Hell's Kitchen: Crying, Fowl

Well that was probably one of the most crowd-pleasing installments of "Hell's Kitchen" you'll ever see.

Ok, so it was more like the most crowd-pleasing final two minutes of "Hell's Kitchen" you'll ever see.

Let's hear a round of applause for Jason (pictured, right), for being such a disgusting, sexist, chauvinist pig thereby making it absolutely fantastic to watch him be humiliated throughout this hour. Actually, on second thought, let's not applaud — I don't want to encourage him. Honestly, we only saw three episode's worth of this fool, but he HAS to be in the running for worst person of 2008.

The episode picked up right where it left off last week, with the fallout from Corey's (idiotic) decision to nominate two competent people for elimination (Jen and Christina), which backfired after Chef Ramsay fired Sharon and her makeup case.

Two quick revelations came from Jen and Christina's "we're going to get Corey" routine. First off, I realized that I really hate it every time Jen talks. It just gets on my nerves. Secondly, it wasn't very encouraging to see Christina completely fall apart and become such a crying mess after being placed in the bottom two. Corey played the game, and it backfired on her? Why the waterworks? From here on out, Christina vowed revenge against Corey ignoring the fact that making the game personal is exactly what got Corey in trouble in the first place. Hm, maybe Corey's picks weren't all the bad.

Either way, the cheflings were woken up the next morning to the sounds of roosters in their bedroom. They each had to coral one (yet another thing General Bobby has never done) and bring one back to the kitchen where Ramsay would show them how to prepare one. Since I didn't believe for a second that he would behead a chicken on live TV, the segment where he teased doing that was sort of a waste of time.

Instead, he showed the contestants how to cut a chicken into eight pieces and gave each member of both teams five minutes to prepare a chicken into as many usable pieces.

After some token sexist remarks by Jason ("this ain't no dusting challenge", "hunting and butchering meat is what men do"), the contestants were off and, of course, the women handily defeated the men 44 to 24 (Ramsay stopped counting the men's pieces when it became mathematically impossible for them to win.) The men were quick to place the blame on pocket chef Craig, who took his time and only came up with two usable pieces out of eight. Methinks the men would've still lost eventually.

Nevertheless, after an amusingly childish tantrum by Matt, the men were off on a junky boss to pick peppers and throw them at Craig when he's not looking, while the women visited the Saddle Ranch in L.A. and got a surprise visit from Aaron the crying Asian cowboy from last year. As far as "celebrity guest stars" go, I'd put him on, um, is there anything lower than Z-list? Also, the Saddle Ranch is a far cry from the superyacht the men got to roll in last week.

Either way, the women (inexplicably) revealed their strategy to Ramsay during the meal. They were going to pick one guy and use their sexuality to tear the team apart one by one. The only real problem that I have with this plan is that it's completely unnecessary. I mean, have they SEEN the men? I'm convinced half the team is mentally disabled. This would be like Jon Gruden using his entire, complicated playbook to take on a pee-wee team from St. Pete.

So into the hot tub they went in their underwear. Ben was smart enough to resist, so they moved on to Jason, who was not. As if the boobs weren't enough, they also used food to draw in Jason who comically slipped on his way into the tub and stumbled in revealing all of the men's "secrets" and "weaknesses."

By the time the dinner service came around Christina had allegedly made up with Corey and Jason had forgotten all his desserts, so he was sent off to study.

The women took an early lead despite the fact that Roseann kept messing up the salad because Craig (who must've lost his chef-ing powers when Ramsay made him lose the stupid hat) struggled on his appetizers. The guy is not what we'd call a multi-tasker as he was unable to speak/listen and cook at the same time.

Meanwhile, General Bobby/Bubba had been sent tableside and was making friends with his customers and given them tiny portions of chicken as Jean Philippe looked on disapprovingly.

Eventually, Jason came back, had his own "I'm done" meltdown and quit the competition before Ramsay talked him off the ledge and got him on desserts, which he promptly messed up. On the women's side, Vanessa had her own inexplicable meltdown as she burned more than a few steaks and inevitably led to Ramsay declaring that neither team had won. He asked Petrozza and Christina to put one person up for elimination and all the chef's headed upstairs — but not before Bobby waved goodbye to his fans, leading to a comical tongue-lashing by Ramsay.

It was clear that Petrozza would nominate Craig or Jason (Ben's messing up of the salmon with his "different techniques" didn't really land him in trouble, since he's been solid otherwise), while Christina seemed locked in on nominated mortal enemy Corey. So what a pleasant surprise to see Petrozza nominate the hateable Jason and Christina do the right thing and nominate the weakest performer on her team, Vanessa. I gained a lot of respect for Christina right there (and let's face it, this show is really all about gaining my respect.)

Faced with the painfully easy choice between Vanessa or Jason, Ramsay said goodbye to Jason, who predictably got one more sexist comment in ("I wasn't gonna cry like some chick." This was good because I felt like Jason's complete lack of skills as a chef were unfairly overshadowed by what a horrible person he was.

So what'd you think of this episode? Anyone want to come to my and Erica's "Jason is Gone" party? Do you disapprove of the women's tactics this episode? Finally, can you honestly understand more than 55 percent of what Louross says?