Hell’s Kitchen: Overblown and Underdone

Hello to you all, fellow Gasmii! I welcome you with all the hospitable warmth the bowels of Hell’s Kitchen has to offer, and invite you to join me on the journey through Tuesday’s breathtaking episode (if you will). On Monday, we watched Natalie reach into the Blue team’s collective ass and singlehandedly extract its head, leading to kitchen victory. Then we bade farewell to Amanda, a contestant so dishwater I hadn’t realized she even existed before she pulled a duh face at the fish station and proceeded to shut down entirely. This incident led the way to the Red team being ejected from dinner service, and disgusted Gordon to such an extent that he decided it was more palatable to keep dimshit Carrie in the running than have to stare at Amanda’s Sharpie eyebrows a second longer.

Tonight, we’re down to 14 contestants, and it’s promising to be a doozy. Sure enough, the first noise we hear is coming straight from Elise’s mouth. She’s very put out that Carrie hasn’t left yet, and of course she doesn’t bother keeping it to herself. Way to boost morale, bitch! I know Carrie is basically useless, but the open hostility isn’t helping anyone. Elise then negates her own credibility by stating that Krupa is the second weakest link on the team. Say what? Aside from the opening challenge and the prime rib debacle, Krupa has performed consistently better than almost everyone, so I’m not sure where that critique comes from. I think Elise was just pissed that Krupa called her out for her bad attitude in front of Gordon, and now she’s projecting her anger onto Krupa and attacking her kitchen prowess.

At least I can grill, bitch.

But Krupa isn’t Carrie, and she’s not about to take shit off the likes of Elise. She starts gathering her stuff and preparing to move out of their room, and Elise goes right ahead and denies that she has an issue with Krupa (despite the footage we just saw, I guess) and that she’d only ever busted on Krupa’s naan bread. This leads Elise to the stunning logical conclusion (stunning in its sheer ability to transcend sense and rationale) that Krupa’s problem is not with Elise’s attitude, but her own shitty naan bread. See what she did there? In Crazyface Elise Land, it’s Krupa’s own shame, not a reaction to a bitch’s loud mouth, that’s causing her to lash out. Simple! After all, Krupa couldn’t possibly have a problem with Elise herself; you know, because Elise gets along with EVERYBODY!

Holy fucking delusional asshole, Batman!

The next morning, the sous chefs show up bright and early with a bunch of outfits they lifted from Jonathon’s suitcase. Once the contestants are overalled and downstairs, Gordon informs them that there’s a chicken delivery they need to deal with. Since they’re dressed for the barnyard, I predict the chickens will be alive and kicking, and it turns out I’m right. So do they actually have to slaughter these poor birds themselves? That should go over. Thankfully, we won’t have to follow them down that particular grisly path. The teams will be required to produce four chicken dishes each, prepared with a limited number of ingredients. Each dish must be cooked using a different method, and the ingredients each team will be allowed to use will be determined using what I’m sure is the traditional chicken wrangling method, taught at all the finest culinary institutes. For every chicken shoved into a cage, the wrangler gets to pick an ingredient off the wall, so the motivation is to grab a maximum amount of chickens during the wrangling window (official term), resulting in maximum ingredient selection options. I’m sure it’s much more sophisticated in person. I guess you have to be there. Jonathon is tearing it up of course, because chasing barnyard critters is what they do in the Volunteer state. Way to challenge those stereotypes, Cletus. No one fucks up too badly, and we get an obligatory chicken-choking joke out of Will, which means I don’t have to waste energy typing my own. The Blue team managed to get 11 ingredients, while the Red team pulled nine, proving once and for all that men are better than women when it comes to chasing and wrasslin’ small, feathered animals.

And chicken choking, I suppose.

After cleansing themselves of barnyard grime, the cooks reconvene with Gordon in the kitchen, where he presents each team with a single chicken. They will cook in pairs, and each pair needs to make sure they have the perfect cut off that team chicken (who I’m sure never thought its simple, chickeny life would come to this) to use in their dish. Also, remember that they’re working with only the ingredients they managed to claim during the whole henhouse roundup. It’s all so complex!

