We're in the second installment of the Eliminate the Fifth-Last Chef trilogy, which I guess makes this the Empire Strikes Back of the trio, so I'm expecting big things. Remember we were waiting to see who our current chefs would be competing against? Will it be famous chefs? Or chefs famous only in the context of Hell's Kitchen?
Well, of course it's the latter. Winner of HK3: Rock. Winner of HK4: Christina. Winner of HK6: Dave. Winner of HK8: Nona. And finally, winner of HK9: Paul, the only one from a season I've recapped. "Big Deal's back," Paul tells the contestants, and Ja'Nel is annoyed that Paul is talking shit already.
Ramsay wants them to come up with an appetizer and an entrée. Oh, and they need to be "stunning," as opposed to be shitty. The teams decamp to come up with their plan of attack. Susan proposes sliders for an appetizer, and Jon is all, "We're going up against champions." So no sliders?
The former winners are not exactly jelling either, because Nona appears to be shooting down every suggestion the other team comes up with. But she wants to put some "ham hock" on the menu. Finally everyone settles on duck for an appetizer.
Meanwhile, current contestants are planning to use duck for an entrée. Susan's not confident, though. Well, pretend it's a slider! They ignore her plea to keep the menu simple, and she seems to be setting up her excuses for who to blame if the team loses.
Meanwhile, everyone is starting to hate Nona, who starts talking about their entrees being "from the hood" because collard greens are involved.
And now the contestants have to work out who's going to be on which station. You know what? In the few seasons I've been watching this, I don't think I knew that they didn't decide this for themselves already, although I suppose it makes sense for Ramsay (or whoever) to decide, either to spread it around or for maximum reality-show impact.
Anyway, Susan is calling bullshit on Cyndi wanting to be on meat, and she accuses Cyndi of being on an ego trip, which is rather ironic. Eventually the team decides putting up with Susan's whining isn't worth it and let her take the meat station.
The morning, the cheftestants get ready to prep and the former winners come striding in wearing their all-black jackets, looking sharp and vaguely ninja-like. The teams prepare samples of their appetizers and entrees. Mary says something about smearing duck blood under her eyes. Susan says Mary is a completely different person when she's around meat. Yeah, she's kind of a chirpy psycho with the cleaver, isn't she?
On the other side, Paul and Christian appear to be flirting with each other, which I assume is making everyone queasy. Paul's confident that with five champions on their team, they're going to dominate.
The cheftestants, though, are having trouble with the duck confit. "I knew this was going to be the case!" says Susan. It's taking too long to prepare, and they run out of time and have to give Ramsay the duck without the confit.
First, though, they've got a steak tartare with ribeye and filet and a quail egg seasoned with a truffle vinaigrette and shallots. Ramsay says it needs a little more heat but it's got that wow factor. As for the entrée, the pan-seared duck breast with celery puree and Ramsay calls it "fucking ridiculous" that the confit isn't ready. "Is that the best you can do?" he asks, and says the duck isn't even cooked properly.
Over in the former winners kitchen, they've got a rendered duck breast with toasted pistachio. Ramsay likes it. The entrée is a veal loin chop with collard greens and ham hock. Ramsay declares it delicious and reminds them that people in L.A. don't like it too pink. That true, Couch Baron?
The cheftestants take another crack at their duck entrée. Ramsay says it's really good with nice flavor, and tells Jean-Philippe to open the restaurant. Susan vastly overestimates what's at stake by declaring that if they beat the former winners, they'll go down in history.
The cooking gets underway with Jon, at least, trying to find a balance between working with people he hasn't cooked with before in order to win, but also standing out. He appears to be disappointed when Mary starts shooting out excellent scallop appetizers, especially as it's supposed to be his station.
Nona, meanwhile, is on hot apps for the champs and her risotto is not quite up to snuff at first, with a minor seasoning problem. Ramsay tells Dave to jump in and back her up, and the two of them blame each other for not knowing how to make risotto. Or something. Regardless, they get out risottos that meet Ramsay's approval.
And only now do we get the segment on how the other cheftestants find Mary's high-pitched squeaking annoying. He's given her a little bit of leadership responsibility, which means she's jabbering away. Susan's annoyed that Ja'Nel seems to have it easy by babysitting a couple of risottos while she's knocking out fifteen tartares, but Jon's impressed at how Susan's supporting Ja'Nel on apps and the appetizers are getting out tickety-boo.
The champs, however, are getting a little backlogged on appetizers. "Rock seemed a little bit lost," Christina tells us, and we watch a few "confused Rock" clips. "What?" he tells us in a talking-head, which made me chuckle. And for all that, they get through the appetizers without any major setbacks. In fact, they're done before the cheftestants. Paul will be on meat and Christina on fish for the entrée round.
