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He probably should have said "just for your looks" but I'm sure Shrimpy's tired 

(not that sleeping on the couch will help with that).

Hell’s Kitchen Episodes 20 & 21: All good things must come to an end, and so too shall Hell’s Kitchen

                Well, here we are, at the end of the road.  It’s been a long, interesting journey that has gone from eager anticipation of each new episode to kind of a hate-watch relationship (this season’s cast was the worst) to a quiet acceptance that cataloguing this season of madness was my solemn duty.  How did it all end?  Let’s find out.

                The first thing we need to do is determine who is joining squeaky voice in the finals.  Mr. Mohawk and skinny black girl were the last two chefs awaiting their fate.  And the chef that will be going up against squeaky voice is…skinny black girl!  Okay, a couple things about this selection.  First of all, Mr. Mohawk got screwed, I know it and he knows it.  Ramsay does let him down easy by telling him to keep his jacket and to keep his ears open as something will come up soon for him, but he should have absolutely been in the final.  Also, it took me all damn season to figure out what I hate the most about skinny black girl, but I did.  She speaks in sound bites.  That’s it.  She obviously knows that she’s on camera and figures that the more blatant she speaks in sound bites, the greater her chance of landing in the recaps.  I can’t stand that because not only does she speak in that way, but the volume is always elevated.  I will say though, that as much as I don’t like the final two, it is fitting that it’s an all female finale as the guys were dogshit this year (even Ramsay made a remark to that effect).

                Anyway, if I was to handicap the competition at this point I would put squeaky voice ahead slightly, but it’s way too close to call right now, especially when I haven’t seen each finalist’s brigade for the final service.  The next stop, as in pretty much every season, is Las Vegas.  The chefs get to their massive hotel room and begin to devise their menu.  Quite a few things happen next, and I honestly do not remember the exact order so I’ll give you a short rundown.  Ramsay’s Sous Chefs come in to help them refine their menus, they meet the president of the hotel in Las Vegas where Ramsay’s new restaurant will be, and they sit down with Christina, the winner of last season’s competition for a little one-on-two question and answer period.

                They then get back to Los Angeles and settle in to work on their menus some more, thinking that they will have some quiet time to do so.  You girls are so silly.  The best part is that every time something like this happens, they both act so surprised, like they’d never seen a Hell’s Kitchen finale before.  Give me a break.  They are told to pack for another trip and they are taken to a train station.  Here they meet their families, which is surprise number one.  Skinny black girl’s mother and sister come out to see her, while squeaky voice gets a visit from her mother and husband.  The second surprise is that they are not there to go on a trip, they are there for their final challenge in Hell’s Kitchen, the menu presentation.  They have to each create a hot appetizer, cold appetizer, beef, chicken and fish dish.  Each dish will be judged head to head and then whoever has the most points at the end of the competition will get the coveted “first pick” of the chefs.

                Does this competition ever not go down to the last dish?  At this point, you rarely see a dish that is poorly executed between the two chefs so I wouldn’t be surprised if Ramsay requires the chefs doing the judging to draw out the process as long as possible.  Either way, the result comes down to the final dish (duh) and skinny black girl wins (to which she replies with some sound bite).  Usually at this point in the competition, the chefs retire to Hell’s Kitchen and choose their teams, well not this time!  They have to pick their teams in front of the audience that gathered to watch the cooking/judging.  Because skinny black girl had first pick, she went with mixed up Cyndi, with squeaky voice picking Mr. Mohawk with her first pick.  The picks went pretty much as you would expect with snooty stringbean one being the last picked.  I didn’t think it was possible for his attitude to get worse, but it has.  Where many chefs on here are raising their profile considerably by showing up and working hard, I can’t see that guy as employable at all based on his attitude.  There is even a secret surprise that Ramsay gives the finalists; the opportunity to trade one person from their team with the other.  Of course squeaky voice tries to use this on snooty stringbean one to no avail.  At this point, I would give the odds to skinny black girl because she has the stronger brigade, but it’s still close.

