Last Week: There was yelling, a bunch of inept people fucked up in the kitchen, Ramsay reamed some people out and JP sneered at the world.

There, there’s every episode of Hell’s Kitchen ever aired.

Last week for real: Redneck did well in every challenge. Martyr Ben creeped me out with his martyr-y devotion to YELLING EVERYTHING AS LOUDLY AS POSSIBLE; also he may have sabotaged his team with his butchered butchering, behavior unbecoming to a martyr. Although the men won some woman named Carol got the ax, saving Andrea, AKA Shiv, from actually having to cut a bitch. What will happen this week, other than the obvious? Let’s find out together, shall we?

9:04: One member of each team has to pick the weakest link.  Paula picks Shiv – a ballsy move. Sleep with one eye open, Paula.

The blue team picks Martyr Ben. “Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.”*  If he’d had liquid in his mouth, he’d have done a spit take.   You’re both going…

*He didn’t actually say this, I just REALLY wanted him to.

9:05: Psych! Nowhere.

9:07: Challenge: Everyone has the same 14 ingredients.  They have to make a dish using every single one.  So now the show has turned into Chopped, except without processed cheese.  Winner gets to go to San Francisco with Gordo.

Martyr B is on a fucking crusade to win.  Death to the infidels.

9:09: Someone’s got chicken on rosemary skewers.  They’re amateurish!  They could mean the end!  They’re controversial!  And then they’re not.

I’m waiting for the Donkey bomb to drop.  This show becomes remarkably less interesting when there are no donkey bombs.

Martyr B, obviously, thinks his dish is superior.  Man, he’s a yapper.  Also a grunter.  Also an incredible irritant. But he gets called out as one of the top dishes, along with Redneck.  I’d tell you the details of what they made but really, do we care?

9:11: Okay, some of the food is apparently good, and Ramsay’s getting a little blue.  Is he actually getting physically turned on by the food?  “It’s so moist.”  “It’s really hard….oh, it’s so hard.”  I’m feeling a little uncomfortable.

9:15: Martyr B takes it.  He gets to take a friend to SF and picks Fat Guy.  Let’s hope the show’s made appropriate provisions for the plane trip, so he doesn’t get the segway shaft like last episode.

Okay, he’s STILL GRUNTING.  We get it.  You are a RAGING BULL.  You will massacre the Saracens. Now shut up.

Hey, there’s some other dude on this show!  He’s on the womens’ team!  He’s like the Top Chef Melissa of Hell’s Kitchen.  “Oh, that guy’s still here?”  Thus he is officially dubbed That Guy, because I somehow watched and blogged all of episode 9 without EVER realizing he was on the show.

9:17: Fatty cannot express his gratitude for Martyr B.  He loves him, although to clarify, there he has no “gay feelings.” But he does love him. In a totally platonic way, except for the wanting to have sex.

Everyone else is stuck back at the ranch, unloading food from a constant stream of semis.

9:19:  Apparently That Guy’s name is Giovanni.  He’s a whiner, so he’ll always be That Guy to me.

Fatty and Martyr B are out to dinner with the chef.  They’re at a magical place called the “Fisherman’s Wharf” that somehow they’ve never heard of despite nominally being food service professionals, one of whom is a classically trained chef.

I’m realizing that I understand virtually nothing that Fatty says, although I’m fairly sure it’s English.

9:21:  The losers are unloading truck 796 and trying to keep track of all the food.  They’re been shorted two lobsters, or Redneck forgot the two lobsters, or the lobsters have learned to walk upright and have blended into the contestant pool.  Whichever way, it’s a problem.  There is running.  There is yelling.

This is officially the most pathetic commercial cliffhanger ever.  WHERE ARE THE LOBSTERS?  DEAR GOD, THINK OF THE LOBSTER.

9:25: Aaaaand, they  had the lobsters all along. Thank god, now my blood pressure can come back down. I was about to reach for the nitro pills.

That Guy refuses to run or lift things or physically exert himself in anyway.  He is TOO OLD for this shit.  At 37.  Shut up, that guy.

9:27:  Everyone’s on one team now.  Ben’s winning dish gets added to the menu.  Ramsay declares that this service will be the best one Hell’s Kitchen has ever seen.  With all due respect, I must state that I strongly doubt his powers of clairvoyance.

9:28: JP opens the restaurant.  He’s only on the screen for 3 seconds, and yet I feel a chill.

I fucking love him.

