Hell's Kitchen: Everybody's a Critic

For the second week in a row an irritating, delusional chef switch teams and exacted delusional and illogical revenge on their former team.

Jen (pictured, right) and her switch from the red team to the blue squad turned out to be the dominant storyline of the evening despite Fox desperately wanting us to believe that one of the chefs had sliced one of their hands off and that it was about to be served to a food critic. Although it was painfully obvious that Matt's finger tip was never going to be anywhere near the food critic (in fact, they happened about 40 minutes apart in TV time), I still say "Boo!" to the ad department for their pathetically misleading commercial.

Anyway, the show continued where it stopped continuing last week — with Ramsay asking for a volunteer from the women's team (Matt included) to switch over to the perennial hopeless losers (aka the men). Corey, who still thinks she's on Survivor, attempted to manipulate formerly-strong/confidence-shaken/always-annoying Jen into joining the blue team. Jen figured out Corey's plan, but still went over to the other team. Um, wha?! Jen rationalized this by saying "red was safe", but I compared it to those instances where the Coyote would figure out how the Road Runner had outsmarted him, but still ended up being blown up or falling off a cliff.

This week's challenge had each team coming up with four dishes by using the same 20 ingredients. Each team had to use all their ingredients, but were only allowed to do so once.

While the red team was instantly more organized (no fair, they had a pen!), the blue team scrambled for the same materials and ended up not communicating. In the end, General Bobby decided to ditch the veal (I probably would've done the same too), so Jen insisted that Louross incorporate it with his red snapper and make a surf and turf. With the veal cooked, Louross decided to maintain the integrity of his dish and refused to incorporate the veal into his dish. He also refused to lie (at Jen's insistence) and say his dish had been rendered in veal fat. This made for an unprecedented second week in a row where I could use the word "integrity" in a "Hell's Kitchen" recap (after Petrozza's classy move last week.)

I'm not going to lie though — if I were Louross and I realized that I'm competing in somewhat of a sham of a reality show, I would've thrown that veal on there. Still, I (unlike Jen, who would go on to curse him out, make him cry and otherwise intimidate him) respected his stance.

So, of course, it came down to Louross' "Surf and –" vs. Roseann's dish. Ramsay stamped a big ol' F for failure on the blue team and awarded the red team the challenge victory, which was the annual photo shoot. Honestly, do the women ever NOT win this reward? The biggest surprise from this week's challenge was that Ramsay didn't throw up after tasting Matt's dish.

So the women went for their reward, Corey and Roseann cleaned up surprisingly well, and Chef Ramsay took a cheap shot at Matt's weight. Good times, overall.

Meanwhile, the blue team was left behind to wash laundry by hand and be verbally abused by Jen. Say what you will about Sam the Eagle — at least he was happy and optimistic about switching teams. If Jen was going to be such a pain in the ass and have such a shitty attitude, then why did she volunteer? My favorite part, of course, was Jean-Philippe dropping by to inexplicably taunt Jen while holding a crab. (What?!)

Dinner service rolled around and Ramsay announced two important food critics no one knows were going to be in the house and judging their performance.

Both teams aced their appetizers and got off to a fast start, but, suddenly, and without warning, the red team completely forgot how to cook. Matt became unable to slice three pieces of meat that were the same size. I LOVED Matt saying "all right, everyone, let's pick it up", getting stony silence from everyone else, and adding "especially me!" Eventually, Christina took some of the pressure off him by burning the salmon, while reliably-awful Roseann came to both their rescues by running out of carrot puree and gnocchi. After Matt undercooked, then burned a few more steaks, Ramsay booted the red team out of the kitchen (though he refused to "Shut-tit-down!") and have the blue team finish up.

While the blue team completely dominated (Ramsay tried to create drama by jumping on Petrozza for slicing a steak too early), Jen's "ecstatic" reaction to the red team's misfortune was almost as annoying as Matt the Eagle's smug and openly delighted reaction to the men (and Ben) losing without him. While I definitely think the women miss Jen more than the men miss Matt, it's still irritating to watch such mediocre "chefs" celebrate such insignificant "victories" with so much gusto.

I actually feel a little embarrassed that I called Jen a front-runner earlier this season. With sexist Jason long gone, she's been the most annoying person on this show by a solid margin for a good while. If I can be a little racist for a second, I don't see how someone out of the reality show school of overbearing, crass, overly sassy/cocky big black women could EVER run one of Ramsay's restaurants. I'd barely let her run a Wendy's. It's just disappointing to see someone who actually appears to be a talented cook (though, I don't know that her dishes are "always flawless") conduct herself in such a way.

Anyway, Corey was named best of the worst and (finally, correctly) nominated Matt and Roseann for elimination. That didn't stop Ramsay from calling out Christina adding her to the chopping block. After he sent Roseann back to the line, my girl Erica and I looked at each other in disbelief. Of course, it turned out that he wanted to fake us out and (rightly) sent Roseann home to be with her daughter, run out of food and burn everything in sight. I'm not sure why he decided to torture Christina. I didn't think she was THAT bad last night. Maybe Ramsay will make her his new Ben?

So what'd you think of this episode? Do you think the red team really suffered because they lost Jen? Why hasn't Ramsay called anyone a "donkey" in a few weeks? Isn't it annoying how Corey tries to mimic Ramsay by adding "yeah" at the end of a command when she gives an order? Finally, who would you put in your final two right now? (I'd say, I'd probably trust Petrozza and Christina the most to not burn down my kitchen.)