneath the dome. First team to five wins.
First up for Blue (going first because they won last night's dinner service) are Jon and Mike. Jon calls them the "dynamic duo," but their first selection of lamb is incorrect. They try venison. Wrong. "It's not as easy as it looks," says Michael, who blames the tomato sauce. They try veal, pork chops, buffalo, rabbit and goat ("Goat meatballs?" says Ramsay incredulously). They're at the point where they're just randomly picking any old meat. They select KANGAROO, for Christ's sake, and after eight or nine incorrect guesses and four and a half minutes have gone by, they finally taste again and correctly identify it as turkey.
Dan and Zach nail the chicken tacos on their first try. Jeremy and Barret aren't as successful with the duck enchiladas, opting for pork, buffalo and veal. Raymond actually identifies it as duck on sight, and they're on to Anthony and Ray, who get the veal chop on their first try. And since there are only eight players on the team, the dynamic duo are up again, needing to identify swordfish and chips. They go for cod and sturgeon before getting the swordfish, and the team finishes with a time of 10:33.
The Red team comes in to find the not-intimidating team they have to beat, and Ja'Nel and Jacqueline take the first crack at it and get the turkey meatballs on the first try. Jon figures Red is going to beat them in less time than it took him and Michael to do just one turn. The chicken tacos are also nailed on the first try, and then Nedra and Jessica have a little more difficult with the duck enchiladas, trying veal, venison, buffalo, beef, squab and quail. The clock is under six minutes. They even try the kangaroo Hail Mary ("Anything's possible in Hell's Kitchen," says Nedra), and Blue has gone from looking like they want to vomit to actively enjoying themselves. Even Ray is openly mocking them at this point.
After the commercial break, Jessica and Nedra are even contemplating picking meats they've already incorrectly guessed... so no, it's not going well. "I'm sweating like two fat bitches, I'm shaking like a stripper," says Nedra. Um, what scary-ass strip clubs do you go to?
FINALLY they identify the duck, and Mary -- with Amanda -- nails the veal chop on the first try, while Red has five minutes to get the swordfish right. Jacqueline's not worried, since there's only so much white fish up there to pick. But they go through catfish, cod and halibut first, and then get swordfish with just under four minutes left. Cyndi gloats that she doesn't know what's wrong with the men (that's a list that could really push the running time of this show into several hours per episode) but if she were them she'd be contemplating a sex change right about now.
Red's reward is a day at a beach house in Malibu: A $15-million mansion, at which they'll be meeting some "very special guests," after they're taken there in chauffeured convertibles.
As for the men, they're going to be spending the day making bread -- that includes hauling in all the flour and grinding it. There's some minor traffic congestion in the kitchen (Ray winds up screaming at Nedra for getting in his way) and now Dan is openly wishing for the women's convertibles to flip over and kill them. Then there is some gross sound effects humor at the expense of Nedra as she tries to fit herself and her huge breasts into one of the cars.
They arrive at an admittedly stunning place -- so that's what $15 million gets you in Malibu. Meanwhile, the men are grinding the flour, seasoning it with sweat and profanity. Ray busts out a not-ironic "I'm too old for this shit" line.
So who are the special guests? Laird Hamilton and Gabrielle Reece come jogging up the beach, and Nedra almost explodes when Laird takes off his shirt and heads for the water with a paddleboard. Cue the montage of Check Out the Women Falling Off Their Paddleboards, with Cyndi proving particularly inept. Then we see about half a second of volleyball action with Gabrielle, like WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THIS.
Back at the Kitchen, the men keep grinding, and Jeremy collapses. "I need the medical aid really bad," he says. I hope medical aid prescribes a treadmill, dude. Some circuit training, maybe.
Jeremy's able to get to his feet by the time the medic arrives (after a commercial break that works the HK pitchfork into a heartbeat monitor display), complaining of dizziness and being overheated. Turns out that Jeremy is a former stroke patient. Yikes. Jon is feeling particularly shitty, blaming himself for taking so long to identify the obscure meat known as turkey, contributing to this punishment. The medic does a couple of tests, and with Jeremy's high blood pressure, opts to take him to the emergency room. Jeremy frets that he might not be able to come back to Hell's Kitchen because of this. "I want to win, but I don't want to die," he says. Hey, some people are dying to get on this show, not off, Jeremy.
The women return to Hell's Kitchen with Dan advising his Blue teammates to not even acknowledge them, and the men do in fact give them the silent treatment. People on both sides are called bitches. And then, somewhat anticlimactically, Jeremy returns, rolls up his sleeves to get back to work, much to the surprise of her teammates. They're even more surprised (and not really in a good way) when Jeremy says the diagnosis is just that he hasn't been eating enough. The rest of the team kick him out so he can go rest or maybe eat three pizzas, and Ray cracks everyone up by saying if the doctor says Jeremy isn't eating enough, he should get a second opinion.
In the dorms, the women are just as surprised by Jeremy's diagnosis -- Nedra in particular accusing that bitch Jeremy of eating them out of house and home -- but mostly keep it to themselves, and Jeremy sets about making himself some fried chicken. Hey, doctor's orders!
The morning, the groggy men get up early so they can start baking the bread and then try to catch a little more shuteye, but Ramsay -- calling the dorms at 6:37 AM -- has other plans.
He orders everyone down to the dining room, where -- when the team finally arrives, still not completely dressed (Jeremy's zipping up his fly) -- he announces that chefs are not the only people in the world who work long hours. They're going to prepare a meal for some others just getting off shift -- emergency room personnel: doctors, nurses and EMT. Zach is impressed, and you can tell because he respectfully uses his less-shouty voice as he talks about how these people are always saving lives so they have to treat them with the utmost respect. Despite the morning hour, this is going to be just like a dinner service, with the losing team to have a member eliminated. Jeremy says he's going to pull his team through this and win. Bold words from someone who can barely get through prep.
