Surprise! No, sorry, it is still Monday, yet this one is special. Hell’s Kitchen is all new and two hours long! Yes, tomorrow has been given to the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance, so join me for more amazing insults from Chef Ramsay! Prepare yourself for two eliminations, two challenges, two dinner services, all in two hours!
“I am not done,” says Ramsay. Someone else is getting the axe? Cyndi is safe and sent back in line, but Zach, Nedra and Barret remain on the chopping block. Who will it be?
Eliminated: Barret
“I think I could have made it further,” Barret says, “but I didn’t do it quick enough for Chef.” I would have believed it when I saw it.
Back in the dorms, Zach is highly upset and standoffish with the rest of his team. Meanwhile, Nedra slaps some egg on Susan’s face for who knows what reason besides making her look like a fool.
In the dining room, Chef Ramsay reveals poor JP in a glass box in which pieces of paper are flying about while he struggles to grab them out of the air.
Susan of the Red Team and Anthony of the Blue Team are chosen to try their hand at grabbing the ingredients, written on each of the slips of paper.
Visually Stunning Challenge: Each team member must create a dish, choosing from the ingredients taken from the grab bag. Jennifer Garcia, the senior editor of People Magazine, enters the dining room to help Ramsay judge ONLY the three best-looking dishes. And only one of those three dishes will be featured in the magazine.
The Red Team:
Mary
Ja’nel
Cyndi
The Blue Team:
Zach
Anthony
John
Challenge Winner: Red Team, for 8 out of 9 challenges!
Winning Dish: Mary
Now while Mary will be featured in People Magazine, the entire Red Team will be photographed for Star Watch AND they all receive top-of-the-line blenders. Meanwhile, the men have to clean the dorms, both theirs and the women’s.
To make things even worse, Jon and Zach have to deliver, on bikes, champagne to the winning team while they get pampered for their photoshoot.
The women are hardly able to step back inside Hell’s Kitchen before Chef Ramsay calls all the cheftestants up to his office. Tonight they will be serving two tables of 12, honoring soldiers who are being welcomed back home. “They deserve the very best,” he says. He expects both kitchens to be in sync!
Military Dinner Service
Each cheftestant is responsible for a course. First up, Ja’nel and Jon on prawns. Ja’nel seems a bit frazzled, but she is still able to serve her dish at the same time as Jon. Both kitchens are off to a good start.
Nedra and Ray are next with linguini. Ray acts as if he has no idea what to do while Nedra can’t even get her water to boil. Ramsay has to step in and place foil over the pot in order to ensure it comes to a boil. In the Blue kitchen, Ray proves to be a horrible leader and Zach needs a lesson in how to portion out pasta. Despite all this, both kitchens get their food out at the same time. But before they move on to the next course, one of Ray’s dishes is brought back to the kitchen.
Mary and Michael execute their risotto course in a timely matter while Ray takes this entire period and that of Cyndi and Anthony’s course to send the corrected dish back to the diner.
Now Susan and Zach are on the steak course. Again and again, Susan’s misfiring on her steak pushes the Blue Team back. She can’t serve raw steak, but she can’t hold up both kitchens either.
Overall, Zach proves to be the the biggest problem, attempting to sabotage Ray’s course by handing raw meat to the pass and completely shutting down during his steak course.
Both teams lose.
Each team nominates the weakest member for elimination. The Red Team nominates a shocked Nedra and the Blue Team sends Ray to the line, no shocker there. Chef Ramsay picks his own weak link, though, adding Zach to the line.
Eliminated: Ray
“I may have been the oldest competitor ever on Hell’s Kitchen,” laughs Ray, “but I think I gave it a hell of a run.”
We’re not done yet!
The cheftestants are shooed off to their dorms where Nedra sulks after being put up for elimination and Zach introduces audiences to his alter-ego Grant Banks, who will apparently cook better than his true personality.
That night, the teams’ sleep is cut short by Chef Andi and Chef James, sounding alarms and beating pots. Everyone rushes to put pants on and race down to the dining room to meet Chef Ramsay. Tonight’s dinner service is all about letting them shine.
Chef’s Challenge: Each team is to create a menu made of four appetizers, three entrees and two deserts.
While both teams brainstorm, the men wish Zach would speak up and the women secretly want Nedra to quiet down.
Nedra manages to get her gumbo on the menu and Zach practically takes over the Blue Team’s menu, giving him fuel to bring the overconfident Grant Banks to the forefront. After five hours of preparation, Chef Ramsay is ready to taste everyone’s dishes. The men are given positive feedback while the women, who have won challenge after challenge, will need to change almost everything about their dishes, except for Nedra’s gumbo, in the 20 minutes before Hell’s Kitchen opens its doors. And without any drama, they do it!
Battle of the Menus Dinner Service
All of the diners will have the option to order from either the Red or Blue kitchen.
The dreaded scallops are being fired up first and they give Nedra a hard time. Plus, Cyndi stands around waiting for direction instead of staying ahead of the game. The women need to stay on the ball, otherwise the Blue Team will continue to cook their way to the lead.
Cyndi continues to have trouble on the fish station, sending raw branzini up to the pass while the Blue Team steadily serves up well cooked dishes. Even Zach’s pork chops are praised. Unfortunately, the praise immediately goes to his head and Grant Banks comes out, barking over Anthony’s cold sauce to accompany the meat. So much for that impressive lead.
The women soon begin to gel like a well-oiled machine, tossing out dishes to their diners with ease. On the other hand, the men are falling apart at the seams and Michael looks to be one of the main problems. His passion is fish, yet Halibut will bring his end in Hell’s Kitchen a lot sooner than he anticipated, surely. Chef Ramsay gives him a timeout, monitored by JP.
The Red Team finishes their service perfectly, winning tonight. The men are told by Ramsay to nominate one person that they want to go home. But wait! Chef Ramsay calls the Red Team into his office, telling them to nominate one person to switch jackets and move over to the Blue Team. By random selection, Cyndi is chosen to whip the men into shape.
Because of their inability to follow Chef Ramsay’s directions, a split vote means that Zach and Michael are asked to step onto the elimination line.
Eliminated: Michael
“My team saw me as a threat, so they had to get me out of there,” Michael says. Right.
So what happens when Chef Ramsay finds that all of the women volunteered to switch to the Blue Team? He gets angry, of course! “All of you!” he yells just as the episode ends.
To be continued…
Next time on Hell’s Kitchen, it’s Ja’nel’s turn to drop the ball during dinner service. The heat is turned up even more as Nedra fights back against Chef Ramsay, possibly ending her time in the competition.
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(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