                They get to cooking and all the little hiccups you assume would be there when you place chefs that couldn’t cut it in the opening rounds of the competition into something much more difficult are there in spades.  The finalists do a decent job of keeping their brigades on track and they don’t get too bogged down.  There was a major issue for each chef though as skinny black girl’s team was getting behind and not responding to her leadership.  Instead of wilting, she started barking out orders like a shorter, slightly less tan Gordon Ramsay.   Her team got back on track and finished their service.  Squeaky voice was getting shit from snooty stringbean one (surprise, surprise) over in her kitchen and instead of taking it, she kicked him out.  I personally think she put up with his shit longer than she should have, but the fact that she would rather go through dinner service a man down than deal with his shit showed me that she has the instinct to lead a kitchen.  Where that good faith came in, it quickly started to evaporate when she started losing her mind on the pass.  She would keep asking for food that was already in front of her face, or that she had just plated.  That lack of organization, even with the ability to send your weakest link packing, will not be looked upon very highly by Ramsay when he makes his decision.  After this, it was incredibly close, and I would give the slight edge to squeaky voice, but that might be because I don’t like skinny black girl and her damn sound bites.

                And the winner is…skinny black girl, because of course it is, they had to get a couple more sound bites in there before the end of the season.

                Well this was an interesting experiment.  If you have any shows on “regular” television that will be starting soon that you want to see a recap of, let me know.  I’ll take them into consideration.  Thanks for reading and joining me on this strange adventure.

What Do You Expect

I have to say that the worst smell in the world is the odor created by pureeing white fish.  That was my least favorite duty, and even though it didn't happen often, it was something that I dreaded when I read the menu for the day.

Travelin' Man

I wish I could say that this exchange wasn't true as well, but it's damn near verbatim of what Alan told me.  

Comic Review: Transformers Prime Beast Hunters #3

                You’re going to have to bear with me for a few weeks as the funds are getting tighter than normal around here.  I’m going to have to stick to reviewing comics that I would normally have bought anyway as no comic shops in the area seem willing to pony up a $4 floppy every week in exchange for some free publicity.  Seriously, if you want to see more in depth reviews of different books, just call up the comic shops in the Syracuse area and tell them to loosen up a bit.  That being said, the next few months we’re going to see a lot of Transformers reviews as that is the bulk of my purchases now.  We start it off with the one book that I have yet to review, Transformers Prime Beast Hunters.

Cover:

                All of the covers to this series are produced by Ken Christiansen and they all have a certain feel to them like they are right out of the Transformers Prime television show.  Obviously this is a huge plus as the comic touts its connection to the show from the get-go.  None of the covers to the comics (this one included) seem to have much in common with the story being told, almost as if they gave Christiansen a bunch of characters and told him to go nuts and they would fit the covers in wherever. As far as covers not pertaining to the story go, these are incredibly solid though.  This current cover features three of the Dinobots surrounded by Decepticons that are masked by shadows.  You can tell that they are Decepticons because of the symbol on their chest as well as the fact that they are glowing purple (the popular Decepticon color-scheme). 

                While the lack of holding lines on the artwork itself can lead to some muddled moments in terms of the artwork blending together, there is enough variation using light to make the characters separate ever so slightly from the background.  The movement within the three figures on the cover shows a great design sense as your eye moves fluidly throughout the image.  One would think that with the way that the characters are colored, combined with the blocky nature of Transformers in general that it would be a bit more difficult to achieve that kind of movement but Christiansen does it easily.

8/10 – I have to give it a knock for being a bit generic, but it has its own narrative qualities and a phenomenal design sense. 

