Hotel Hell Recap: You Can’t Buy Good Taste

Recaps

By BlueCanary | Thursday, August 30, 2012 | 12:01 pm | 6 Comments
Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in: Hotel Hell, Recaps

Sandra takes Gordon around the hotel and shows him the crappy laundry setup. The concierge and management staff apparently does all this stuff themselves because there’s no maid staff. She says everything is pretty much done Eddie’s way around there, and no one else gets a say. That doesn’t stop Gordon from shaming her and making her cry, though.

He leaves Sandra wiping away tears and heads over to the restaurant to eat, hoping the food on site will be better than the room service. He meets our man Dave, who doesn’t even attempt to pretend the place doesn’t suck. His candid attitude kills me, and even surprises Gordon.

Apathy has a name, and that name is Dave.

He orders a bunch of stuff, plus a Chocolate Pig, which is a chocolate, strawberry, and bacon dessert pizza. Yikes. I can’t figure out if that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard or the most intriguing. The brick chicken is horrible, a fact Dave readily confirms, and the rest isn’t any better. That pizza arrives, and Gordon says it looks like someone wiped their ass with it. I guess Gordon usually shits strawberries? He can’t even finish chewing it.

They take him back to meet Brian, the old hippie chef who clearly hates his life. He wasn’t even the one cooking for Gordon, and when Gordon wants to know why the hell he was served food prepared by someone other than the executive chef, Brian informs him that he wants Gordon to see how things usually run, because he wants things to change. He’s been cooking for over 30 years, and this current job is killing his soul.

Aw, he’s even wearing a scrunchie in his braid.

I love those old, soft-hearted hippie men. They’re this great combination of totally sensitive and not giving a fuck. In the middle of talking to Gordon though, Brian just passes out. What the hey? Was that real, or did he fake it to get out of the reaming he knew was likely on its way? Gordon has someone call 911 and tries to keep Brian alive with wet towels and profanity. 

I wonder if the paramedics were surprised to walk in and see Gordon Ramsay just standing around, barking orders.

Then we have our oh-hell-no moment of the episode: Eddie blames Gordon for stressing Brian out and causing the fainting spell. Gordon is not having that in the least, and jumps right up his ass. He says Eddie is like a spoiled magpie, picking up bits of glitter and throwing them at the hotel. I love the little pecking hand gestures he uses to illustrate his point.

Tread carefully, Eddie.

The next day, Gordon goes to Brian’s house for an off-camera chat. It’s not off-mic, though, and we hear Brian say that Eddie takes advantage of his good nature, because he knows Brian won’t tell him no. Gordon tells him to come back that day under his own terms, not Eddie’s. Which means Gordon’s terms, really, but who cares. Gordon gathers Eddie and the staff, and they have the roundtable sit-down. Sandra says there aren’t enough resources, and Aaron says Eddie’s the one who arranged things that way. Eddie makes a very contradictory remark, to the tune of he’s the owner and it’s their job to make his instructions happen. Yeah, Eddie, but it’s your job to pay for and supply the proper tools for them to do that. Blowhard.

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BlueCanary is as unorthodox a blend of optimistic and bitter, laid-back and anxious, motivated and straight up lazy tas one is likely to meet outside an unspecified institution. She spent the past decade holding a variety of job titles, including reporter, tech writer, production manager, and administrative assistant (the go-to job in this economy for folks who just HAD to get that English degree). She is currently living under the tiny yet powerful thumb of an awesome, pint-sized little dude, who wets himself and can't form full sentences (read: stay at home mom). Another tyrannical little thumb is gestating in her womb. She is a regular on The Neutral Corner podcast and blogs at www.mamamuzzle.com. 

Blue's as-yet-unpublished YA novel, The Nature of Echoes, is currently a Quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. If you'd like to check it out, a free excerpt is available to download at http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Echoes-ABNA-Entry-ebook/dp/B00B9N3XFQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363378599&sr=1-1&keywords=eva+gibson+abna.

6 Comments

  1. 1
    JimbobJones Jimbob Jones
    Posted August 30, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    “call 911 and tries to keep Brian alive with wet towels and profanity. ”

    Ah, wet towels and profanity. That’s advanced medicine right there.

  2. 2
    Andyourlittledogtoo
    Posted August 30, 2012 at 3:13 pm

    Wet towels and profanity. I love that. :)

    Not that I’m complaining or anything, but is Gordon going to strip naked and take a bath on every show in this series? Because it seems to be a pattern here. A very nice pattern, but still….

    Form over function doesn’t even cover what was wrong with this hotel. I loved the placement of the TV with the little lunch counter/desk shelf. Yeah, that spells luxury. I wonder that his ‘guests’ haven’t strung him up over his bright red hotel lobby long before this at $700 + per night. I guess he’s banking on the fact that people who can afford to book a hotel that expensive aren’t prone to violent outbursts to resolve their problems.

  3. 3
    kthxbai kthxbai
    Posted August 31, 2012 at 1:59 am

    You did a much better job on this recap than Gordon did on this episode.

    They must not give Gordon much budget for this show. For a place with that much fug I’d expect him to fix more than 1 room and the lobby. And just a better show.

    But I guess the 2 part premiere would be hard to top.

    It was Ari from Beverly Hills Nannies that ordered the cheese plate. She and Barry are in the restaurant at the beginning too.

  4. 4
    eyediosmio Eyediosmio
    Posted August 31, 2012 at 10:31 am

    Well I am not surprised he only did one room, the show can only afford to spend so much $$$ and like you said, thousands went in to getting that red color out.

    I am ALL ABOUT hotel living, I love nothing more than paying too much for a hotel room, ordering in breakfast room service and lounging around in a big fluffy bed. NOTHING about that room would make me want to do that, simply a function of a bed to sleep in, not a room to vacation in. Ugh. And doesnt the color red make people anxious? Horrible design.

  5. 5
    crankyguy crankyguy
    Posted August 31, 2012 at 11:28 am

    Why would anybody expect the show to redo more than one room? The redo of the lobby was the hotel owner’s payment for letting the hotel be on TV, and the redo of one room was just a model of what could be done in the rest of the hotel if the owner so decides. If the show had to spend more money to redo a place than Gordo gets paid for an episode, then I imagine we would have a very unhappy Gordo, and they have to keep their star happy.

  6. 6
    WishICouldDance
    Posted August 31, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    The old hippie was cute but… What a graceful swoon!! Wet towels and profanity were probably the right treatment!

    And I just don’t think I could have handled all that red. I am all about red – as an accent!!! That looked like the elevators from the Shining opened up and spewed!! I swear, I started mumbling “redrum” when they first showed the lobby – yikes!

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