And now we conclude the unnecessary cliffhanger from last week! After putting Mary through to the final, Ramsay picks Ja'Nel over Jon, which is the right choice. Ramsay tells Jon he walks out as the lone shining star from the Blue team, and he gets to keep the Black jacket, because he earned it. And he wants Jon to keep in touch because there's always something coming around the corridor. On his way out, Jon acknowledges how tough it was to be on those perennial losers (we get a montage of Blue's greatest misses) and says not even he could survive Blue's curse forever. "Damn, it would have felt good to be in that last two, though," he says.
Meanwhile, Ramsay is hugging Ja'Nel and Mary, who has some words for everyone who underestimated her: "You never underestimate a butcher with a soft voice." I'm not convinced that will come into play often, actually. Ramsay says it's fitting there are two women in the final, because this is the Year of the Ladies (which is really just another way of saying that the Blue team sucked). He tells them to pack their bags for Las Vegas. They scream and hug each other, even as Ja'Nel says the competition is going to be intense.
They get on the Hell's Kitchen private jet, and en route Ramsay toasts them with champagne. He wants to know how many glasses it will take to get Mary's voice lowered. It's the Mary montage! We see all the times she was up for elimination, but also her triumphs. Well, the one time she cooked a five-star dish. Ja'Nel's montage, though, is a reminder that she's been solid all the way through. I mean, the only hiccup they can come up with is a time she fucked up some scallops, which pretty much everyone does at some point (even though they shouldn't).
Ramsay wants them to come up with four appetizers, four entrees and two desserts. Mary will be working with Andi, Ja'Nel with James. Ja'Nel tells Ramsay she can't wait to show him her range, and Mary tells us that Ja'Nel thinks more highly of herself than she ought to, while we watch her sipping champagne and giving side-eye.
They arrive in Las Vegas, Caesar's Palace, where a private concierge shows them to a room I will never be able to afford in my life. They take a few moments to squeal over how awesome the room is, then head to separate areas where they start making notes on what their dishes will be.
The morning the sous-chefs show up to help them work on their menus, and just when they think it's time to get back on the plane, there's a knock on the door. What "celebrity" will it be?
None, as it turns out, but someone dressed as a Roman centurion with a message that they should be prepared to meet a very important member of the Caesar's Palace family. Poolside, it turns out that it's Gary Selesner, who is president of the place, and the women oversell what a big deal this is, like either of them knew his name before this very moment. Mary is all "Am I royalty?" like DIAL IT BACK, MARY. Selesner congratulates them and says it's a pleasure to have them here. Well, that was exciting and totally worth the buildup!
One more surprise: Ramsay takes them to Gordon Ramsay Steak, where Christina comes over to welcome them and maybe pass them notes that say "SAVE YOURSELVES, IT'S NOT WORTH IT."
Christina sits down with them to give them a little advice when they pick their teams for the final competition. She says it's a good idea to keep in mind who is the weakest and who is the strongest. GREAT ADVICE, CHRISTINA. Mary says Christina has "so much insight" and "real wisdom and truth" for them. If that's true, it might have been nice to see it on camera. Then they eat for a while, and then Ramsay shows up with their final chef's whites, and it's back on the plane to Hell's Kitchen.
They're working on their menu in the dorms when the phone rings. "I knew it," says Mary. What was your clue, the camera crew? It's Ramsay, telling them to grab their bags for another overnight trip. The limo is waiting downstairs.
It takes them to Union Station? Mary thinks this is the place where Harry Potter caught the train to Hogwarts, because I guess she missed the slight British vibe of those books. (Or movies. Probably movies.)
Ramsay and the Union Station tour guide are talking about families saying hello and goodbye, which is the cue (which is flubbed) for Ja'Nel's and Mary's families to pop up from behind some seats. There's much emotional hugging, and now it's time to take a train, which is something you always do by walking into a darkened area behind some curtains, right?
Of course, the lights come up to reveal an audience full of people applauding. What kind of madness is contained within Union Station? It's the final challenge of Hell's Kitchen, Ramsay tells them, and gives Mary and Ja'Nel an hour to head into the kitchens and come back with five "stunning" dishes. Ja'Nel notes they usually do one dish in forty-five minutes, so Ramsay's really ramping up the pressure.
They have to do one hot app and one cold one, and entrées of chicken, fish and beef. We're led to believe that the audience, watching on screens, stood and cheered for a full hour.