Carrie and Gina are making fried chicken, and Gina warns Carrie to make sure it’s done in the middle, which you just know is foreshadowing. Ten bucks says that chicken will end up raw as the ones they caught that morning, because Carrie seems only sporadically able to keep it together. She hasn’t yet fucked anything up in this episode, so it’s only a matter of time. Over in the Blue kitchen, Monterray and Tommy are working on the grill, and Monterray, when he cuts open their chicken to check for doneness, knocks about half of it onto the floor. Ha!

I’m sorry, was it mean to laugh as hard as I did?

Tommy keeps his cool and attempts to make the best of it. Meanwhile, sure enough, Carrie has undercooked the fried chicken. Isn’t she southern? What’s her excuse, seriously? With a minute remaining and no time to fix it, everyone rushes to present their plates. Gina just stands there, boiling mad, and of course Gordon notices and demands an explanation. When she tells him that Carrie didn’t let the chicken mellow out long enough in the fryer, he just visibly droops. You know he’s heard all the bullshit in the world by this point in the series run, and it must kill him that these contestants can’t manage in a professional kitchen what my great-great-grandma could turn out in her sleep using a cast iron skillet and wood stove.

Someone’s getting her smackin’ hand ready…

Of course Elise has something to mutter about it, but Gordon doesn’t care for whispered asides, and makes her speak up. Elise says the common denominator in the Red team’s kitchen failure is always Carrie, and, as much as my eyes roll every time Elise draws breath to speak, anyone can see she has a point. Doesn’t make her more likable, but the point is there. Gordon says he has guests on the way and no time for this fuckery, and then he brings in a writer from People Magazine and the editor of Entertainment Weekly. Cornerstones of the literary community, I’m sure. These two will sample all the chicken and act as judges, and the pair that cooked the winning dish will be featured in People Magazine. I guess that’s a good prize, depending on how you feel about People Magazine. Carrie and Gina’s raw fried chicken is placed on the table next to Paul’s, and Gordon makes Gina apologize for its uncooked state. Carrie immediately take the “you threw me under the bus” attitude, a staple in the lexicon of those unable or unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions. Note to Carrie: telling the truth does not equate to under-bus throwing. Either acknowledge you made a mistake and move on, or clear on out so the competent cooks don’t stub their tootsies tripping over your cow-eyed ass. Of course she doesn’t truly care what’s said about her, or how the others feel, which is a huge part of her problem. Without any competition, Paul is given an easy win.

Jennifer and Krupa serve chicken cacciatore, which the judges enjoy. They’re competing against Jonathon and Will’s sautéed lemon herb chicken. It’s also good, so both teams get a point. Jamie’s grilled chicken salad is going head to head with Tommy and Monterrary’s dropped-on-the-floor grilled chicken. If Jamie loses the point, the blue team will automatically win, but we must hold our collective breath a bit longer for the results! The guys are called out on their obvious lack of chicken, so Jamie gets the point. Everything is riding on the roasted chicken! Elise and Elizabeth have a big complicated description for their dish, and Elise naturally takes all the credit for it, which pisses Elizabeth off. This doesn’t get by Gordon, and he gets Elise to admit she doesn’t like sharing. I hope he can see what an asshole she is and avoid rewarding her for it. Natalie and Chino’s roasted chicken coconut curry soup wows the judges, but I’m sure Natalie spent most of her cooking time trying to keep Chino as far away from the soup as possible, so he didn’t knock it off the stove or accidentally fart in the cooking pot, or something. I don’t trust that man around a recipe; food practically fucks itself up if he so much as strolls past. He always acts like he just woke up in a strange place.

“Where am I? What’s happening? I have to make pee pees!”

By this point, I’m rooting for the Blue team just to spite Elise, so of course the Red wins it, and Elise takes full credit for the dish and the team win. Wow, I hate her. Gordon sends them go-karting for their prize, which would piss me off on the heels of the jet-setting Palm Springs getaway from last week. Way to save a buck there, Fox. The Blue team is left to make a shit-ton of perfect chicken stock, while the Red team hits the go-kart track. While I prop my eyelids open and try to concentrate on watching a bunch of morons attempt to squeeze into miniature stock cars, the Blue team is practicing for dinner service, and Chino annoys everyone by creating fake problems during their hypothetical rehearsal.

Potential go-kart upside: Maybe someone will run over Elise!