The teams go over the special breakfast menu and then the guests come in, many still in their scrubs, and the teams get to work. Ray complains that he doesn't have pans big enough to cook the omelets. Cyndi can't scrape her eggs out of the pan. Ramsay tells Red to "wake up a little bit," while Jeremy is already zoned out and can't repeat Ramsay's order back to him. Anthony calls him "dead weight." Barrett: "He's just like 'duh.'" He kinda is. Just getting up to the pass is a challenge, and then somehow Jeremy -- Ramsay calls him "some disgusting pig" -- has brought up the sample scrambled eggs that the teams were learning from. Ramsay, you can imagine, is not pleased. "Jeremy! You'll kill someone with that!" Well, there's no better crowd with which to make that mistake, I suppose. Time to get Jeremy out of the kitchen, as well as out of the cooking profession, and perhaps there's some sort of bubble-wrapped island somewhere we can put him so he no longer poses any kind of threat to others or himself.
Red, meanwhile, is starting to click, with Ja'Nel making delicious scrambled eggs. Nedra, however, is "sleepwalking through service." She hates "the morningtime," she tells us, acknowledging she was discombobulated. She's serving up soggy biscuits on the eggs benedict, and Amanda has to step in to help save the station.
Over in Blue, Ray's either not seasoning the scrambled eggs enough or using too much salt and pepper (I don't eat eggs, given that they're disgusting abominations that make me gag just thinking about them). Nedra -- feeling a little vulnerable because of her eggs Benedict performance -- elects to help Jacqueline, who's underwater on the pancakes.
Ray turns out some fluffy and delicious scrambled eggs (no such thing) and both teams are down to their last couple of tickets. Red is still being held up by pancakes -- everyone grabs a pan to make them, so they can get them done quicker and pick the best ones -- and Blue gets to catch up slightly until they're both on their last ticket. Ramsay screams about pancakes and then we go to commercial.
In the end, Blue gets their last order out first and they start hugging each other. Ramsay goes over to Red to yell at them about how he's never seen such a disorganized pancake station in his entire life. Me too! I mean, this is the only "pancake station" I've ever seen, but there you have it. Ramsay then kisses up to the diners and says it's been an honor to serve them for once. Then it's back into the kitchen to tell Red what a disaster this was, and instructs them to select two individuals for elimination. Ja'Nel can't get over the fact that it's not even 9 AM -- they haven't had coffee, some people haven't brushed their hair or their teeth, and now they have to pick two people for elimination. Given the apparent lack of teeth-brushing, I'm going to say the lack of coffee is a plus right now.
Amanda says the obvious choices are Jackie and Nedra. Cyndi reminds us that if they'd just been able to make goddamn PANCAKES, they would have won. Nedra's not impressed, because when someone sucks at a particular service they obviously think their entire performance over the run of the show should be considered, and Nedra doesn't think she's the weakest one. Ja'Nel's all, "Well, if not you, then who?" and Nedra offers Mary up for sacrifice. She claims Mary's the weakest one, but I think she's tired of Mary's baby voice. I have to say I'm not opposed to it. Everyone's all, "Bitch, please," at Nedra about it, and she goes off on a rant that requires state-of-the-art bleeping technology to make suitable for airing. By the time she's yelled, "Fuck all y'all" and stomped off, the rest of the team seems to be wondering if they can put Nedra alone up for elimination.
Red files back into the dining room, with Cyndi announcing that Jacqueline is up for elimination (citing not just the pancakes, but the raw chicken from the dinner service). After the commercial break, they nominate Mary -- much to Ramsay's surprise. Cyndi says it's because they've decided Mary is one of the weakest links on the team. Amanda's shaking her head. Ramsay notices and asks her why, and she says she didn't agree with the decision, saying she nominated Nedra based on her performance today. Ja'Nel is nodding, but it's because she disagrees, saying that if she needs help with something, she'd look to Nedra before she'd look to Mary. Nedra, meanwhile, looks terrified, knowing that this could all go sideways with Ramsay bringing her up anyway.
In the end he calls Jacqueline and Mary forward. Mary offers one of those meaningless "I've always been a fighter" defenses, and amusingly says she's a woman of her word and didn't lie to Ramsay when she said she has "endurance and tenacity." Give me a break. Jacqueline, who's definitely going home, starts defending herself and Ramsay won't even let her finish, before he starts talking about burning pancakes. She says she burned two and the others were given to her to help with flipping. Ramsay's not buying it. "Who couldn't flip a pancake?" he says. Well, that would be Nedra. Ramsay literally facepalms, and asks Nedra if that's true. She says she can, but not with the spatula she had. "So you're blaming the spatula," says Ramsay, flatly.
He says this is a difficult decision for him -- what with apparently everybody sucking -- but his decision is... to send Mary and Jacqueline back in line. Well, I'm surprised Jacqueline's not going. "Thank you, chef!" squeaks Mary, as the two of them scurry back into line. Mary's about ready to completely lose her shit.
Ramsay says there is one chef here who is way over their heads and it's only right now that... with the time that's left and the fact this episode is called "16 Chefs Compete: Part 1"... we're not actually going to have a goddamn elimination tonight. So I guess I'm the idiot.
And sure enough, Ramsay starts to announce who's leaving, and the "To Be Continued" screen pops up. Goddammit, show, you have one job each week. But tune in week, where this cooking competition features the squeaky-voiced Mary MISSING HER PERIOD AND TAKING A PREGNANCY TEST and Ray apparently calling Amanda a bitch a couple dozen times and then beating her up. This fucking show.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Let him know when this show gets back to being about cooking, please. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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