Then it's judgment time: For the cold apps, it's master chef Sang Yoon of Lukshon. Ja'Nel has made a deconstructed BLT with fried green tomato, crispy prosciutto, micro baby arugula and gorgonzola ranch. Yoon says it's beautifully plated, but calling it a BLT is a stretch (audience idiots boo him). He does say it's a good dish. Mary's got an ahi tuna tartare with sesame oil, daikon and Asian carrot. Yoon says the tuna is nice but he might not have used sesame oil, which weighed the dish down a little. He picks Ja'Nel's dish.
Hot apps: the judge is Homaru Cantu of Moto. Ja'Nel's got mussels with garlic, shallot and white wine, finished with coconut curry broth. Cantu says it needs a little more seasoning. Mary has a sweet potato gnocchi with creamy chantrelle and bacon sauce. He likes the seasoning on this one, and the sweet potato, but the gnocchi's a little dense. But he picks Mary. I'm getting a little distracted by Mary's husband in the audience, who claps and bellows like a Yeti every time something goes Mary's way.
up, judging fish: David Lefevre, executive chef of the Manhattan Beach Post. Ja'Nel serves a pan-seared rainbow trout, with cauliflower two ways, and a brown butter pine-nut vinaigrette. Fish is nicely cooked. A little busy, but an excellent dish. Mary has made Chilean sea bass with Napa cabbage watermelon radish salad. "It's definitely a sexy dish," says Lefevre, who nevertheless gives the point to Ja'Nel.
Chicken: The judge is Douglas Keane of Cyrus. Ja'Nel (should they not at least alternate who goes first?) has made oven-roasted chicken breast with soft parmesan polenta on the bottom and salsa verde on top. Mary makes a seared chicken breast with crispy skin, potato mash and Thumbelina carrots with molasses compound butter. Keane calls it gorgeous. There is more buildup than necessary for the decision, which we'll get after a commercial break, and when we come back (and Ramsay has been able to remind Keane that his preference is for it to come down to the final dish), he awards the point to Mary.
Ja'Nel's a little nervous, and says the beef is her riskiest dish. Judging is the vice-president of food and entertainment from Caesar's Palace (the audience members all get their cameras ready), Jeffrey Frederick. Ja'Nel has made red-wine braised beef cheek on top of rustic smashed red bliss potato. Ja'Nel hopes for us that the vice-president of food at one of the most famous hotels in the entertainment capital of North America has heard of beef cheek. He has, and he's a big fan, and he's "so looking forward to delving into it." He talks so sexy! But wait, there's more "It's certainly been prepared properly from a tenderness perspective." Which means: "It's tender."
Mary says, "I'm a girl who loves my meat," and everyone pauses to laugh at the hilarious double-entendre, and then she says she's made a seared New York strip with polenta sticks and Thumbelina carrots (again). Frederick calls it technically flawless and an exceptional dish.
His decision — which will mean the winner of the challenge — is dragged out to an eye-rolling extent, and then he awards the point to Ja'Nel. She wins, and Ramsay says that gives her a huge advantage: She gets first pick of the losers for her brigade. Keep Christina's advice in mind: Remember who's good!
And they're going to pick their teams right now, with the previously eliminated chefs revealed. Ramsay introduces them to the crowd, and tells Ja'Nel to start picking: She goes for… what, a commercial break? THIS IS NOT BUILDING TENSION, OTHER THAN THE BAD KIND, GUYS.
Eventually, she picks Cyndi first, who Mary wanted on her team too. So Mary takes Jon, who would have been Ja'Nel's pick too. Oh, great, Zach's back. He's looking even more hipster than ever in his straw hat, and we get set up for a Zach-thinks-he-should-get-picked--every-single-time subplot. Ja'Nel picks Susan, surprising Susan (we see a replay of Ja'Nel giving Susan shit about how much better she is than her). Then Mary picks Anthony. Mary doesn't want Zach OR Dan, and she hopes Ja'Nel picks those idiots, and Ja'Nel does indeed pick Zach (Ramsay does the same thing he does when team captains pick on Masterchef, which is say "wow" after every selection). Mary picks Nedra, and then Ja'Nel goes for Amanda (who tells us she's ready for her redemption).
Mary picks Mike, who she calls very passion-driven (we relive the good times of Mike yelling at Dan). Then Ja'Nel takes Ray, so Mary is stuck with Dan. But she's "super-stoked" about her team and she can't wait to sit down with them and "tell them what's up."
Ramsay sends off the final cheftestants with a couple of super-secret envelopes that they're not to open until they're back at the dorms. Three months later, we find out what is in the envelopes: that they're allowed to trade one member of their team for someone on the other squad, which they can do until the doors open. Then it really turns out to be Mary wanting to dump Dan, but Ja'Nel is all, "NO THANKS," so it looks like Mary's stuck with him, and so much for this super-secret twist.
