The Unfiltered Ramblings of a DVR Addict

The episode starts with Lovely still being disillusioned that her staying has anything to do with her and not Joseph already leaving out of turn.  There is always one contestant that is so totally intothemselves that they can’t tell that they suck so bad.  This season it is Lovely, the contestant, not the adjective.

Suzanne didn’t like the outcome because she wanted to cut some dead weight.  Tennille immediately (after they all get their drinks poured and cigarettes lit, of course) starts into Suzanne for calling her out during the service.  Suzanne tries to explain professionalism to Tennille by saying that she didn’t take it to a personal level and Tennille shows her lack of professionalism by saying that she took it personally.  She then further proves this point by threatening to hit Suzanne…from the safety of the interview confessional.

Then we show how the men are getting along.  Andy seems pretty nice about checking in on Kevin and his 2 bum ankles before bed time and Van starts scheming with Kevin to get rid of Andy.

Chef must have been watching the hidden camera video because he can tell that nobody is getting along.  So for the challenge he decides to team them up in twos to work together.  This should help them bolster their teamwork skills, but…we’ll see.

Call me Gomer.  Surprise! Surprise!  Tennille and Suzanne are partners and so are Van and Andy.  Van would rather be paired up with Kevin or Bigguns (ha! Robert) or Jim…or Dave,  just anybody but Andy, who is .

The other couples are Robert and Jim, Kevin and Dave, Ariel and Sabrina, and Tek and Lovely.  Amanda is sitting out, but doesn’t like it because she feels she is stronger than Lovely.

On to the challenge.  Heather and Scott roll in a rack with lots of sausage hanging off of it.  Chef asks if there is anyone that has never made a sausage and 4 of the 6 women raise their hands while all of the guys are confident in their sausage handling skills.   Chef takes that cue to jump right into Innuendo Land.   He asks Tennille how thick she likes her sausage and Van what the secret of a good sausage is.  Everyone laughs like they are all 5 year olds.

Chef shows how to make the perfect sausage and takes the casing and blows in it to open it up.  Yuk!  Back in my food service days blowing into any type of bag to open it up was a no-no per the Health Dept.  Heather helps him make some nice looking sausages none the less.  He says the first team to fill their rack with 6 ropes of sausage with 6 6″sausages each at the right thickness is the winning team.  So the pairings are only so more than one person can be blamed if their team loses.

The women win 6-4 and surprisingly Suzanne and Tennille and Van and Andy all get along well enough to do well together in the challenge.  All couples except for Jim and Robert make 2 sausage ropes each.  Jim and Robert didn’t turn any sausage in because Robert kept pushing the sausage through the machine too fast causing the casing to break.  They never think to switch spots.  Once again Robert proves how bad he actually is by his actions though his words say otherwise.

Lovely takes another opportunity to gloat that her teammates won something.

The guys have to clean the dorms and the women get to The Old World Village in Huntington Beach.  I went there once for Oktoberfest.  Lots of beer and sausage.  Both really good.

Kevin is stewing in the kitchen because his team is full of Executive Chefs but they can’t even make a sausage.  Robert takes extreme offense to it and jumps up and lumbers over to Kevin and gets in his face.  I think even with 2 bum ankles Kevin could get away if he wanted to.  Robert throws a big temper tantrum but still won’t accept any blame.  I think Kevin was just venting until Robert pushed it, then Kevin called him out on his poor performance.  Robert and Kevin are yelling at each other in the macho way were guys who are about to get in a fight are close enough to kiss and you don’t know which way its going to go because you know neither one of them actually wants to get in a fight.  I’m sure they have something in the contract that forbids physical violence with other contestants and a whole separate contract just for Chef Ramsay.  Robert fumes for a while after.

The women get to ride in Hell’s charter bus with a polka band to their outing.

The men are cleaning and Van looks like he is doing a good mime impersonation, but is actually cleaning the glass wall that goes between the kitchen and the dining area.  They used to hide that they had this wall there in earlier seasons so that the viewers would think, due to clever editing, that the diners could hear all the yelling from the kitchen.  Every since JP ran into the glass door, they haven’t tried to keep it so much of a secret.

JP greets the ladies to their fun time of Oompah music, beer and sausage. Tennille announces that she is won over to liking sausage.

During cleaning Robert goes to Kevin to try to throw Jim under the bus and Kevin tells him to stop and walks away.  One is a poor loser and shady character and the other shows integrity.  You can figure it out.

Robert starts s0urpussing about always being on the losing team in challenges.  Sous Chef Scott says that is how he should feel and its a shame that the passion is coming out during the punishment and not when it would have been useful during the challenge.  I think Scott makes a good point.  Robert responds by throwing another temper tantrum and yelling that he almost died for this last time.  I think his heart condition is caused by stress just as much as it is by his weight and he is not helping himself out by going crazy again.

