Hell’s Kitchen 9/28 Recap: Fires! Ambulances! Contrived Drama!

[PhoneGrrrl]

Welcome back for another double-header of bad cooking and bad acting by wannabe chefs/performance artists. The more I watch Hell’s Kitchen, the more curious I become about the actual casting process. Do they hold open auditions at asylums? Do the contestants (to call them chefs would insult every home cook in the world) even have to make a dish to make it on the show? Are their IQs tested in any manner? I want answers!

Episode 3: Finding a Pulse

We rejoin the group shortly after Curtis’s elimination for poorly constructed sushi; the guys are completely bummed that Raj is still there to cause mayhem. And mayhem he does cause, keeping the house up until after 2 a.m. with his kung fu moves and shrieks. Trev thinks he may have an inside track to get Raj in line, but I’ll believe that when I see it. Jillian and her tattooed eyebrows increases her gripes about Emily and pulls from the standard reality script when she notes she’s not there to make friends.

Sometime after 4 a.m. the dorms are beset by a pack of EMTs; they run to each contestant and check their vitals. After this bit of manufactured drama—and the latest reason for ambulances to be on the show—Ramsay gets the group together and explains he needed to get them checked out because they all show a lack of energy. Hahaha…my sides are splitting. Not. Then he directs them to prepare breakfast for the EMTs and pretty much every other EMT in the greater LA area.

It’s a simple menu of a choice of an egg white omelet or French toast with scrambled eggs; the team that completes service first will win the challenge. First, however, they have to prepare a fruit salad for each table; this should be a simple task but the men take forever to get it done because they only have one guy cutting fruit. The women work together and get the salads out.

In preparing the actual dishes, we find Boris can’t make an omelet, Emily doesn’t know how to bake bacon without it burning, and Raj can’t season scrambled eggs. Ramsay shouts at Raj for the lack of salt and pepper so Raj takes to cooling off by sticking his head in the freezer. I am certain that he’s a paid performance artist with a weird sense of what’s supposed to be funny. After the men set the stove on fire making French toast, the ladies finish up their side of the dining room and help the men complete their tickets.

For a punishment and to build teamwork amongst the men, Ramsay makes them hand polish 250 pieces of stemware for a special cocktail that will be featured at the next dinner service and clean both kitchens. True to form, Raj can’t properly clean the glasses and half-asses bread wrapping. Trev’s had enough and calls him out; Raj gets right in Trev’s face and shouts back, causing Boris to separate them. I’m sick of this being the Raj show.

Meanwhile the ladies get a day in Santa Monica and lunch with Ramsay. First they start out with trapeze lessons, which I was first concerned about given how much cleavage several of them were showing. After flying through the air, they lunch with Ramsay where Nona had the honor of sitting next to Ramsay, getting three glasses of champagne spilled on her, and having Ramsay pat her dry. Nona squees with delight at the Ramsay attention.

The next morning, everyone is supposed to be in the kitchen for prep, but Sabrina is not having it. She reasons that Ramsay is looking for a head chef, not a prep cook so spending time applying makeup is more to her advantage. This does not sit well with the other women; as Gail points out, they can’t cook the dishes if there’s nothing prepped to cook with.

Before opening Hell’s Kitchen, Ramsay assigns Sabrina and Trev (who is a real life bartender, allegedly) to make the special cocktails. The guests arrive and the kitchen drama begins anew. Jillian is on apps with the pasta dish and asks Emily to taste the sauce because Jillian doesn’t like tomatoes. A chef who doesn’t like tomatoes is a bit suspect, don’t you think? Emily advises more salt and the dishes go out only to be sent back for being too salty.

Sabrina and Trev are slow on making the cocktails, which puts James into a fit; eventually they start going out to the diners. The appetizers are completed on both sides which leads to trouble with fish in both kitchens. Raj takes it upon himself to re-create the salmon dish, which pisses Ramsay off; the second attempt is no better as it’s raw in the middle. On the women’s side, Melissa overcooks the fish, which Ramsay says now looks like Gandhi’s sandal. Such a reference confuses the brain trust that is Jillian; she doesn’t think Gandhi even wore shoes, since he lived in the jungle. I wish I were kidding when I say that.

Nona works on the sides and Emily volunteers to help her; when Nona asks for the potatoes Emily said she’d prepare, Emily hasn’t done squat. Nona rallies and gets her dishes together. Boris has difficulty with the Wellington not being done, so the two fish dishes that were ready have to be chucked. Not wanting to see the fish go to waste, Raj stuffs his face with it. Gail is apparently briefly inhabited by an alien, as she spaces out and stares blankly as the beef in her pan is on fire. Ramsay grabs the pan and throws it in the sink, telling her that she’s given up. The alien departs and Gail is back on track cooking.

Raj keeps cooking the sole, even there are no orders up yet that call for it. All of the sole is gone and when the ticket comes up that actually has the sole special on it, there is none left. Allegedly—they go through so much fish on this show, you can’t tell me there isn’t a storage room full of more supplies. Ramsay sends Raj out to the diners to explain they ran out; the men work better with him out of the kitchen and they start busting through tickets. The women finish up first and the men complete service as well.