The current competitors have to finish their final order, Susan still feeling majorly aggrieved by how much more she's busting her ass than Ja'Nel... at least in her own mind. Jon's annoyed because his scallops are waiting on Susan's cappellini, and they start sniping at each other. "Susan should go home. I don't know how she's made it this far," Ja'Nel tells us. And now Ramsay is yelling about the kind of things he yells about. Considering how much contestants usually fuck up to earn Ramsay's wrath, this seems a little ginned-up to go to commercial break on.
Sure enough, it's perfectly cooked and like a minute late so hardly a mortal sin, even if Ja'Nel thinks Susan is "a joke" and shouldn't be making mistakes like that this late in the game.
Paul is killing it on meat. Just ask him! Except he serves the lamb a little undercooked, which he seems to blame on New York being more awesome than L.A. He recovers and meets Ramsay's approval, but not a diner's, who sends it back for being too rare. "Are you fucking kidding?" he asks. Meanwhile, Cyndi is killing the duck. Ramsay is mad that Mary is "staring" at him while he's calling out the order. "Like something out of the fucking Shining," he mutters. He's just looking for things to be mad about now, because the cheftestants are firing on all cylinders, heading for their final ticket. And now Cyndi appears to have timing issues, which Susan finds excusable in herself but unforgivable in others, it would appear.
With the former chefs -- I'm not sure what's happening, but whatever it is, Paul is telling us that's why he's a big deal. Meanwhile, Dave appears to be expressing a desire to have sex with Christina, who doesn't want Dave too close to her.
Cyndi serves up the last meat and Ramsay mutters it's the best he's ever seen it done. Only one of the lamb orders is brought back with a request for a medium order instead of the medium rare that was delivered. God, shut up, L.A. Cyndi's order, though, isn't any more cooked and Ramsay stops it at the pass for being as bloody as the order that came back. "You're screwing the team!" Ramsay says. Cyndi can't believe she made such an amateur mistake in a black jacket.
Meanwhile, the champs are pushing out their final ticket. "That's why we're all champions," Paul tells us.
The diners start to fill out their comment cards. You know, except for the one diner who's waiting for her lamb. When she finally gets it, she declares it incredible and dinner service comes to a close.
Afterwards, Ramsay says in all the time he's been a chef, he's never seen a perfect dinner service. The competitors start to beam only to be deflated when he adds, "And tonight was no different." Ha! However, both teams performed very well, despite a few bumps. He says the comment cards will decide the winner. Diners were asked how many would come back based on tonight's service. The champions had a ninety-five percent rate, just edging out the final five at ninety-three. Aw! The cheftestants curse, while the former champs applaud -- not just themselves, but the other team. "Was there any fucking doubt we were going to win?" Paul asks us, apparently feeling a little more impressed with himself than he should for a two-percentage point margin.
The former champs depart and Ramsay tells the final five that they need to come up with two nominees that they think are the weakest individuals on the team. "This is where it gets ugly, let me tell you," he says sympathetically, before sending them up to the dorms.
That's where Jon tells Susan she should be one, because of the cappellini. Susan thinks her small mistake shouldn't hold her back. Meanwhile, Mary points out Cyndi's problems with the lamb. Neither Susan nor Cyndi are impressed, but I hate to tell them that when otherwise things are perfect even little problems will get you kicked out. Cyndi tries to shift the focus and tells Ja'Nel it looked like Susan was running her app station. Ja'Nel takes this about as well as you might imagine. "There's no fucking way she was running that station over me," Ja'Nel says. Susan's all, "Well..." Jon wouldn't mind seeing them both go home, declaring them his biggest competition.
The team marches back into the dining room, where Ja'Nel tells Ramsay that the first nominee is Susan, because of the timing issue with the cappellini. But the second nominee was harder, so let's take a commercial break to steel ourselves for it.
On the other side, Ja'Nel says the second nominee is Cyndi. Ramsay asks Cyndi who she thinks are the weakest members and Cyndi says that it's Susan and Mary. Susan is asked the same question and says that it's Cyndi and Mary.
Ramsay makes Susan and Cyndi step forward and asks them why they should stay. Susan says she has so much passion: "It runs through my blood." Cyndi says she's not ready to give up the black jacket yet, and Ramsay hasn't seen her at her best. She says she's more well-rounded than Susan.
Look, we all know this is part two of three, so let's just get this over with. We watch a little replay of the issues tonight with both chefs and then Ramsay says they leave him no choice: his decision is Susan and Cyndi both keep their black jackets, and sends them back to the line. He tells the team that when they pull off a service like that and almost match a team of former champions, he's not sending anyone home. But the challenges will get harder, he says, and tomorrow night he may eliminate one, two or three chefs. "Chef's going to have to take this jacket off my cold dead body," Susan says. Mary is about to say something, when my Canadian channel switches over to that awful-looking Does Someone Have to Go? show, which fortunately means my dog is spared one last ear-piercing statement, but that's it for me tonight.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He has started to twitch uncontrollably. Someone had better be eliminated week. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Think you've got game? Prove it! Check out Games Without Pity, our new area featuring trivia, puzzle, card, strategy, action and word games -- all free to play and guaranteed to help pass the time until your show starts.