10 Thoughts On Hell's Kitchen — Episode 6-9

Reviews

Hey, someone’s reading! Before we get started, I’d like to thank reader TheDuke for alerting me to an editing mistake in last week’s show. Apparently, when Chef Ramsay was yelling at Amanda for her raw fish, a shot of the altercation showed previously-eliminated contestant Tek in the background. This has shattered, shattered, my faith in the realness of Reality TV. For those interested, check it out here.

1) The Red team thinks the wrong person went home. Suzanne thinks they don’t have teamwork because they don’t like each other right now. Uh, no. There’s no teamwork on the Red team because everyone but you dislikes you. Suzanne claims she’s “humbling herself” in front of her team, but I’m not sure what this was supposed to do. Make the team like her out of pity? That’s never worked on these types of shows.

2) The next day, Chef Ramsay shills France as the center of food knowledge, and talks about the wonderful crepe. For the reward challenge, teams have to make four crepes: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. Chef Ramsay shows them how to make one crepe, and the kitchen is filled with ingredients. Creativity, technique, and attention to detail are what he’s looking for in this challenge. Suzanne is overcompensating with her helping, and Sabrina interviews that she’s a kiss-ass. Hey, pick one—either she over-helps as a team player or acts like she’s on her own team—you can’t bitch about both. In the blue kitchen, we get circus music and shots of the blue team failing to make a decent crepe. With five minutes left, no one’s made anything. Since this would be a really quick reward challenge if both teams lost (and then no one would be able to experience whatever “most exciting” reward the producers had picked out this week), somehow there are eight covered plates at the pass when time is called. Your tasters are Chef Ramsay and Jean-Philippe due to his European palette (Chef lets us know that Belgians have the seventh-best palettes in the world. Who knew?).

3) Breakfast:
Tactful Van: Fancy bacon and eggs. The filling is good, but the crepe itself fails.
Ariel: Smoked salmon, herbs, honey. Since the crepe is OK, the Red team gets the point. 1-0 Red.

Lunch:
Tennille: Cheese, shrimp, black bean sauce. It seems to be very spicy, and Tennille yells in her interview that she’s never seen grown men so scared of spice.
Boston Andy: Ham and cheese, avocado. It’s got good crepe color, and the filling is good. Blue gets it. 1-1 tie.

Dinner:
Scheming Kevin: Seafood crepe w/ goat cheese. The flavor is good.
Suzanne: Filet, quail eggs, and LOTS of talking about crepes are street food, how honored she is to make fancy ingredient crepes in Hell’s Kitchen, and some other such, how it was cooked, and generally enough for the show to start its “funny music when someone is talking too long” soundtrack. But, it apparently has good seasoning. Tie score, 2-2. WHAT A SHOCK.

Dessert:
Stoner Dave: He claims it’s cream cheese and berry. Upon its reveal it looks to be just lots of brown stuff surrounding something that may have been a crepe-colored object at one time. Chef Ramsay doesn’t even taste it, no points.
Sabrina: Pears, chocolate, grand marnier. It’s good. Red wins!

4) Chef Ramsay lets us know that for tonight’s service, French flavors will be added: escargots, frog legs, and crepes. As their punishment, the Blue team has to prep both kitchens. Scheming Kevin interviews that he’s tired of losing, apparently forgetting all of the reward and service challenges they’ve won so far. The reward is for the red team to go out to LA’s best French place, with a surprise. That surprise? They’ll learn basic mime skills and act out punching each other. Back at the kitchen, Stoner Dave’s apologizing for screwing up the challenge. Sous Chef Scott reminds the men multiple times that they have to split the prep between the Red and Blue kitchens. This editing seems to be building towards a kitchen being unprepared for the dinner service tonight.

5) As the Red team enjoy Fois Gras, the men get boiled cow tongue, crusty bread, and head cheese. Stoner Dave is grossed out. Boston Andy interviews that he likes head cheese. And having come back from my first whole (well, half) pig roast, I can say that the face meat of a pig is pretty good! I think the issue for me would be getting past the all the gelatin in the slices. Well, that and all the rest of the head parts that make up the product. Head cheese has the honor of being one of the only cold cuts in the entire supermarket deli case I did not try in all the years I worked there. Anyway, as the teams prep for dinner, Boston Andy slices his hand on a mandolin. After a particularly painful scream he yells, “medic!” immediately and often, and we go right into a commercial. Boston Andy took off most of the tops of three of his fingers. The show medic radios that he needs to go to the clinic (not the hospital?) for stitches. Stoner Dave lets the rest of the team know that the injury was really bad and that Boston Andy isn’t coming back.

