Hell's Kitchen: King Crabby

I think Ben and I were MUCH more surprised by tonight’s outcome than the person who actually got eliminated.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I thought Carol was safe because she’s an amazing chef. I just thought the show wasn’t quite done squeezing every last drop out of the tired Andrea/Carol blood feud. Ben, on the other hand, looked shocked because he knew he should’ve been the one to go. (At least I THINK he knew he should’ve been the one to go — there appears to be this weird disconnect between reality and what Ben perceives in his brain.)

Before we get to that, the continuation of this “Hell’s Kitchen” recap found Andrea and Carol in each other’s faces again. Andrea was annoyed that Carol threw her under the boss during the previous elimination. Carol tried to explain, but kept getting cut off by mouthy Andrea. As Giovanni futilely tried to play peacemaker, Andrea and Carol finally came to the agreement that they simply drive each other (and us) up a wall.

For the week’s challenge, the chef’s were asked to name as many chicken dishes as they could before being introduced to the ingredient du jour — king crab! (Tricky Ramsay.) It’s ok for me to be grossed out by the king crab because I’ve never been near one (and because it’s GROSS), but hearing someone like Andrea (who allegedly does this for a living) say she’s never worked with one before and act squeamish is slightly more discouraging.

The challenge was for each team member to create a dish using the king crab. Both teams would then select their best dish for a head-to-head taste-off against the other squad. The chefs had 45 minutes to cook and after Paula foolishly (but politely) asked Chef Ramsay to get her a chinois — no surprise, he responded with a “F--- off” — the blue team had selected Ben’s simple king crab and asparagus, while the red team had picked Andrea’s hot mess of a dish.

This is actually a perfect example of why I’m on Team Andrea. Andrea believes in what she does, and pushes for what she believes in (even when that belief is misguided). In contrast, Carol knew perfectly well that Andrea’s dish wasn’t good enough to win (she articulated to the camera that Ramsay would complain about the shell/cigarette holder), but instead of stepping up and saying something to help her team, she’s merely content to lie in the grass (like a snake) and let her nemesis hang herself — even if it leads to the ENTIRE team having to do stinky-ass laundry.

And that’s exactly what happened. Both Ben and Andrea’s dishes were deemed equally substandard, though I thought Ben’s meal would still be a clear winner over Andrea’s train wreck. However, since every challenge has to be unnaturally close, Ramsay dismissed the first two dishes and had Danny and Paula square off against each other instead. Unlike last week, Danny emerged victorious over Paula head-to-head and the women were stuck prepping all the crab and completely cleaning up both teams’ suites (that must’ve been a LOT of cigarette butts).

When I heard the men’s reward was going to the beach, I dreaded seeing Ben and Not Bobby in swimwear. Fortunately, (mercifully!) the beach outing amounted to a bunch of Segway related goofiness, featuring Chef Ramsay spectacularly crashing his on the sand. It was fun for everyone except Not Bobby, who couldn’t ride on a Segway because he exceeded the weight limit. Robert had to roll on a comically oversized bike with sissy bars. For some reason, I still found this considerably less humiliating than the time they made him ride a ferry only to have him arrive at the tail end of a reward and force him to turn back around.

Back in “Hell’s Kitchen”, it was time for the dinner service. Ramsay gave the chefs the opportunity to come up with their own menu, but both teams settled on a caspaccio appetizer, steak and fish entrees and a potato as a side. Danny (rightfully) mocked Ben’s pompousness in presenting his overly complicated potato dish and since Ben doesn’t apparently know what it really is, I’m not going to bother looking up how it’s spelled. (Sorry.) A little bit of Carol-itis struck the blue team as neither Danny nor Not Bobby believed in Ben’s vision, but each agreed in the end — probably to watch sweaty Ben fail.

The dinner service started out with bland appetizers from the red kitchen (courtesy of Giovanni) and overly salty ones (courtesy of Ben and, unofficially, the sweat dripping into the caspaccio) from the blue side. When Gio gave out his second bland caspaccio, an actress, I mean an “angry customer” approached the kitchen and whistled at Chef Ramsay to get his attention. This allowed Ramsay to respond, “Don’t whistle at me like I’m a dog — you look more like a dog than I do. F--- off.” Was this funny? Yes. Was this “customer” more obviously a paid actor than the gay party planner they cast as Jean-Philippe’s nemesis? Not quite, but still an actor.

Things didn’t improve for Ben as Not Bobby got annoyed at him for cutting up inconsistent pieces of filet mignon during prep. Ramsay and Not Bobby cried sabotage. Meanwhile, I’m off the belief that Ben didn’t MEAN to cut the pieces up unevenly — he’s just incompetent. (You can decide if that’s better or worse.) Ben and Not Bobby also clashed over desserts, and there was talk of being “in the weeds” and burning like “napalm.” These two have watched “Apocalypse Now” and “Platoon” one too many times.

The read team was doing slightly better — except for Carol. Besides botching the meat station again (meat station = you’re done), she incorrectly assumed she could cook her potato gratin dinner service when, in reality, they had to have been prepared hours before. Since there was no way for her to blame Andrea for this (and Ramsay called her out on it) Carol went down in flames quickly.

Still, the red team somehow picked up the victory and Danny was asked to nominate someone for elimination. Danny rightly picked Ben, but Ramsay called Ben and Not Bobby forward. The two chefs defended themselves vigorously, and Ramsay made his decision to get rid of the person who’d quit on the competition — Carol(?!)

If Carol had been REALLY surprised about her ouster, she might’ve thrown up her hands, bugged her eyes out or tried to cry bloody murder when Ramsay picked her. Instead, she gave the equivalent of a shoulder shrug, confirming Ramsay’s belief that she’d kind of checked out of competition. Oh well. I’d like to say that I’ll miss her headband and paranoia, but I probably won’t.

So what’d you think of this episode? Would you have taken Ramsay for a Segway guy? Did Carol deserve to go? Could Ben be any more delusional? Finally, how stupid do I look for saying that Danny had NO CHANCE to win this thing after the first episode based solely on how he looks? (Do I even know the meaning of “can’t judge a book by its cover”?