Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Hell’s Kitchen Episode Fifteen: Fooled Again

                First, let’s address the title which is in direct reference to the wild goose chase of information that the producers of Hell’s Kitchen lead us on every single week.  Last week, we were led to believe that the blue team would be sabotaged by skinny black girl and that Ramsay would be losing an eyebrow or something along those lines in this episode.  Neither of these scenarios came true this week.  There wasn’t even a hint of sabotage by skinny black girl and Ramsay, while he did get splashed by a little hot oil when he was putting out a grease fire didn’t even come close to the injury that was anticipated coming out of last week’s promo.  In fact when we hear someone say “medic” in the promo it is not in relation to Ramsay at all (we’ll get to that).  I don’t like the deception, especially at this stage of the game.  If someone is going to watch episode fourteen of Hell’s Kitchen all the way through to the promo at the end, I have a feeling you don’t have to lie to them to get them to come back the following week.  They’ll probably be there anyway. 

Aside from the deception, this was a pretty standard Hell’s Kitchen episode.  We were treated to the return of the cooking relay challenge where the teams had to cook three dishes in 30 minutes.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Well only one chef from each team was allowed in the kitchen at any one time and they only had five minutes to work before they had to “pass the baton” to the next chef.  The chefs had to cook standard Hell’s Kitchen dishes including rack of lamb, roast chicken and halibut. This is not an easy challenge at all, and it’s not supposed to be, but these chefs make it worse because the two big driving forces behind this challenge, communication and teamwork, have not been the forte of these chefs all season long.  Because of that, we get disastrous results from both kitchens.  The red kitchen provides a good piece of lamb with raw and gross garnish, burnt halibut, and no chicken dish.  They don’t have enough time to plate it, so when Ramsay calls for the chicken dishes he receives an empty plate from the red kitchen.  The blue team is able to plate all of their dishes but the lamb is completely raw (however the garnish is good).  The halibut is nicely cooked, and surprisingly so is the chicken.  The blue team wins the challenge.

Let me say that again because you haven’t heard it but one other time this season…the blue team wins the challenge!

The blue team gets a ride in a helicopter over Los Angeles as well as sample some expensive cuisine, while the red team gets to move potatoes off the truck and then peel them, while also setting up both kitchens for that evening’s dinner service.  This is where the “medic” came in.  Mixed up Cyndi, who is not a little girl by any stretch of the imagination, can’t catch her breath after moving boxes upon boxes of potatoes.  She is administered oxygen and seems to be fine after a few minutes of the treatment.  Unfortunately this messes with her a little bit as she can’t get out of her own way once dinner service starts.  The usually sure-handed chef keeps making silly mistakes and service for the red kitchen begins to get bogged down.  Meanwhile, appetizers are flying out of the blue kitchen.  Of course, all that momentum comes to a screeching halt when loud guy fires up the meat station (didn’t they learn anything last week?) and he promptly stops communicating.  And by that, I don’t mean he just gets quieter, or misses a ticket every now and then in terms of acknowledgement.  He shuts down completely, not saying a word.  I can understand getting in a zone when you have a task to complete, but working in this environment requires a little more communication than what he is producing.  His level of failure in this episode is nowhere near what it was in the last episode, but it is still apparent that he is the weakest link left in the competition, regardless of what he thinks.

Despite the issues in the kitchens, both teams completed their dinner services and are declared winners.  Of course that doesn’t mean jack because they still have to put someone up for elimination.  From the blue team, the choice is simple, loud guy has distinguished himself as terrible and the only reason he has made it this far is that he was a little less terrible than everyone else.  The red team has a harder time.  They eventually pick mixed up Cyndi, but Ramsay asks them to clarify their choice.  At this point they each get an individual vote to see where loyalties lie.  Mixed up Cyndi picks squeaky voice, squeaky voice picks blonde girl and blonde girl picks mixed up Cyndi as elimination fodder.  Because no one can agree, Ramsay asks skinny black girl to weigh in, as she worked with all three members of the red team for the majority of the competition.  She picks blonde girl (good choice) and Ramsay calls both blonde girl and loud guy up.  He states that he will only be giving out four of the coveted black jackets this year before he sends loud guy off into the night.  Loud guy, upon his exit, states that if Ramsay ever needs him, all he has to do is call.  Yup, keep waiting by your phone.

Ramsay doesn’t send blonde girl home (though I expected it, it would be a shock to see a double elimination after a successful dinner service) but does hold on to the black jackets saying that there was something else the chefs needed to do before they earned them.  Of course, blonde girl takes the fact that she is not sent home as confirmation that not only does Ramsay want her in the competition, but probably (in her deluded mind at least) that he wants to impregnate her with his angry little Ramsay-spawn (which, coincidentally, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they claw their way out of the womb all Alien-esque).  She refuses to see the fact that Ramsay kept asking people for nominations instead of putting mixed up Cyndi on the chopping block, only stopping when blonde girl was standing in front of him.  Delusion is a funny thing.

Next week something happens, I won’t say because I don’t even pay attention to the previews anymore so I have no idea, but whatever the preview said was probably blown way out of proportion.


See you next week!

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