'Hell's Kitchen': Lacey tries to learn the meaning of teamwork

Last week I ended my recap by suggesting that which was relatively clear -- Gordon Ramsay needed to rejigger the teams on "Hell's Kitchen" or the women would continue to lose. The first thing that happened tonight? Ramsay moved Giovanni to the Red side. Captain Obvious -- 1, The Other Side of the Argument Which No One Took -- 0.

The show did however continue to surprise me with another new, interesting challenge tonight -- tapas-style cooking of five dishes from leftovers (I love tapas, I ate my way through my honeymoon in Spain on tapas). Not new with the challenge was chef incompetence. Carol apparently couldn't tell the difference between balsamic vinaigrette and soy sauce. If she'd been able to, she might have gotten a point for her team and it may not have come down to Ramsay making a difficult choice between Ben and Giovanni on the final dish. Nah, it always comes down to the last dish, doesn't it? Giovanni pulled it out for his new squad and saved the day.

The men didn't lose by much, but they ended up having to prep both kitchens for service that night. No, that's not a typo, it was the men on the Blue team who did the prepping, Lacey did the whining. And then, once she'd finished her whining, she acted like she was going to quit... again. Ben, nice, quiet Ben, went and talked Lacey down from the ledge and back into the kitchen... again.

That man has shown himself to be a class act, I'm not sure that he's the best chef out there, but he's the guy I like most at this moment. I will say though that I question his judgment at wanting Lacey back in the kitchen in the first place. I understand his desire to have another pair of hands on the Blue side, but Lacey barely qualifies as "another pair of hands."

Even without Lacey during service the Blue side would have been a person up on Red for a little while. That's because at one point Ramsay sent both Andrea and Carol, who were supposed to be cooking pasta but in actuality sent it out of the kitchen raw, to the dining room to polish off a plate of their uncooked disaster. As they ate it, they each fumed at the other for messing up the dish. I honestly believe that they both thought the other was responsible, which, in my mind, means they both failed.

It was the Blue kitchen that proved to be more human (both good and bad tonight). Robert, who has been wretched to Lacey, really stepped up and tried to help J as J was floundering in the kitchen. Robert's talk with him didn't work and J kept messing up until Ramsay booted him from the kitchen, but Robert at least tried. As for J, he went straight upstairs, packed, and took a taxi far, far away.

I never like to see people go like that J, while he had been a wreck as of late, early on seemed like a contender. I guess he's a contender no more.

For a while, it seemed as though Ben wouldn't be far behind. The man had serious problems with the wellington and Ramsay was about a half-step from getting rid of him too in the middle of service. As I said above, I like Ben, but the man was almost as bad a disaster as J tonight.

There was no doubt that Red, led by Giovanni, was the better squad this evening. Blue had no "best of the worst" and Ramsay said that they should each figure out who they didn't want on their team, making it instantly clear that no one else would be going home (otherwise would have used the word "nominated").

Back downstairs later in front of Ramsay, both Robert and Lacey chose each other to be the person to go, no big surprise there. It also wasn't a surprise that Danny and Ben both chose Lacey to go as well.

In something of a silly move, Ramsay pretended like he was going to fire a second person tonight and asked Lacey and Ben to both step forward. Ramsay had already tipped his hand to us, so that seemed like some unnecessary theatrics, but both Lacey and Ben looked scared. Ramsay chastised them both and sent the team, intact, back upstairs with the final statement that Lacey had better start working with her team.

Next, we cut to Lacey's one-on-one with the camera -- "Bleep yeah, I'm still here and, you know what, I'm giving a big bleep you to all these people here," the second "bleep" being accompanied with a fuzzed out single digit raised on each of her hands. I don't know about the world Lacey comes from, but that sort of thing was the exact attitude Ramsay suggested Lacey not have.

I have to believe that Lacey doesn't have much time left on this show, but what say you? How much farther do you think she can go?

The TV and Film Guys Reviews - mmmmm.... tapas.