Story:

                The general story of this series is that the Dinobots are left on Cybertron after everyone else leaves (which you can see the lead up to in the video game, Transformers War for Cybertron and the aftermath in the Transformers Prime television show) and they are not only trying to hold society together, but also to find out more about themselves as they have been subjected to numerous experiments at the hands of the Decepticon Shockwave.  The first two issues were more along the lines of keeping the peace on Cybertron while this issue starts to deal more with the basic origin of the Dinobots themselves.  While I am intrigued as to where the story will go, there is not much to this issue itself and it turns out to be a pretty quick read. 

Storytellers Mike Johnson and Mairghread Scott (and specifically Mike Johnson who actually wrote the issue) may have something bigger that this is leading up to, but after the last two issues that had a lot going on and felt like they really lived up to the Transformers moniker on the cover in terms of quality, seem to fall a bit flat here.  The big reveal at the end, where Grimlock and Swoop are fighting against actual dinosaurs is probably a bit of fanservice as who doesn’t want to se Grimlock fight an actual T-Rex, but it raises more questions than answers in terms of carbon-based life forms and their ability to exist on Cybertron.  Considering the fact that this brawl happened at the end of the issue, I will give Johnson an issue to work out the details of atmosphere, time (as the Dinobots have been in operation in their current iteration for a little while in the comic universe, so how did the dinosaurs survive, much less know how and when to break out at this convenient moment) and overall luck as Grimlock and Swoop just happen to be patrolling near Shockwave’s lab that spawned the Dinobots.

                Again, I will give Johnson the benefit of the doubt that after the dust settles we will start to receive answers to these questions and that everything won’t seem as “convenient” as it is presented here.  Other than that, the dialogue is good, with the interaction between Grimlock and Swoop staying true to their character and really playing up their own distinct “roles” within the Dinobots.

6/10 – The quality dips a bit in this issue, especially after the very well done first two, but it does set up a lot of questions to add to the mythos and keep us coming back for more.  I just wish it took longer than ten minutes to read.

Art:

                Agustin Padilla provides the art here and while it is miles away from the art we see in other Transformers comics nowadays, it is still very good.  The ability to consistently draw these characters in all their glory, both in robot and their “alt” modes cannot be understated, and while the Dinobots don’t turn into vehicles (which would be the bane of my existence) drawing the robotic dinosaurs is no easy task either.  Padilla handles this admirably and adds his own bit of flair in making the art darker and grittier than his counterparts in the other titles. 

                While Padilla does draw everything well, robots and actual dinosaurs alike, my main problem is the utilization of space on the page.  There are many times where Padilla will leave a lot of space around the figures, almost as if he is expecting a lot of dialogue to be added and he was making room for it.  When that dialogue is not added it just looks like poor pacing on his part as the panel could have usually been shrunk while others were expanded.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a background in nearly every panel, so even though there is a big space, it is not necessarily devoid of something, however looking at a large metal wall that has no bearing on the story is not really useful in any way.  I am not sure if this is the fault of Padilla or Johnson, the writer just not filing the space (I don’t know the scripting method used so can’t make that determination with any certainty).

7/10 – The art is a nice change of pace from the clean lines and open figures of most of the other Transformers titles.  Padilla does a great job of breaking up the different surfaces with a variety of textures as well. 

Overall: 8/10 – While this isn’t the best issue in the series, if you have even a passing interest in the franchise or the Dinobots, you should be reading this series.  It’s easy to see how Transformers stories have been told for nearly thirty years now.

Also a true story

No lie, he actually said this to me.  While I didn't heed his advice, the guy was always smiling so there was apparently some credence to the "Jamaican Life" that he preached.