The next day the women are grooving along during prep time from their high of winning the challenge; and the men are the walking wounded.  Jim lists the ailments on the men’s team including “Robert’s morbid obesity”.  I know that Chef has said that he doesn’t like overweight chefs so I don’t understand why he has given Robert so many opportunities.  He can’t keep him on much longer if Robert doesn’t get his attitude in check though.

Dave is playing through the pain when he receives a phone call about his wrist and the doctor tells him that he needs a cast that will make his thumb immobile.  He goes to talk to Chef and decides to tough it out with the cast on because this is the biggest opportunity of his life and he doesn’t want to waste it.  I admire his drive.  He leaves to get his cast on and misses the start of service.

Chef lines the contestants up for the pep talk and he really looks and acts like he is on crack tonight.  He wants a greeter from each team to introduce some dish that he says so quick and mumbly that I can’t understand it.  Later, the announcer tells me the name, but I still don’t know what it is.  Chef choses Ariel and Jim.  Jim shows his dissappointment with a big fart noise and a thumbs down.

Service starts and announcer guys says that since Hell’s Kitchen is in the heart of Hollywood, you’ll never know who is going to show up.   We see a myriad of has-beens and never-wases except for John O’Hurley.  He is awesome.  Drew Lachey is there.  You might be asking yourself who he is.  I did too.  He is the ex Mr. Jessica Simpson’s brother and they were in a boy band together called 98 degrees.  They broke up about 5 years ago and he was on Dancing w/ the Stars.  Don’t fact check me.  That’s as much time as I wanted to spend on him.  Tom Green, some generic actress and Kid from Kid and Play and Kristy Swanson (the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer) are all there.  Wow!  The papparazzi must be storming the place to get pictures of these guys.

But then we get inside and we see the “celebrities” get to pick their tables and order their food before the riff raff is allowed in.  Now the real celebrities are showing up.  JP turns in a ticket for Dwight Freeney of the Indianapolis Colts.  Chef is awe struck and says that since its an NFL player they better get it right the first time.

Jim is slow going, as usual, on getting the pre appetizers out and delays the guys.

Suzanne hovers over Tennille’s shoulder trying to micro manage her.  The risotto is acceptable.  J Peterman thinks his spaghetti is too salty, but loves the replacement.

Robert coughs openly into the food he is cooking.  Then makes a nice salad.  He spends the rest of the night being a total jerk to Andy, trying to sabotage him and throw him under the bus.

Lovely is lost and needs help.  Sabrina jumps in to help her out and does well.

Robert takes Andy’s food up to the pass makes sure that he tells Scott to check it out, it gets denied.  Then Robert turns around and yells that he told Andy not to send it.   Later, he does the same thing to him.  Robert starts yelling so much that diners are getting uncomfortable.

Lovely is totally lost again and has no response to Chef but to mumble something unintelligible.

Andy finally gets a lamb up that is nice.  Suzanne sends up bad lamb and Tennille takes the 1st opportunity she has gotten all season to gloat over Suzanne making a mistake.

The blue kitchen starts falling apart, but One-Armed Dave arrives to save the day.

It comes down to each team having 3 tickets left.  Chef announces 1st to finish every entree is the winner.  The guys barely win even though Andy sends up chicken so raw that Scott gets into scray threatening mode.  This is the first time they actually show him do this on camera, but I have seen him do it on behind the scenes stuff from previous seasons.

The women lost by not having the sides to complete the dishes.  Suzanne interviews that she thought the women had the sides up and wonders why they lost and thinks this point should be brought up to Chef.  Hahaha!  Good luck with that.

In post game lineup, Chef says the women were beaten by the sides and Suzanne wants a play by play on that.  Chef puts her in her place.  Van laughs but then realizes that he is probably being filmed and cuts it off quickly.  Chef chooses Sabrina as the best of the worst.  Sabrina actually loves and cherishes the title.

The guys mock Suzanne for her play by play request.  Lovely and Tek both talk with Sabrina about being chosen.  What did that accomplish?  She has to choose 2 people, noone else deserved it tonight.

Sabrina chooses Tek and Sabrina.  Lovely thinks she is the Flash and can move so fast that Chef can’t see it.  Chef starts to decide who to leave but has another option and calls on Suzanne to look surprised for the commercial break.  When we come back, Chef only wants Suzanne to tell him which person she would choose to leave.  Suzanne loves it.  She chooses Lovely, the contestant not the adjective, and Chef agrees.  Suzanne likes that Chef asked her opinion because she loves sharing her opinion.

Lovely’s exit interview isn’t quite as volatile as Joseph’s was.  Chef gives Tek, then all the contestants a warning that the next dinner service will be their most important ever, again.  Just like that other time and the time again before that.