When Mary meets with the team, Dan is instantly "I'd be great at meat!" It turns out that Dan's not about to let the fact that others lasted longer in the competition make him think that maybe he should follow their advice or anything.
Meanwhile, Ja'Nel gets a little bit of pushback on her menu, especially from Cyndi, who points out — in vain — that three of her four entrees are grilled. And she's not thrilled about Ja'Nel's plan to offers beef cheeks. Susan — weighed down by a million necklaces — isn't keen on beef cheeks either. And now Ja'Nel kinda thinks she does want to dump a teammate.
But we're interrupted, because as is the norm now, it's not a two-hour episode but two one-hour episodes, complete with "previously on Hell's Kitchen," which are scenes that WE JUST WATCHED, at the halfway point.
Eventually, Ja'Nel decides that she doesn't want to trade anyone on the brigade, and when she comes back to the team she's much more conciliatory, as are the teammates, who seem to have realized that working to help her win helps redeem them somewhat.
The morning, the teams gather in the kitchens — Ja'Nel in Blue, Mary in Red — to prep and prepare their entrees for Ramsay to taste. There is a montage of "Ray and Zach are fucking idiots" scenes in Blue, while Mary has to deal with Dan and the fact that his "attitude sucks" and he's kind of a dunce. Dan, for his part, complains that Mary has a voice that makes him envy the dead. It must be especially problematic for a guy with satellite dishes for ears.
Dan then walks out after Mary tells him not to bring his dishes up to the pass with the garnish already on them. He has a secret, calls himself "awesome" and "the Hebrew hammer" and "good at what I do," and eventually decides that he'll do Mary a favor by helping her compete. Mary's too busy to "rip him a new one" but she'll be watching him like a hawk tonight (when she'll be less busy?).
Ja'Nel presents her dishes to Ramsay: fried green tomatoes, playing off a BLT element (what's with her deconstructed BLT today)? Ramsay loves it. Veal cheeks with rust egg smashed potatoes, roasted first. Ramsay: Delicious. Oven-roasted chicken, polenta on the bottom, roasted root hash. Ramsay loves it too.
Mary's turn: Sweet potato gnocchi with bacon and chantrelle sauce. Ramsay: Delicious. Really nice flavors. Chilean sea bass with soy and orange glaze. Ramsay: Extraordinary. Short-rib tortellini with bacon-bourbon jus, garnished with fresh grapes for color. Ramsay calls it amazing, and the best dish he's tasted today. I'm salivating just thinking about it.
Ramsay gives his pre-dinner pep talk to the assembled teams, reminding the vanquished contestants just how important this is to Mary and Ja'Nel (shot of Dan looking unimpressed). He expects everyone to give a hundred per cent (shot of Dan looking bored). Each kitchen will have a chef's table tonight (a first for the finale, if that's supposed to mean anything to someone). At the Blue table: Anthony Anderson. Everyone applauds. Red table: Kat Graham. Also — the one who gets my old ass excited and who I was able to identify as soon as Ramsay said he turned pro at age 14 — Tony Hawk. That one generates the most excitement from the chefs, too. Then Ramsay wishes them luck, and the women deliver their own pep talks to their teams.
I realize we only see snippets of them, but to me it's hilarious that with Ja'Nel, we see her tell her team, "This is important to me. I want to win. I want to fucking win," and with Mary, she's telling her teammates that she picked all of them for a reason. Ja'Nel advises her team that it doesn't have to be fast, it just has to be right. Mary stumps for good communication, and then Jean-Philippe opens the dining room.
Ah, the finale, where the B-list really shines! There's Leeza Gibbons, and there's BO DUKE HIMSELF "John Schneider," and there's Greg Louganis!
Mary gets a little tongue-tied calling out the first order, and then when she delivers it, she's greeted with silence so she has to make them answer her. Ja'Nel's a little better, and Cyndi awesomely reminds the rest of the team that they all need to let Ja'Nel know she's been heard. She's the consigliore.
In Red (Mary), Jon's on fish and Nedra's on appetizers. Nedra says she's going to do whatever she can to get the apps out: "I'm a bad bitch," she says. Aw, I even kind of missed Nedra. Wait, what am I saying? Nedra will do anything, she says. Well, except taste-test the first salad she brings up, or answer Mary when Mary calls out an order, apparently.
In Blue, Susan is on fish and Ray is on appetizers. But he doesn't put the dressing on the first appetizer. "If we can't even get salad out the window, this is going to be a long night," Susan tells us.
