Hell's Kitchen: A Perfect Tennille

It was Tennille’s world and we were all just living in it.

The first half of Tuesday night’s two-hour extravaganza was dominated by classic Tennille moments. The way she talks may still be annoying, but the outrageous stuff she says makes up for it.

Here are some of the highlights: “I don’t know what half this s--- is! Whatever I put on a plate is going to taste good!” This came after she presented venison as lamb (more on this later). She went on to misidentify goats as sheep, said “You British bastard, calm down for a second” during dinner service (they all must be thinking that). My personal favorite was a throwaway moment when Sabrina criticized her menu contribution: “Go f--- yourself, you don’t like my Asian salad.” (I’m going to try and work this one into everyday conversation.)

The latter hour was even more impressive for Tennille as she displayed impressive cooking skills (the best Ramsay has seen anyone cook meat in HK) and (gasp!) integrity.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Maybe it’s because the show hasn’t been on for two weeks, but the early continuation of “Hell’s Kitchen” seemed overly harsh to me.

I’m talking about the rough, expletive-filled reception the men (led by Kevin) gave new blue team member Suzanne. (Then again, every conversation on “Hell’s Kitchen” is expletive-filled, so maybe it was business as usual.) I mean, we all knew Suzanne (to put it mildly) wasn’t well-regarded by the red team (that was an actual happy dance from Tennille), but I hadn’t realized the blue team was also privy to her soul-sucking, me-first attitude.

Still, it seemed kinda harsh. (Especially given how quiet and cooperative she turned out to be with her new teammates this week.) Then, of course, I watched the second episode, and I remembered why Suzanne is so hateable.

This week’s challenge: cook three entrées using 15 ingredients native to Whistler, British Columbia without using any of them more than once before Ramsay “returned” from Canada. (How do we know he wasn’t really hanging out in his office doing a Sudoku puzzle and the Whistler segment wasn’t pre-taped?)

The blue team seemed to settle on their dishes quickly, while Ariel and Tennille seemed perfectly content to entirely ignore Sabrina, probably due to her recent poor performances. Sabrina’s brilliant revenge was to her teammates (and her team – and HERSELF) go down by not correcting them when they both thought the venison was lamb.

I WILL give Sabrina credit. Her brilliant plan to sabotage her team (and herself) worked perfectly. Watching Tennille stumble to explain away her dish was painful, even if she still scored the two points from guest judges/Olympians Sasha (Not Baron) Cohen and a surprisingly prickly Jonny Moseley. Before that Kevin had taken two points in his faceoff against Ariel (possible finale preview?) so it all came down to Van vs. Sabrina.

Despite the fact that Van blanked out during his presentation (Sabrina helped him get going, but she wouldn’t help her own team win?!), the men won and earned the right to eat some high-end grilled cheese sandwiches. The women had to stay and work on a farm, leading to a surprisingly restrained segment dealing with manure and the revelation of Ariel’s phobia of pigs.

For the dinner service, both teams would create original menus. Once again, the blue team worked together like gangbusters, while the women struggled. This time it was Tennille who couldn’t seem to get any of her suggestions included (to be fair, I wouldn’t want to eat a “decomposed” anything either), but somehow it was Sabrina who ended up not having much on the menu.

Ariel struggled for the red team by constantly undercooking her pork. Ramsay chided her for not being pissed off, but I actually admired her low-key reaction. (“I’m not going to lose my s--- on the line.”) On the blue side, Van struggled with scallops and math before moving on to butchering the halibut (despite constantly saying that fish was his specialty). Eventually, Sabrina couldn’t cook halibut in the red kitchen either, Dave had a mini-scare with his injured wrist, and Chef Ramsay pounded one of Van’s halibut’s with his hands, making it explode all over Kevin and Dave. You can probably guess the kitchen was shut down shortly thereafter.

