'Hell's Kitchen' has a model evening

All the contestants spent weeks on end complaining about Matt and his incompetence on Hell's Kitchen. Oh, it was well deserved, the man couldn't cook, and was actually a little scary by the end of his time on the show, but everyone got there wish and he's gone now. I was terribly curious to find out whether, without Matt there to mess things up, the rest of the chefs would seem different this week, or whether they would continue to be unimpressive.

After watching, I'm going to have to go with unimpressive. Less unimpressive than before, but unimpressive.

Maybe that's because Jen is still around, and while she may be a better cook than Matt, she is just as volatile. She actually cheated on the challenge this week. She didn't get in trouble for it, but she did cheat.

What the chefs had to do was teach some "housewives" how to make spaghetti with lobster. The chefs weren't allowed to do any of the cooking (Jen did, repeatedly), they were supposed to have their trainees do it. And, as for those housewives, they looked a little like... well... a little like plants. I'm not saying they were, I'm just saying that some of them were awfully dressed up and with more than a completely made up face. I would not be surprised to find out that the women were actresses or models or in some similar line of work.

In the end, despite Jen's cheating, her housewife was a failure in the kitchen. Both Christina and Corey's housewives did a solid job, and it came down to them, with Christina's housewife edging out Corey's.

I actually felt a little bad for the losers. I think that there are some people who are probably beyond help in the kitchen and it's possible that the women involved in the challenge were. Just because the best dish was put forward by Christina's housewife, that doesn't mean that Christina was the best teacher, she may just have had the least distance to travel with her housewife.

Later, heading into the dinner service, everyone was perturbed with Christina as she was acting all hoity-toity after having some famous chefs to teach her how to cook (her reward for winning the challenge). If she wasn't high on my list of people I'd almost like to see win, I might agree with Christina's fellow chefs. As Christina is near the top of the people I think would be the least bad choices though, I'm going to let her attitude slide as having been semi-deserved, but only semi. Plus, she quickly got her comeuppance, mishearing her first appetizer order during the service.

The best part of the dinner service, hands down, was not Christina getting her comeuppance, but Jen looking foolish once more. Granted, it was mostly due to the cutting of the show, but it was still great. When Bobby messed up on the meat station we were instantly treated to Jen saying how she would never make such horrible mistakes cooking food. The show then cut to Jen bringing raw fish to the pass and then overcooked fish, one right after the other (I'm sure she'd argue that both dishes were cooked perfectly and that Ramsay was crazy). Ah, stupidity, how I love you in reality television.

Bobby was still doing far worse than Jen tonight, but he at least was messing up with a smile. Jen was, as usual, on the edge of ripping Ramsay's head off. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Petrozza got Jen into some unnecessary trouble tonight, bringing stuff to the pass that he shouldn't have, but Jen was still too close to the edge with Ramsay. I really think there will come a day when she will just unload verbally on Gordon, I just hope we get to see it.

Then, there was the special 12-top table, composed entirely of Hawaiian Tropic models (why I don't know, but they were there). The chefs did seem to do a good job getting the appetizers out at the same time for the big table, but things fell down during the entrees with Ramsay having to step in himself to make sure the food got out. It may not have been pretty, but food did get served to the models and to every other table tonight as well.

Somehow, despite messing up the order at the beginning, Christina was still deemed the Best of the Worst tonight. Before the nominations were announced, Jen was pretty certainly that she would be sent home (and, as you know, I was pulling for her to be right). Christina helped push things in that direction by nominating her, along with Bobby, tonight.

In my opinion, Bobby did a little too much sucking up to Ramsay after being nominated, but he definitely deserved to stay more than Jen. After removing Bobby's nose from his backside, Ramsay asked Christina whom she wanted to boot tonight, and Christina gave the honest, and right, answer of Jen.

Ramsay though went in a different direction, he eliminated Bobby. He explained that he "kept waiting for him [Bobby] to emerge," but that Bobby didn't ever really step forward. I can accept that, I just can't imagine that he's still waiting for anything solid, save anger, from Jen.

Odds and ends:

• I love that Jean-Philippe. First, he bumps his head into a glass door, making himself look quite silly. Then, he redeems himself by trying to have his waiters steer customers to ordering dishes that would be better prepared. The work of the maitre'd is never done.
• I liked Bobby. I'm sad to see him go, but can't really fault Ramsay for the elimination (except in that Jen needed to go more). What do you think? Bobby or Jen? And, now that we're down to four, whom do you think is taking home the prize?

It certainly won't be (at least in cooking), the guy from The TV and Film Guy's Reviews. He is a solid cook, but he'd totally burn the lamb wellington every time.

E-mail

• Digg
• Facebook
• Fark
• Yahoo Buzz
• Stumbleupon