Later, the teams prep their kitchens and Elise starts injecting wisdom into everyone’s conversation, including sous chef Andi’s who isn’t about to tolerate even a second of lip. Andi tells Elise to shut her face and stop talking down to everyone, and since it’s Andi, Elise has to do it. It stings, too; you can see all the bitch-ass comments just fighting each other behind her teeth, each wanting to be the first spewed in Andi’s face, but Andi can deliver a smackdown if she wants, and Elise has to hold it in. Carrie and Krupa are loving every minute of it.

I would love to see a transcription of Elise’s thoughts right now…

Dinner service commences, and some Olympic medalists are brought in to dine at the chef’s tables. Gordon sends Krupa to host the Red team’s chef table, and for some reason sends Jonathon to host the blue table. This is equal parts hilarious and baffling—out of everyone on the Blue team, Jonathon is the least refined (and keep in mind we’re talking about a team that includes Will, Paul, and forehead-tattoo-Tommy), yet one of the more competent workers in the kitchen. Why would Gordon pull a strong cook with a hick accent to represent the front of the house? Maybe so we could enjoy the awesome moment when Jonathon starts inserting accidental profanity into his otherwise courteous and hospitable spiel. Man, you’ve just gotta go with it sometime. Bravo, Jonathon.

“Aw fuck, y’all, I didn’t mean to cuss at ya. Aw shee-it, ah  done did it again!”

Hilarity is alive and well in the Red kitchen, where Gordon shits all over Elise’s rubbery scallops, then literally stands next to her and demonstrates how to properly cook them. At least she gets it, unlike Tommy, who’s being yelled at for fucking up the salad dressing, while Carrie bungles the call times for the appetizers. This sparks more conflict with Elise, and we can tell the friction between the two of them is irritating the hell out of their teammates, making everything that much more stressful for everyone. This will not end well. The appetizer course went smoothly for the Blue team (for once), but as they trundle on to the main course, we hear a bunch of bleeps from Monterray, whose sea bass has fallen apart. Scott inspects it and tries to tell Monterray it broke because it was removed from the pan incorrectly, but Monterray seems unable to make the link between cause and effect, insisting that the fish just up and fell apart, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Maybe remove it from the pan correctly? Nah, that can’t be it…

Scott is screaming in his face, and Monterray starts getting irate. No one’s going to talk to him like that! As Scott’s voice gets ever louder, Monterray, displaying extremely poor judgment, starts talking back, then tells Scott “fuck you too, then!” Yikes! Even Jonathon shakes his head, opining that Monterray needs to make like a baby and head out if he can’t keep his ego in check and treat the sous chefs with respect. Jonathon may be a redneck, but he’s talking sense right about now. I mean damn, even Elise managed to keep her trap shut when faced with Andi’s wrath. Jonathon tells Monterray to man up and man his station, and they get into a shouting match until Will loses it on both of them, and we see the VIPs are cracking up at this point. At least both teams seem to be getting the hang of cooking food, finally, and none of the diners are starving to death like they have in every other dinner service on this show.

But why does Tommy always looks so guilty when the yelling starts?

I may have spoken too soon on the food success, though, because Gina has just sliced the steak before Elise was done with the fish, and it’s all very tragic and important. This, combined with the raw chicken, doesn’t bode well for Gina, and Elise may have to make the hard choice to nominate her in lieu of Carrie! The blue team is relying on Chino for the entrees, which is just bad planning all around, and Natalie is committing an exercise in futility by trying to coax a specific answer out of him. Are we not aware by this point that Chino is incapable of cooking and thinking at the same time, Natalie? Christ. And the proof is in the pudding—or, rather, the beef Wellington, which arrives in front of Gordon ice cold and rawer than Carrie’s fried chicken. Gordon calls over the entire Blue kitchen and makes them touch the meat. Elise is ready with the bass, but Gordon calls her back for some awesome verbal bitch-slapping. One bass fillet is dry, one is raw, and he asks her who she’s going to blame now besides herself. It’s time she looked in the mirror, says he, and took responsibility for her own fuck ups. A man after my own heart, that Gordon Ramsay. Too bad she was probably tuning him out.

