Sure, I lit into Chef Ramsay and the producers of this show a few weeks ago when they made the obviously ratings-driven decision to keep clueless, incompetent Matt over slow-moving, low-key Shayna (in my opinion, they could've also fired equally clueless and incompetent Roseann).Still, after a few extra weeks of Matt the Eagle, (I've just decided to combine Matt's name with his Muppet twin's) with his eyebrows and the best facial reaction shots in the business, I'm glad they kept him around. This season ceased being any sort of legitimate cooking competition long ago, and decided to be pure entertainment and Matt the Eagle (Meagle?) certainly delivers in that department. And to be honest, I'm having trouble remembering ANYTHING about Shayna at this point.
But as watchable as Matt's been — let's hope he doesn't give this show up to become a used car salesman as Corey suggested — I have to say that last night was the Louross (pictured, right) show.
After some griping by the men and Matt, Chef Ramsay introduced the remaining seven chefs to this week's challenge, which was actually pretty cool. Each team would have to create three entrees with each chef having six minutes to cook and communicate what they'd done before the next stepped in.
Since the blue team had four people to the red team's three, it was decided (by Jen) that Louross would sit out. Jen's bossiness would become a major factor in this episode, and it specifically seemed to upset Bobby and Louross. I can understand why Bobby is confused since, as a general, there's no way anyone can be ranked above him. Louross, on the other hand, wondered "if I don't have talent, why am I still here?" Personally, it'd be a close call for me between having Louross and Petrozza sit out, but I'd probably have Louross sit out too, since he's choked on the big one the last few dinner services.
Speaking of choking on the big one, that's precisely what Jen ended up doing. Louross could barely contain the smile on his face when it turned out that Jen had overcooked the eggs and undercooked the scallops on the first entrée and neglected to add the sauce she burned to the other two costing the team a victory (though, to be fair, Louross could've just been laughing at Matt's running). Jen didn't earn herself any favors with her team (or anyone in America) by saying "I'm not going to say 'I'm sorry.'" Why the hell not? Your team lost because of you!
Louross probably stopped smiling when Ramsay told the blue team they'd be cleaning up the outside of the restaurant, while the red team went to the beach. I'm not going to go as far as saying the contest was rigged (I definitely thought Jen's dry, sauceless entrees deserved to lose), but you just know the show would rather have Corey, Christina and Matt (for comedy's sake) at the beach than the likes of Bobby (ew), Petrozza (double ew!) and Jen (gagging).
That being said, the segment was disappointingly low on gratuitous bikini shots (the wet suits were the opposite of gratuitous) or Ramsay making fun of Matt's weight, as he attempted to "hang loose" on a surfboard. The best (and weirdest) part came when Ramsay picked up Jean-Philippe and tossed him in the water. Not really sure what the hell that was about, but I wish those two could just get their own sitcom ("This fall, on Fox: Gordon Ramsay and Jean-Philippe in — 'Maitre D'..'").
Back at "Hell's Kitchen", Louross, simply put, lost his damn mind. He was stumbling around with his cleaning suit over his head, while General Bobby and Jen fought for supremacy of the blue team. Honestly, if I had to choose between those two as my leader, I'd go with none of the above. Ok, if you had a gun to my head I'd go with Bobby (who looks and sounds like a slightly more functional Bubba from "Forrest Gump") over Jen because she's just awful.
Before the evening's dinner service, Ramsay tore up the menu and challenged each team to come up with its own, leading to a resurfacing of the fight for the blue team. Actually, it wasn't much of a fight as Jen dominated the proceedings and filled her menu with stuff Matt and his funky palate would've approved of (zucchini-wrapped halibut? Really Jen?) Meanwhile, the now-insane Louross let out the following quote "No one listens to the Filipino boy, so I'm not gonna waste my breath", which was good enough for my second favorite quote of the evening.
On the red side, the ladies got along so well on their menu that Matt (obviously oblivious to C & C's eyerolling) wanted to open a restaurant with his teammates. He was one step away from looking at apartments online for the three of them.
Ramsay approved of the red team's menu, and mercifully vetoed Jen's, I mean, the blue team's menu, and giving Bobby, Louross and Petrozza the chance to add more prudent dishes like salmon and filet mignon.
The red team got off to a brutal start right off the bat as Matt constantly screwed up the appetizer Christina had conceived. The fact that he may or may not have sweated into the pasta didn't make things much better. Meanwhile, though the blue team got their appetizers away, Louross just wasn't able to properly cook a filet mignon (and his exasperated acting skills didn't win over Chef Ramsay).
Matt and Louross continued to struggle. A red-faced Corey tried to motivate pouty Matt by yelling "cook like a normal person" (my favorite quote of the night!), and eventually pushed him out of the way completely in favor of efficiently running the kitchen with Christina. Louross, on the other hand, recovered too late as his customers walked out and threatened to throw a filet mignon at someone. Fortunately, Jen started messing up the dessert to pick up the slack for the blue team.
In the end, the blue team were declared the losers (again) with Petrozza (or 'Trezzie as Christina called him) being called best of the worst. He rightly nominated Jen and Louross for elimination and was, once again, put in an impossible situation when Ramsay asked him who he should let go. Petrozza (who's turned out to be a decent guy) made the right call and said Louross, so the toilet-brush topped mini-chef left Hell's Kitchen. To be fair, I think Ramsay would've fired Louross even if Petrozza had said Jen should be let go. While I won't miss his no-mance with Corey, I WILL miss the way Louross got really ghetto when he was agitated, and I loved Ramsay's narration: "He wasn't short on talent. He was just short...on talent."
When Ramsay called Matt to the firing lane and asked him and Jen to take off their jackets, I actually allowed myself to stupidly believe he was letting them go to, ala the mass firing of a whole team on "The Apprentice" a few years ago. It turned out he was just sending Matt back to the blue team (I hope he can get the deposit back for that apartment) and Jen to the blue team (I was incredibly disappointed the camera didn't cut to Jen saying her now-usual "F---").
So what'd you think of this episode? Is there any question Matt the Eagle is this season's MVP? Is there any way in hell('s kitchen) he would actually win? Would you buy a used-car from him? Finally, can anything stop a Corey/Christina final two?
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