Hell’s Kitchen: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

Last week saw (not the rise, just the) fall of Monterrey Jack and Jersey Gina, both were ousted for not working with their teammates during service. Yet, who remains?

Hay!

On Monday’s Hell’s Kitchen the Red team fights back and tries to take Elise down a notch, once and for… this episode.

Elimination is over and TommyTats, SupaKrupa and Ravin’ have been spared as Monty departs Hell’s Kitchen, leaving nothing behind but a dented spatula. Jonathon can still feel the flames on his ass and he tells the camera that “Ramsay saw some weak points in me that he needed to bring to my attention — it’s time to knuckle-up and buckle-up, man.”

I think I gave out the nickname “Shakespeare” too quickly…

The cast heads back to the dorms to crack open a bottle of booze and celebrate. By “celebrate” I mean, get so wrecked that they handicap themselves for the next day’s challenge. Oh, and by “cast” I mean SupaKrupa.

Feeling like a number one…

Krupa hits the wine until she’s no longer coordinated enough to operate the corkscrew. Her team takes in her performance of “Ed Grimley Cooks” and then goes to bed satisfied that the weakest member of their team has done irreparable damage, to her brain and to her pants.

The next morning Krupa is moving slowly.

Practically undetectable to the human eye…

But she still drags herself to the kitchen where Ramsay is waiting to announce the team challenge. G-Ram starts his speech about the seasonal ingredients he has in front of him, he even has the teams start brainstorming ideas for what type of plates they would prepare with the ingredients on the table, but that won’t be their challenge.

Although Ravin’ is full of ideas.

Ramsay introduces two women, they stand next to them behind the table and cause Tommy’s eyes bug out a little farther than usual. Ramsay turns to his guests and says, “Have a look at these ingredients and tell us what you would do…” The two women make a show of looking at all the ingredients then they turn to each other, shrug, and answer in unison… like they received all their acting training from Barney videos. These average looking women are, by profession, the coolest women on the earth — they’re beer sommeliers, and they would make beer with all the ingredients on the table.

WOW! Water into wine and squash into beer?

“Let me tell you something… this doesn’t suck,” says Paulie Meatballs.

Chicks that know about BEER? I bet they like football! And scrawny men with B.O. so bad it’s transmitted through digital cable! Tommy thinks to himself with a smirk.

Today’s team challenge will be to cook with beer, Ramsay announces. Even more chicks enter with containers of various flavors and brews…

This is better than Christmess, ya’ll…

Tommy’s delight is so obvious, it’s almost as if it’s tattooed on his forehead. The contes-tards are told they can come up and sample the beer. Then off to the kitchen to prepare a dish.

Tommy returns to the beer table to brag to the sommeliers that he has been running a gastropub. He specializes in cooking with alcohol… because, for his patrons, sometimes beer-goggles aren’t strong enough.

He returns to the kitchen to brainstorm with Jonathon and point out, “we’ve got ladies to impress, you know what I’m sayin?” It’s obvious Tommy’s a romantic. Most of his tattoos are sonnets to ladies he’s loved… and stalked.

Doin’ it all for the LADIES

Beer was the last thing Krupa wanted to work with today, but she wouldn’t know what she was doing, adverse to the featured ingredient or not.

Ramsay asks her what she’s doing and her answer is, “I’ve got a rabbit braising in… umm… ummmm…. ummm….”

Should help the US Americans… such as… ummm… the Iraq… such as…

Feder-grease is as happy as his kid in beer. He’s kicking back a few while preparing his dish and bragging that he has 1,000 ideas for what this beer can do. Like, make him marry wife #5.

Time is up. Red must drop a dish before ranking themselves from 1 to 5. They decide to drop Krupa’s dish (Elise is happy to announce it’s weird) and rank SugarTots at #5.

Pesky Wabbit

It’s a step up from last week, but it’s still an Ravin’-led slight to Carrie.

Paulie Meatballs has fallen from grace, he’s ranked #5 in Blue’s line-up. He and Carrie are up first. Ramsay tastes both dishes and one of the sommeliers actually chokes on Paulie’s Meatballs…

He’s over seasoned his broth, but Carrie’s Tots are SWWEEET and she gets the point and the pat on the back. “I’m not just a pantry girl!” She tells the camera.

I don’t really know what that means. I believe she thinks she’s qualified to do more than sort cans of peas… but it’s still a long (LONG) way to the top.

Next up, Ravin’ and Feder-grease. Elise has prepared a salmon in the light Belgian beer and the judges love it. It’s light but flavorful. When Jonathon reveals his dish the judges actually gasp, like when the boss releases Carrie from the windowless pantry-kinda gasp.

It looks like… remember in grade school when you dropped your lunch box too many times on the way to the bus stop — then when you get to the lunch room and open it, your fruit cup has cracked and leaked onto your sandwich?

That. With broccoli.

Of course, the only thing to do in that situation is dare someone else to eat it…so, judges?

_____ no.

Jonathon inexplicably decided to return to a version of his “signature dish” from the first challenge… the very dish that Ramsay refused to taste and tried to shame Feder-grease out of ever preparing again.

FAIL

Despite telling us earlier that he has 1,000 ideas (Ok, maybe he meant for drinking games? When Ramsay says “f&^%-off,” we drink?), he seems to be a one-trick cracked-out pony.

The judges and Ramsay do taste the dish and no one is shocked that it’s not good. Easy point for Elise. Jonathon tells the camera that maybe it’s time to abandon the fruit and poultry combinations… “Inside, I just can’t let that happen, I love fruit man,” he says. He just LOVES fruit, man.

Jonathon, if you want to marry it, legalization is being pushed through…

…at least here on the East Coast and in Playland.

The next two points go to the men, Natalie’s filet beats HomeHighlights and Shakespeare’s venison defeats Lizzie’s salty mussels and clams.

The last round are the two top ranked dishes. Jamie has prepared a raspberry beer glazed duck and it gets great reviews.

But Tommy has prepared the same dish, and he’s backed by the Warriors…

Come out and pla-aaaayyy…

Tommy is happy to flash his dish to the ladies, show Jamie “how it’s done,” and he impresses…

Both the judges like both the dishes. Tommy hopes that will be his in with the “cute brunnette [who] seemed to enjoy my company,” but it’s Ramsay that has the final call. Ram gives the win to the men.

Tommy tells us “this definitely proves I’m the most awesome of anyone in the world.” Seriously, I couldn’t have written that.

Ramsay announces the prize for the winning team… “Do you like speed?” he says.

Tommy replies “Meth or coke?” 2. Seriously, I couldn’t have written that.

Their prize is a day at the Long Beach Grand Prix, he sends the Blue team upstairs and find their finest beer cozy. They’re off to the races.

Ramsay unleashes the Blue team on unsuspecting, homely, track girls — while the homely girls at home are left cleaning the kitchen and taking deliveries. Ravin’ is so upset that the women have lost another team challenge that she cries in front of Ramsay…

…but her tears are dry and her fingernails are sharp once Ramsay has left and only her teammates remain.

As Jamie double shoulders bags of ice and SugarTots makes a valiant attempt at being useful…

…Ravin’ stands by to call SugarTots a dumb-dumb for busting a bag of ice. Then she promptly busts ass on the stairs on the way into the HK.

The women continue to unload the haul as the men are carrying large notebooks in front of them as they approach the Indy cars and the Indy girls. Jonathon cannot contain himself around a hot girl in a fast car, “that’s right up my alley man.”

Home sweet MOBILE HOME.

While Paulie Meatballs is telling the Swiss racer girl how he’s a fan of her cheese… 3. Seriously, I couldn’t have written that… a new truck has arrived at Hell’s Kitchen compete with more kegs than Arizona State during rush.

Ravin’ bitches abour having to carry the keg, although HomeHighlights is used to hauling a keg instead of a six pack, so she starts pulling the kegs inside.