Ramsay asked for two nominees and Van tried to get his blue teammates to put new girl Suzanne on the chopping block. It didn’t work and he wound up there with Sabrina, who was sent home after barely avoiding elimination several times. It was nice to see Van passionately defend himself because it looked like he had mentally checked out of the competition. I also enjoyed seeing the episode 1 shots of a ridiculously dolled up Sabrina (just, why?) in contrast with the weary chef leaving HK that night.

Episode II began with the arrival of the white and black coats symbolizing the merging of the two teams. We also got, what I think is, one of the more creative and challenging, um, challenges in HK – Taste it and make it.

The chefs had to recreate the four main components (entrée, garnish, puree and sauce) in one of Ramsay’s dish simply by tasting a sample (or performing an “autopsy on the plate,” as Dave beautifully put it). The chefs were split in teams of two and it seemed like pretty much everyone (or at least Tennille) wanted to be partnered with Kevin (confirming his overwhelming front-runner status). The teams ended up being Ariel and Van, Tennille and Kevin, and Suzanne and Dave.

Every team guessed the right fish and garnish (unfortunately, Kevin forgot to actually include the calamari, eliminating his team). It came down to Suzanne and Dave, and Ariel and Van (even if Van had dropped his fish right before it was to be served and had to cook a replacement quickly – I thought he was supposed to be good with fish). Dave ended up getting the victory for he and Suzanne by guessing that the citrus sauce was made with passion fruit, but it seemed like Suzanne enjoyed taking a little too much of the credit. Their reward was a meal with season 4 winner Christina, who got her brain picked by Suzanne who may or may not have had a girl-crush on her. (“Christina and I are very similar.” The key difference is that Christina was likable.

It was couple’s night during the dinner service. Really, it was just another excuse to get Kevin out of the kitchen (he was handling tableside orders in the dining room) and watching the rest of these fools flounder.

Suzanne messed up the tortellini count. Van tried to pre-sear the sea bass and he was sweating in the food. (Ooh, salty.) Tennille took charge (Ramsay said it was “the person I least expected” – backhanded compliment alert!). However, Van still couldn’t get his stuff straight, and when everyone was watching Ramsay have a mini-meltdown, Ariel accidentally burned lettuce to a crisp in a pan (Ewww). Ramsay had enough and walked out.

The rest of the team seemed to rally and got back to work - well, everyone except for Susan, who was wary of some sort of mind game and didn’t want to “sign off” on any dish without Ramsay around. At least she’s consistent – even when Ramsay’s not around she’s all about covering her own ass.

When Ramsay returned, he sent Van, Ariel and Suzanne upstairs, leaving Kevin, Dave and Tennille to finish the service and nominate to chefs for elimination. Everyone agreed on Suzanne, but Dave unveiled a ruthless and sneaky side under the aw-shucks drawl by suggesting (and convincing) his buddies to put Ariel on the chopping block.

That is until Ramsay asked Tennille what she really thought and she just couldn’t go through with throwing her teammate and the more talented chef under the bus.

There were many reasons for Tennille to tell the truth. Tennille seems to believe in her own skills and she probably thinks she can beat Ariel straight on (even if she probably can’t). There’s also the fact that, knowing the history of this show, Ramsay would’ve probably called Van forward and kicked him out regardless of who was nominated. In the end, I simply think Tennille told the truth because it was the right thing to do.

On the other side, Dave lost some points with me by getting pissed at Tennille for “blindsiding” him by not going along with his devious and unfair scheme.

In the end, the show pulled off a nice fakeout by playing the elimination music when Ramsay called Ariel’s name and she stepped forward. However, Van ended up being the one sent home. Let’s be honest here: he was never going to be the head chef at the Araxi, and he WAS kind of a “dumbo” (in Ramsay’s words), but he gave us more than his fair share of entertaining moments.

So what’d you think of this episode? Was Ramsay cold or just being his usual excitable/jumpy self when he filmed that segment in Canada? Wasn’t it a little odd when Ramsay scolded the men for laughing at the women’s misfortune during the first hour? (Since when does he discourage immature behavior?) