Hell's Kitchen: Sausage Fest

This show isn’t exactly known for its sophisticated sense of humor (and neither is this column), so why don’t we start off with a quiz inspired by last night’s sausage-making team challenge:

Which sausage-related comment was your favorite?
A) “Gentlemen, clearly comfortable with your meat.” – Chef Ramsay
B) “I don’t like sausage.” Later followed by, “I officially want to let you guys know, I like sausage.” – Tennille
C) “You hold it steady and pump it slowly.” – Van correctly describing how to create a homemade sausage.
D) Ramsay stating that the perfect sausage length (for the challenge) was six inches.

(I vote for D because it was the one comment that didn’t seem forced – in fact, I don’t even think Ramsay was trying to make a joke.)

Hold on a minute, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Before the chefs got to this week’s challenge, one of the contestants unleashed, not only the dumbest quote of the season, but what may turn out to be the dumbest thing anyone says all year long.

Tennille and Suzanne (pictured, left) plain ol' don’t like each other. Tennille (and Lovely) had survived the latest elimination thanks to Ramsay deciding not to send anyone home. That did nothing to temper Tennille’s hostility toward bossy, stank-face Suzanne. She doubted Suzanne’s leadership skills (“A leader don’t get slapped in they mouth the way Suzanne is ‘bout to.”) Who knew that would end up being the second dumbest thing Tennille would say all night?

Ramsay wanted the contestants to work in pairs during the week’s challenge. (Amanda was asked to sit out, which is just as well given that this challenge involved some math.) When Tennille found out she’d be paired with Suzanne, she said “I’ve never disliked somebody that I’ve known for less than a millennium this much before in my life!” Um, WHAT? Who knew Tennille was a Highlander?! Moving on.

It actually turned out to be much ado about nothing. My negative attitude toward Suzanne (she always looks like she smelled a fart) started turning around when I saw how calmly and constructively she worked with Tennille. The women ended up winning the challenge (and an Oktoberfest reward) in a relatively easy fashion over the men, who got the most production out of the two injured guys (Kevin and Dave) and NOTHING out of Robert and Jim.

That frustration carried over to the men’s punishment. As they were cleaning the dorms, Kevin made a general remark about a bunch of executive chefs not being able to make sausages, and Robert took it VERY personally, getting in Kevin’s face and bumping him. (Though to be fair, Robert is so fat, he may not have realized he bumped Kevin.)

I hate that I just resorted to a cheap fat joke, but I’m just over Robert. I officially have absolutely no idea as to why he’s held in any kind of high regard by Ramsay or any of the other chefs. Up to this point, he’s done nothing but stink up the joint in the kitchen.

And we haven’t even gotten to his childish, overbearing, obnoxious behavior. Is this guy TRYING to give himself a heart attack by ranting and raving like an inarticulate lunatic (when Ramsay tells you to quiet down during a service, you KNOW it’s bad) and getting in people’s faces. Kevin was 100% right in stating that Robert needed to bring this intensity to the kitchen, not the dorms (although he wasn’t able to save that poor broom’s life). My best guess is that the producers think we find him a lot more interesting than we do.

Before the dinner service, Dave found out he’d need a long-arm cast that would immobilize his thumb for two weeks. Since this episode wasn’t teased to death as the “most shocking episode EVER” I figured Dave would be sticking around.

This week’s dinner service featured a delightfully random selection of C and D-list celebs like Tom Green, John O’Hurley, Drew Lachey, Kristy Swanson (original Buffy!) and Melinda Clarke. (Christopher “Kid” Reid was also there, but he’s probably on the M-list.)

In the kitchen, Ariel (who was serving as a greeter/appetizer cook) got her team off to a good start, while Jim struggled in the same role. I’m not fully convinced he struggled as much as we were lead to believe by the “Jim is too mellow” montage, but I do question how long laid-back guys like Jim and Andy can last on this show.

The answer is “not too long” if Andy keeps underperforming the way he has. Sure, hearing Ramsay call him a “first-class f--- up” was funny, but the more memorable moment was when Chef Scott called him a nitwit and got in his face. He looked like he was going to smack him with a spoon. That was SCARY. Then again, Andy doesn’t have too much to worry about if the men keep winning dinner services.

Though the women were bogged down by Tek over-salting John O’Hurley’s capellini and Lovely once again being the terrible chef that she is (she forgot orders and generally had a mental meltdown), the service came down to the wire, with the women losing because their side dish wasn’t ready on time.

Turns out Suzanne thought their side dish WAS ready and asked Ramsay for a “play-by-play.” Ramsay’s response was akin to, “You lost, f--- off” and I actually felt bad for Suzanne. I don’t think she was trying to be a pain. She genuinely thought her team had won and asked for some clarification.

Sabrina was named Best of the Worst (and was WAY too excited about it) and nominated Lovely and Tek for elimination. Before the final commercial break, Ramsay called Suzanne’s name and ended up asking for her input. She said she’d fire Lovely, Ramsay agreed, and we got our final Lovely-related joke of the season. (Ramsay remarked that if she were named after the way she cooked, “Her name wouldn’t be Lovely – it would be useless.”)

To be honest, I’m not reading as much into this as Suzanne is (she’s convinced Ramsay truly values her input). I believe if Suzanne had said Tek should go home, Ramsay would’ve eliminated Lovely anyway. To me, calling Suzanne’s name was nothing more than a ploy to create drama during the commercial break. And it almost worked.

So what’d you think of this episode? Am I being too harsh on Robert? If it’s true that the restaurant’s Hollywood location means that celebs can stop by at any time, why did they all show up on the same night? Finally, is Tennille the dumbest person on this show or the dumbest person in the world? (Here’s hoping “The Soup” picks up her classic quote.)