6) Dinner Service challenge: Boston Andy gets back in time for dinner! But the new menu items are screwing him up, because he was getting his hand sewn up while everyone else was learning them. And right away, he’s messing up the crepes. Scheming Kevin makes two for him that get Chef Ramsay’s approval, and Boston Andy takes the credit for it. Heh, take that, Scheming Kevin. The Red team is talking, calling out orders, but Suzanne suddenly calls for more time for her lamb when they’re just one minute out. She calls four minutes, then six, then eight, then six again, and finally five. What is she, the Windows progress bar?

7) And we’ve got circus music again, this time to show that Stoner Dave is taking care of about six stations. He’s on risottos helping Boston Andy, on the pasta station banging out some tagliatelle, plating some lamb, and Chef Ramsay sincerely praises him. Suzanne is now jumping the gun on the lamb, slicing it before other entrees are done. Chef Ramsay flips out when he sees that all the juices are running out of the lamb. He hates that. Boston Andy’s got the salads—kind of. He over-dresses them and gets called out on it. He faults his dexterity (about which he may have a point), but Chef Ramsay reminds him that Stoner Dave’s been cooking circles around him for three weeks with one hand. Well, can’t argue with that. Touché, Chef Ramsay.

8) The Red team is very inconsistent. Frog legs go up without the shallots and garlic coated in the pan sauce. Why on earth would you do that? That’s got to be delicious! Chef Ramsay flips out on Sabrina about it, saying the food gets made his way, not hers. Sabrina interviews that saucing the shallots and garlic would smother their flavor. Sure, whatever. And speaking of inconsistent, over in the Blue kitchen, Chef Ramsay’s had just about enough of Boston Andy, and he’s kicked out! Chef Ramsay tells him to get upstairs, but doesn’t tell him to leave Hell’s Kitchen. A visibly emotional Boston Andy interviews that sometimes Chef Ramsay just yells to yell. Back to the Red team, and Sabrina and Suzanne are kicked out and told to get upstairs! Yikes, no one’s left! Ariel is put on fish and garnish, Tennille is put on the meat station. So far, they’re getting the job done with the help of Sous Chef Heather. Stoner Dave, Scheming Kevin, and Tactful Van focus and push the blue kitchen through the dinner service. Clear down, we’re done!

9) There’s no winner, since the teams were incomplete. Chef Ramsay tells the Red and Blue teams to work together to come up with two people up for elimination. This is in no way getting them prepared to merge into the Black team next week, I’m sure. The teams decide to pick Boston Andy, and the person on the red team that Chef Ramsay came down hardest on, which is Suzanne. She thinks she shouldn’t go because she’s better (than what?). Boston Andy tries to make a case for himself but he knows he’s got no chance after the last three weeks. BUT, the two teams are thinking and talking about how they can get rid of Suzanne (since everyone wants the most for her to go), even if it means keeping Boston Andy and putting Sabrina up on the block instead.

10) Elimination. First up, Suzanne, for bringing the whole kitchen and team down.
Second up, Boston Andy, for his inconsistencies.
Suzanne, why should you stay? I know how to cook, I’m so much better, etc. Chef Ramsay asks her how she can say that while smiling. He asks Tennille if they need Suzanne on their team if she’s so great. The red team voices that they can get by fine without her.
Boston Andy, why should you stay? He opines that his last three services were OK, but this time he couldn’t get it together because of his [brand-new, as-of-today, maybe-you-missed-that-I-sliced-my-fingertips-off] hand injury. Chef Ramsay again notes Stoner Dave and his much-worse injury. In Boston Andy’s defense, though, his injury is to his strong hand, whereas the whole reason Stoner Dave stuck around after he busted his thumb was because it was on his weaker hand. But whatever, Chef Ramsay’s been wanting to get rid of Boston Andy for a while now, so he’s sunk no matter what. The decision is: Boston Andy. Chef Ramsay tells him he just needs to stop panicking.

THEN, Chef Ramsay pulls out Sabrina. This is in no way designed to cut the teams down to merge them into the Black team next week. Suzanne is called out and told to hand over the jacket but in another Hell’s Kitchen CRAZY SWERVE she is put on the Blue team. The Blue team is pissed. Tennille interyells that she’s happy Suzanne is off the team.

Next week: Teams design their own menus! There will be surprise guests! Tennille yells in one of her interviews! And no one likes Suzanne! Watch it! Eat it!