That looks unpleasant.

Elise is directing the work flow instead of participating in it and SugarTots calls her on it. “Does that cart have your name on it?” she says to Elise.

“You know what, my fist is about to have your teeth on it,” Ravin’ tells SugarTots, who gives her a dose of her own shit.

That night the men (plus Natalie) are reliving their glory days on the track, while the women decide to stage an intervention with Elise. They tell her they feel she doesn’t take the punishment seriously. She moves slower, takes the easiest tasks… “Yeah, because I’m not going to over-extend myself if I know it’s too heavy for me,”  she says. After full round of eye rolls, Elise gives in and says she’ll try harder, she doesn’t want there to be animosity.

This also looks unpleasant.

It’s beer night in Hell and that means new dishes are added to the menu. The teams will be required to execute (because they’re doing so well with pasta and scallops) a venison dish and a mussel entree.

During dinner service Blue is looking for redemption. Paulie knows he has to make up some ground, he was pretty terrible last week. Jonathon accepts help from Tommy wrapping the Wellingtons, as Elise is test driving a pleasant demeanor and assisting Carrie prepping salads.

Tickets come in and Ravin’ puts her rantin’ to good use and she is able to talk her team through appetizers.

“Paul, tonight is your comeback night,” Ramsay says before Paulie delivers passable apps. The problem is that Natalie has screwed the scallops and the trays can’t go out until she has successfully cooked (less than) one square inch of fish.

In the Red kitchen, their service is now being held up because their salads are slimier than Will’s buttcrack…

…Ravin’ would like to blame Carrie for the hold up, but she was asked to drain the salads during prep. As the replay shows, Elise drained her teammates of their will to win, but left the salads soaking.

Blue is still struggling with appetizers, Natalie’s pan isn’t hot enough and she fails her second attempt at scallops — Ramsay’s on the scene to quantify the damage.

30. 30 reasons I’m not paid enough for this shit.

Without Feder-grease’s help, Ramsay’s able to tally up the wasted scallops. 30.  Natalie cooked 30 scallops without assembling one passable plate. With Will’s tutelage, she puts together one a plate of acceptable scallops. Finally.

Jamie is on the meat station across from SupaKrupa on fish, and they’re ready to move onto Red’s entrees. They have to work together to continue Red’s semi-success… but they can’t. The timing Krupa gives Jamie is wrong and the first batch they bring to Ramsay is raw as Krupa’s shame.

Back in Blue Jonathan has delivered some Wellingtons that are overcooked, but the pastry isn’t(?). Feder-grease puts the blame on Tommy, he tells Ramsay it’s the way Tommy prepped the Wellingtons that accounts for the reversal of Physics that has somehow cooked the meat but not the pastry.

It looks like Jonathon forgot about the pastry all together and just wrapped the beef in wet band-aids after he scorched them in the oven. Whatever he did, the excuses don’t get by Ramsay and he kicks him out and tells him to take his bimbo with him, Natalie’s out too.

Maybe you can find jobs at the race track’s concession stand… dipping corndogs is way easier than preparing Beef Wellington.

Red continues to struggle, but they finish service. Blue finishes despite only having three members of the team left in the kitchen.

Ramsay can’t name a winning team, so he sends both teams upstairs to nominate two people for elimination.

Red’s first nomination is easy, Krupa doesn’t fight her fate. Ravin’ wants Jamie on the ticket too, but Jamie’s ready to fight back. She and Elise fight over who has the shittier personality, but at elimination Carrie is forced to name Jamie as the second nominee.

Jon and Natalie are called down from Blue. Feder-grease’s defense is poorly executed as his Flowbee haircut, but it’s Krupa that has exhausted her time in the 9th season of Hell.

What did you think ‘Gasmi? Was it Krupa’s time? Why isn’t Ramsay fed up with Feder-grease? Why isn’t he fed with the management company that agrees to continue this show?