Ramsay said both teams did so poorly, he can’t pick a winner; he uses the diners’ comment cards to decide. The men scored 54% above average with the diners and the women only got 50%, so they have to put up two people for elimination. They easily chose Emily for her poor performance on meat. Sabrina and Jillian, who have formed some kind of weird girl alliance, want to put Melissa up for screwing up the fish. Nona thinks Sabrina should be put up since she didn’t do any prep; Melissa, Gail, and Emily agree. Ramsay fusses at both Emily and Sabrina but eliminates neither; he’s finally answered everyone’s prayers and boots the train wreck that is Raj.

Episode 4: Would you like some whine with your meal?

With Raj gone, the men are elated and think that they’ll be doing well. Jillian and Sabrina continue with their evil alliance in the dorm, which Gail and Melissa notice; Melissa knows it’s going to get dirty.

The next day, Ramsay assembles the group and asks how many amongst them smoke. Finally he’s addressing the smoking issue! More than half of the cooks smoke so he challenges them to quit for 48 hours and stop ruining their taste buds. Then it’s on to the challenge: Ramsay shows them how to roll out pasta dough and make ravioli. They have 30 minutes to come up with their own ravioli dish. Sabrina has no clue how to roll out pasta or even open the refrigerator. After bumbling around the kitchen, the dishes are done. The teams have to decide how to rank each dish from one to six. Despite the men’s team using Trev to assist on everything during the cooking process, they don’t even bother to taste his dish and rank him last since he’s a bartender.

Ramsay tastes the dishes and it’s off to a good start for the ladies, with Melissa getting a point and Vinny missing getting a point because his ravioli burst. Nona and Russell both get points; Emily gets a point and Louis’s ravioli is spit out; Boris and Sabrina both produce a tasty dish but Sabrina’s ravioli burst so only the men get a point. It’s tied as Trev and Gail, who has ranked herself last, go up; Gail’s dish is under seasoned, so the men get the last point and win the challenge. Ramsay also picks Vinny’s ravioli to be served at the next meal, but not burst.

The men take off in helicopters for a day of golf, food, and drinking. Boris is terrible at hitting the ball, but Vinny wins the long drive contest on his first attempt at golf ever. They attempt to chill out with fancy cocktails, but Trev pitches a bitch fit over no one tasting his ravioli dish. He won’t let it go, despite everyone else wanting to merely relax. Back at Hell’s Kitchen, the women clean the kitchens, do prep, put up with Sabrina’s incompetence, and milk cows as part of their making mozzarella. Yes, they milked cows. Eventually the cows go home and the guys come back drunk. Trev is still fuming so he goes out for a cigarette with Gail; he asks her if she wants to make out a little bit and she wisely declines.

Back in the kitchen the next day, Vinny isn’t happy with the ravioli filling the women prepped the day before, but nothing ever comes of that comment. Ramsay is disappointed that a few of the cooks fell off the wagon and smoked, but he doesn’t say anything more about cigarettes for the rest of the episode. Service starts out well for the guys—Russell is getting the appetizers out; however, Melissa screws up her appetizers and slows the kitchen down. The blue team then moves on to entrees to much less success; Louis puts up raw salmon, enraging Ramsay once again. Apparently, Melissa got an old script because she insists three 3s are six. I know this happened two or three seasons back. Damn, this show is fake.

Cooking pork is a challenge for both Louis and Sabrina. She has no idea how long it’s going to be until her chop is done. Melissa steps up for the team and helps Sabrina get her food out. Over on the blue team, a charred pizza is sent back; Ramsay forces Rob out of the kitchen to the bar to make him eat his mistake.

Sabrina then sets about her “getting back at the bitches” scheme by lying to Gail on how long it will be until the dish is ready to go up to the pass. Gail ends up getting the bad end of Ramsay’s rage. Meanwhile, Louis screws up by undercooking pork and walks around with it in his hands, which irritates Ramsay to no end but not as much as Boris cleaning dishes instead of cooking. Boris gets booted out of the kitchen. Louis then screws up again by putting up raw chicken and he gets sent to the dorms as well. Vinny steps up to lead the men’s team and food is getting out. The women finish service first and are sent to help out the guys, but it all falls apart and they’re all sent to the dorms.

There was an entire side plot of sorts, with one of the diners allegedly going to propose at dinner. It was terribly silly, with the voice-over guy wondering if the guy would propose or the girl would accept based on the food coming out of the kitchen. Seriously, who would buy such a story? I strongly suspect the pair was actors.

Ramsay finds both teams lacking and has them nominate two people each for elimination. The guys toss around Boris, Louis, and Rob, since they were all booted out of the kitchen, but ultimately it’s Louis and Boris who are nominated. The women (aside from Sabrina and Jillian) agree Sabrina should go up with Melissa. Louis says he should stay because he’s a team player; Boris argues he has experience to run the kitchen. Melissa says she carried Sabrina and should stay for that, but Ramsay says he’s scared by her in the kitchen. Sabrina uses her inexperience as an excuse again, and Ramsay tells her to quit that argument. Ultimately, Ramsay kicks Louis out for all the bad meat cooking.

[Kip]

Terrific recap, PhoneGrrrl. Thanks! (I had watched #3 but not #4 -- you just saved me 45 minutes.)