Chino is still fucking up the entrees, serving up raw lamb and beef, and Gordon stops everyone again to demand an explanation. Since the explanation “Chino’s a total fuck-up” fails to impress, they get shut down and kicked out. Gordon gives their orders to the red team, but Gina lays down a raw lamb chop first thing, and once again the team gets called over to inspect it, after which he banishes the lot of them and has Scott and Andi finish feeding the VIPs. So neither team won, and both must nominate two for the chopping block. During deliberation, Chino blames Natalie for making him look bad on purpose, in order to sabotage the Blue team. First of all, Chino, that makes no sense. Natalie is a permanent member of the Blue team now—it’s not like her wins count for the Red team, and it’s in her best interest to help the Blue team win. Also, Chino, I’m pretty certain you require little to no help from anyone when it comes to looking like a fuck-up. Natalie is wounded that anyone would think her capable of such trickery, and she starts crying, which isn’t the best tactic when you’re trying to prove yourself able to keep up with a group of chauvinist men who didn’t want you on the team in the first place. They get all uncomfortable with her menstrual blood tears leaking on everything, and it’s all very tense, I’m sure, but we know where the real drama will be tonight.

Oh honey, just don’t.

Sure enough, despite Jamie’s attempt to head off the arguments by suggesting they vote on paper, Elise isn’t even trying to acknowledge her part in the evenings failures. She starts dragging up mistakes from past dinner services, specifically Carrie on the salad cart, which not only has nothing to do with the results of their current failure, but is sort of moot, considering they won those rounds. So I’m not sure what her point is, other than to distract everyone from that evening’s fish and scallop incidents. Carrie finally grows a set and tells Elise they’d be better off as a team if Elise wasn’t running her mouth all the time. Carrie’s not what I’d call bright, exactly, but no one is clamoring to contradict her point. Elise backtracks, calling out Carrie for the raw chicken, so Carrie asks what happened with the raw fish, and Elise starts yelling and flailing around, because god forbid someone makes her acknowledge her mistakes. Everyone else is just shaking their heads. I feel you, ladies. At long last, everyone corks it and heads to elimination, where Chino and Monterray are nominated for their subsequent fuck ups on the Blue team’s meat and fish stations. The Red team nominates Carrie because she’s the bottom player, and Gordon seems surprised. Their other nominee is Elise. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Boy, does she look pissed. I wonder if she knew it was coming, or if someone just decided to shout it out at the zero hour. They say the team feels that the arguments between her and Carrie are their biggest problem, and one of them needs to go. Gina must be glad as hell right about now, what with her dismal performance being trumped by these two and their bullshit drama. When faced with Gordon’s final questions, Monterray says he had a bad night, but when Gordon tells him he shut down, Monterray remembers what happened to Amanda’s shutting-down ass and says he doesn’t “give a fuck” what Gordon or anyone says: he didn’t shut down. Whew. The man has balls, if not many brains. Chino says he’s embarrassed by his performance, but wants to show the team what he can do.

And you were planning to start on this, when?

Carrie insists she’s better than this and is a fighter, and is willing to think as a team. Since Elise is physically incapable of letting Carrie finish a sentence, she talks out of turn and informs Gordon that the Red team would rather see Carrie head for the doo than Elise. Since Gordon is awesome, he immediately asks everyone who they’d rather see leave. With the exception of Elizabeth, every single member of the Red team shouts out the name “ELISE.” I’m dying, and Carrie is looking smug as hell. Elise starts a song and dance about how she’s better than everyone else, and the rest of them are just facepalming and sighing. You know things will cool off big time once that bag of hot air has left the building.

“But I get along with EVERYBODEEEEEEEEWHAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Unfortunately, it is not fated to be. After faking out Elise and making her cry, Gordon sends Chino on the long walk home. I think the teams expected to lose one person each, but Chino has needed to leave for about three episodes now, so whatever. He says he’s leaving with his dignity intact, and I’ll let you fine people be the judge of that, as I’ve yet to see a modicum of anything resembling dignity out of the guy. Gordon warns that the next challenges will be much more difficult, then tells everyone to fuck off. This should be a fun night in the ladies’ rooms after they roundly threw Elise to the wolves. I’m so confused–I thought she got along with everybody?!? Jennifer predicts a bloodbath, and Natalie says what any child could tell you: that no one likes Elise because she’s a bitch, but Elise doesn’t get that. Sure enough, when we hear from Elise herself, she’s yapping that no one likes a winner, and everyone is jealous and scared of her. That must be it!

Next week is more bullshit with Elise, of course, which culminates in a bitch-off with Gina. Medusa will tell it like it is, so don’t miss it!