That Guy is dragging ass.  I mean, you can’t really blame him.  He IS 37, and he had to spend the whole day considering engaging in physical activity, which is tiring in itself when you’re that age. I mean, 37 – That’s one foot in the grave.

He can’t summon the energy to properly cook the chicken, which is still running blood..  Ramsay: “I CAN’T EAT BLOOD.”  To which I say: We are chefs of action.  Lies do not become us. You totally can.

9:30: Somehow, Shiv is fucking up the garnish station.  I mean, I’ve never worked in a restaurant kitchen, so someone who has, enlighten me: How do you fuck up garnish?  “The parsley goes on the LEFT side of the plate, you fucking donkey! THE LEFT!!”*

*Again, this was not said, I just dreamt it.

9:32: Shiv gets kicked out of the kitchen.  The Hell’s Kitchen “patrons” openly mock her as she walks by.  Do you think JP gets a giant hard-on when that happens?  I bet he does.

9:35:  Commercials.  Can someone explain Sara Jessica Parker to me?  She’s not a very good actress,  her face has a marked hose-like quality and she dresses like someone’s senile grandma let loose in a costume shop.

9:36:  JP gives Shiv a “pep talk” and tells her she needs to calm down and go back to the kitchen with renewed strength.  Is this going to work, or is he setting her up?  Fingers crossed for number 2.

Meanwhile, Fatty’s put bacon in the wrong dish. He knows he’s wrong but still thinks he is a bull.  Which could very well be true but says nothing about his ability to cook, which is questionable.

9:38: That Guy gets the first Donkey of the night. Score!  There was almost a head butt too, but sadly, it didn’t happen.

9:41: The Donkeying seems to have destroyed That Guy’s delicate spirit, because he’s speaking in tongues.  Or he’s physically breaking down before our eyes, which is entirely possible.  He is 37.  How much longer can he haul those old bones around?

Fatty’s burned his hand.  And it’s time to go to commercial, as everyone hurries to find out what’s happened.  Will it be okay?  Or will it have magically healed during these 120 seconds, or have never been burned at all?

It’s hard to care.  This show cries wolf too many times.  Also I don’t like Fatty.

9:44: This show is just not as much fun as Top Chef, and that’s all there is to it.

9:47: You know, even the narrator kind of sucks.

Okay, Fatty is actually burned, because That Guy put a 500 degree pan in the kitchen and who expects to find that?  That Guy is sorry but, “it’s not like I told him to grab the pan.”  FAIL, That Guy. FAIL.  To his credit, Fatty does get right back in the kitchen.  So again, anticlimactic.

Service ends up a total disaster, and not the dream night he’d been envisioning.  Because apparently, he’s never seen his own show, so he doesn’t know what happens EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

9:48: Paula sucks less than everyone else, so she gets to pick two people to throw under the bus.

I think That Guy might actually be a little touched in the head, to put it kindly.  Or it’s the dementia kicking in.  You can only head that off for so long; once you hit your late thirties you’re lucky if you can put your pants on the right way.

9:50: On the chopping block: Andrea and That Guy.  Andrea has “communication problems.”  That Guy has “idiocy problems.”

9:51:  Dramatic montage of suck.

The person leaving is…commercial!  The way this is going, it will probably everyone.  In the version I’m watching in my mind, it’s everyone, and then we start all over again with an entirely new group of people and a better show.  But we keep JP.

9:54: Commercial:  News at 10 – is Bruce Springsteen a homewrecker?

If you’re going to start talking shit about Bruce, you better have the evidence to back that up or there will be TROUBLE.  Caused by me, and the rest of New Jersey.  We’re waiting, Fox 5.

9:55:  The Boot:  That Guy.  He’s had a great experience.  He’s learned a lot.  It’s too bad he’ll be dead soon, so he won’t get to put any of it to use.

9:57: The contestants are bitching and moaning about how it seems like can never get anything right.  Because they also have never seen the show before.  Where is the nurturing they were lead to expect?

2:15am – Everyone gets called back to the kitchen.

9:58: Chef’s been thinking: how can the final 6 be so terrible?  Just a guess, but maybe because you started with a group of terrible chefs?  Just an idea.  So he’s doing something UNPRECEDENTED: Hell’s Kitchen is shutting down.

You know, until next week, it will open again.

NEXT WEEK:  A final challenge.  Martyr B repeatedly slamming his head into a metal locker, which may actually have a net positive effect for him.  Someone is whisked to the hospital, someone else is hoarding the micro basil.  THE GALL.  It will be THE MOST UNPREDICTABLE EPISODE YET, aka, completely predictable.

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