Hell's Kitchen: Pizza Doh!

For such a routinely outrageous show that usually features more *expletives deleted* per hour than any other show on prime time network TV and one or two emotional meltdowns per week, last night's episode was sort of — boring.

I mean, last night's continuation of "Hell's Kitchen" didn't even begin (or continue) with Ramsay cursing as the chef's as they took their walk of shame to their rooms. Instead we got Ben crying about how hard Chef Ramsay is on him — this from the man who would go on to say hates people who act like "whiny little bitches."

Vanessa was also back from the hospital and told her fellow competitors that her hand would need plastic surgery. To their credit, neither her teammates nor her opponents on the blue team made any snide comments about Vanessa's injury, since the weepy woman (pictured, right) hadn't really pissed anyone off yet.

The next morning, Chef Ramsay wanted to show the contestants about turning something ordinary into something obscenely overpriced and introduced them to his $200 gourmet pizza. Nevermind the fact that it didn't look appetizing — there's just no way I would ever pay more than $25 for one pizza.

Ramsay challenged each member of each team to use a great variety of expensive ingredients to make their own fine dining pizza. Each team would then pick one pie and present it to Ramsay. The women made the controversial decision of actually talking to each other and communicating, while on the men's side, nobody seemed to want to pay attention to Matt.

Then again, given the fact that everything Matt's made this season has made someone throw up, I'm not really sure it matters. While the women quickly settled on Jen's pie, the men took longer to arrive at his decision. For some reason, Matt was offended that Ben didn't like his gag-tastic creation, Louross got offended after Ben said his pie was too "Pizza Shack" (I missed the part where Ben was put in charge), and I'm not even sure Petrozza finished his in time, so they went with Ben's creation.

When Ramsay complimented both Jen and Ben's pizza's, I thought his cruel torture of Ben might actually be over, until it was revealed that Ben didn't properly wash the mushrooms (apparently, when Ramsay orders a pizza, he tells them to hold the dirt) and the women won.

Matt, and his weird eyebrows slammed Ben and made that hilarious "I just smelled/tasted a fart" reaction shots. This guy is really stepping up in terms of comedy with his out-of-whack palate and facial expressions. He looks like Sam the eagle, from the Muppets.

At the same time, Ben, who I thought was one of the stronger male contenders, just keeps getting worse and worse. Sure, Ramsay IS definitely targeting him more than say, Petrozza, but Ben was just annoying yesterday, scolding Louross for showing emotion and crying and generally acting like a know it all. My favorite part was when he dissed Louross's Mohawk — said the man with the FAUX-hawk.

After their third consecutive lame/forgettable reward ("Ooh, a $90 slider hamburger I can get for a few bucks at White Castle"), it was almost time for the dinner service. Before that though, Vanessa had a heart to heart with Chef Ramsay and decided to quit, I mean, leave, since she couldn't perform to her full capacity. Look, I'm not going to criticize Vanessa for being weak (I would've been crying like a Louross if I'd been burned), but I can't say I'll miss her because she was mostly weepy and uninteresting. During her "emotional" exit, I found myself wondering what Chef Ramsay does in that office of his when he's not accepting resignations from weepy contestants.

Anyway, in one of the evening's more pointless subplots during dinner service Ben was picked to make pizza deliveries in a stupid looking golf cart Jean-Philippe crashed into the curb.

Although he only made one delivery, the golf cart detail was a blessing in disguise for Ben, who wasn't in the kitchen to mess up. Instead it was Matt (as usual) and Louross screwing the pooch. Fortunately, Petrozza did the most "ghettoest thing ever" to cover up Louross' burned streak, and General Bobby took over and calmed things down. When Petrozza and Bobby are your calm voice of reason, your team is in trouble.

On the women's side, the red team had taken an early lead, before Roseann had a meltdown on the vegetable station. After Jen took over, the only minor mishap was Christina having issues at the dessert station, which were cleared up by BFF Corey.

While it was nice to see each team complete a dinner service for a change, it made for an uneventful sequence of events. Honestly, it looked like the editors (and Ramsay) played up Roseann's struggles just to create drama. Ramsay was yelling at her, but he wasn't really into it.

Since no one lost, each team was to nominate one person. There was early talk of making the shocking decision to nominate the worst person from each team (Matt and Roseann) before Ben (exerting his huge inexplicable influence) convinced the team to nominate Louross. The red team (mostly Jen and Corey) decided that Christina had to go. Honestly, what's the deal with Christina? From what I've seen, she's neither brilliant nor horrible, and she doesn't really get into any major confrontations. Why does everyone want her out?

Ramsay was disappointed at the choices, but instead of flipping the script and putting the worst people on the chopping block, he disappointed me by saying no one would be leaving "Hell's Kitchen" thanks to Vanessa's departure, making for an anti-climactic ending.

So what'd you think of this episode? Is Jen getting too cocky? Which Muppet does Matt remind you of? Finally, who's the mystery chef showing up next week? (It's SO Waffle House Julia from last year, right?!)