Hell’s Kitchen Episode Nineteen: And then there were…two…kind of

                For the past few weeks, my choice for the final two has been Mr. Mohawk and mixed up Cyndi.  They both seem like the most ready, the best fits for Ramsay’s restaurant at this time.  Was I correct in that assumption?  We’ll see, but first we have to get through the individual challenge.  This one started out with a puzzle, an actual puzzle that the contestants had to put together.  The team of Mr. Mohawk and squeaky voice completed the puzzle ahead of the other team of skinny black girl and mixed up Cyndi pretty easily and wins…nothing. Of course.  The real challenge is the now infamous “Taste it Now Make it” challenge in which Ramsay brings out a fairly simple dish with multiple components that each of the contestants need to get right.  The dish this year looked a little busy in terms of plating, but I’m sure it was delicious.  The three components of the dish that the chefs need to correctly guess is the protein, the puree and the vegetable.  Everyone thinks that the puree is butternut squash, which is incorrect as it is carrot puree.  So no one gets eliminated there.  The protein is what usually trips up the chefs in these competitions and this one is no different as Mr. Mohawk and squeaky voice are both eliminated because they didn’t choose venison as their protein.  Mixed up Cyndi chose venison and buffalo but only plated the venison so she lucked out.  It all came down to the vegetable.  Mixed up Cyndi had turnip while skinny black girl had parsnip I believe.  Mixed up Cyndi wins!

                For her reward she gets a $1000.00 shopping spree at a kitchen supply store in which she purchases a stand mixer for her mother, among other things.  She also gets a one on one lunch with Ramsay at his new restaurant “Fat Cow”.  The other contestants have to not only clean the dorms, but actually move stuff out, all the beds and everything and then set up for dinner service that night.  There aren’t too many surprises in the cleanup, except someone left their thong laying in the corner somewhere.  They didn’t say anything about it being able to tie a boat to shore so I’m assuming it wasn’t fat black girl’s but I could be mistaken.

                Mixed up Cyndi returns to the kitchen and dinner service begins.  This is the night that each chef gets to run the pass, expediting and plating food while being the “last line of defense” as Ramsay likes to say.  First up is mixed up Cyndi, who does an ok job of running things.  She does miss the fairly obvious blemish of crab substituted for lobster in the risotto, but she does keep food moving at a steady pace.

Mr. Mohawk on the other hand gets his ass handed to him.  He misses the white fish substituted for the scallops in the appetizer.  That is ridiculous though as I don’t know how anyone could really tell without tasting the dish, or squeezing the “scallops” and having them fall apart in your fingers.  He also was thrown a curveball by Jean Phillipe as a diner requested that the prosciutto not be included in the Beef Wellington.  That’s all well and good, except the Wellingtons are all pre-wrapped, so there’s no way that’s going to happen without them tearing apart a Wellington (which isn’t going to happen).  I think Mr. Mohawk got screwed here, is what I’m trying to say, and if he went home after this service I would be disappointed, but not surprised.   

Skinny black girl is up next and does a decent job of running things.  There’s not much to say because I think she caught the mistake by Chef Andy and ran a pretty tight ship.  The same can be said for squeaky voice as she caught a big screw up where the Chef Andy sent up a Veal Wellington instead of a Beef one.  She also caught many of the smaller mistakes presented by the other contestants, something that Mr. Mohawk was unable to do in his time at the pass.  That voice of hers served her well in this instance as she was able to be heard among the din of the kitchen and her orders were carried out correctly, probably to shut her up but I’m sure that was okay for her. 

Elimination time came next, and the first person to make it into the finals was squeaky voice!  She wasn’t my first choice but she did show that she could run the pass and improved every single service for the most part.  I’m okay with that choice.  Of course this meant that at least one of my frontrunners wouldn’t be going through to the final round.  We are treated to the revelation next as Ramsay sends home mixed up Cyndi.  This was a surprise to everyone as I was sure that not only was she going through to the finals, but that she would win the whole thing.  Ramsay mentioned her lack of assertiveness to be her downfall, which makes sense, it’s just kind of sad to see her go after she has done such a good job up to this point.

That leaves one spot open for two people.  Who’s going to face squeaky voice in the finals?  No one knows, at least not until next week when we get the whole finals experience.  The trip to Vegas, the choosing of new teams, the final reveal (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they expanded the finale to two weeks).  We’ll see!

See you next week!