'Hell's Kitchen': The chefs visit the Borgata in Atlantic City

Let's face it, Ramsay saying that he was going to close the restaurant last week on "Hell's Kitchen" was pure lunacy. The fact that the chefs looked as though Ramsay might have been telling the truth was equally insane, and it was just the sort of insanity I think we've come to expect from them and the show.

The truth of the matter was that Ramsay was shutting the place down for a few days so that all the chefs could go to the Borgata in Atlantic City. (begin sarcasm) Gee, you mean he wasn't permanently shuttering the restaurant; that he wasn't really ending the competition? I never could have guessed. (end sarcasm)

Really the problem with the whole thing was that every season at least two of the chefs get to go and check out the place that the winner will be running, there was absolutely no reason for the show to build it up this year the way they did. And, as Robert pointed out, the place is in Jersey. He said it made you forget it was in Jersey, but that's kind of impossible (sorry, Jersey, we've all been on the turnpike, we all know the truth).

Now, the entire visit to the Borgata was ruined by a pesky trip by the big guy to a hospital due to some chest pain. The other four ended up leaving him in Jersey. I half thought he had just decided to squat at the restaurant until they declared it his, but apparently not. The announcer actually said it was "a couple of days" between the four chefs returning to L.A. and the next time we saw them, and they were still unaware of what was happening with Robert. He made it back to L.A., but only to announce that he had pericarditis and would be leaving the show.

Ramsay told Robert that he had the "potential" to win the competition, but he didn't. He was a nice guy -- the nicest on the show this season -- but he was never going to win.

Going from six chefs during one service to four at the next actually seemed to help the remaining contestants... sort of. Andrea definitely had her difficulties. She had earned immunity in the challenge, so while she didn't care about what was happening tonight, her incompetence is the sort of thing Ramsay will remember down the line.

The immunity was definitely something Ramsay regretted. Ben was a disaster too tonight, but he was not as bad as Andrea, and Ramsay didn't want to get rid of the person who wasn't the worst -- or so he claimed. Paula was nominated in addition to Ben, but there was no way that she would be going home, Ramsay never even considered that.

Ramsay ended up not canning a second chef tonight, but I have to wonder if he used Andrea's being worse than Ben as an excuse. At some point losing multiple people in more than one episode has to shorten the number of episodes that can air in a season. Ramsay's already lost multiple chefs in a single episode this season, so I'm not convinced that he wanted to fire two people. I think that if Andrea had been available to be fired he would have gotten rid of her, but I don't think that it would have been his first choice of things to do.

Quick bites:

• Robert definitely seemed to have a thing for the "Borgata Babes" tonight; do you think he's never seen an attractive woman before?
• Andrea was shocked when Ben told her that if it wasn't for her immunity she'd be on the chopping block for her performance this week. Typical insanity, gamesmanship, or something else?

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