Nedra seems to immediately get irritated with Mary, you know, wanting to know when her damn appetizers are going to be done. Nedra seems more worried about not setting herself on fire than helping Mary win. Anthony: "To use one of Nedra's analogies, she is struggling like two bad bitches. I don't know what that means, but she seems to be doing it." Heh. Everyone is annoyed with Nedra, except — tellingly — Dan. Nedra's not salting, she's serving up cold appetizers, to the point that Ramsay is now getting irritated with Mary for not taking better control, and Mary warns Nedra (well, everyone) that she's willing to throw someone out of the kitchen if necessary. And then Nedra serves up some good tortellini and all is well, for now.
In the Blue kitchen, Ja'Nel's pushing Ray, who thinks she's getting nitpicky about the salad. Maybe her nitpickiness is part of what got her here, Ray.
In Red, Mary asks Jon for an order of scallops, but later on she's expecting two, much to his consternation. But they move on to entrees, while Blue is still waiting on non-burned flatbread from Amanda for appetizers at the chef's table. Eventually, Amanda is able to handle it.
And then, Dan doesn't appear to know how to cook steak properly, not that he'll admit it. He cooks it too rare, he serves it up cold. Mary yells him a little, he argues, and Mary goes off on him. Jon wouldn't blame her if she whacked Dan right in the mouth. It gets to the point that Ramsay is again stepping in, to give Dan shit, and Mary winds up throwing Dan out of the kitchen. And there was much rejoicing!
And then Mary puts Nedra on the meat station. Makes sense, because the only one who has given Mary as much trouble as Dan did tonight is Nedra. She can't find a steak that's properly cooked, and the pressure's on because Mary sent out the other entrees from that ticket already. Eventually she finds one properly cooked, and the diner declares it "worth the wait."
Susan gives Nedra cold, unsalted mashed potatoes. I love the scenes of the cooks dying in the kitchen cut with the talking-heads where they're all, "Y'all need to back off! I GOT THIS!" Also, Zach is taking too long and not coordinating with Amanda, slowing them right down. Zach yells it'll take six minutes for some prawns — it takes eleven minutes for him to serve up some cold ones. And Ja'Nel screams for a while at her teammates, who seem to be tuning her out, and Ramsay warns her about her team running her rather than the other way around. Then she screams at her teammates, but with a little more purpose, and things seem to improve.
In Red, Mary's doing great, finishing the tickets without too much trouble. Even Blue finishes strong. It looks like Ja'Nel struggled the most running the kitchen. Since that is a function of editing the show, congratulations to Ja'Nel, who will soon be crowned the winner!
Afterwards, Ramsay says everyone did a great job. Is Dan back? Yeah, he's at the back of the line, sulking. Ramsay tells Ja'Nel and Mary that they both sounded and acted like head chefs, and sends them back to the dorms to await his decision. Ja'Nel didn't come here to go home empty-handed by coming in second, and Mary talks about how she gave it her all. To kill some time, we watch a little montage that includes scenes we saw in the first hour and scenes we saw like FIVE MINUTES AGO. Anyway, the all-important call comes, summoning them to Ramsay's office.
They stand in front of him. Oh, god, he's got a speech. He calls Ja'Nel a natural leader, and she was in complete control. He praises Mary's improvement and the assertiveness in her voice tonight.
He tells them it was an agonizing choice for him, because they're both great, and he sends them to stand in front of the doors, with the dining room filled with their friends and family and former contestants. I love how dramatic Ramsay gets as he tells them HOW TO OPEN A DOOR.
When we come back from the requisite commercial break, they turn the handles — and it's Ja'Nel's door that opens, to the cheers of the people below. Heartbreakingly, you can see Ramsay in the background hugging and consoling Mary. She comes downstairs, crying, her husband telling her, "You're always a champion to me," which of course makes me feel bad for calling him a Yeti. She gets philosophical about it, saying it's "Bye-bye, Mary the butcher, hello Mary the chef." We see Dan apologize to her and saying he'll make it up to her (how?) but she at least says "thank you" instead of punching him in the face.
Ja'Nel hangs her picture on the wall with the winners — she tells us she's ready to move to Las Vegas and get to work. Ramsay says in all his years of Hell's Kitchen, he's never seen a more composed individual than Ja'Nel. Seems like the casting agency for Hell's Kitchen screwed up, then!
And then the drinking starts! Champagne is sprayed everywhere, Ja'Nel hugs her clone family, Ramsay tells Mary's husband that she's going to have a phenomenal career. Wait, where are the outtakes of Ramsay cracking jokes with the cheftestants? It's just OVER now? Booooo! Kind of an appropriate end for a lackluster season, no?
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Enjoy your summer, everyone, and keep an eye out for Dan the time he shows up on Fox, on Cops. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.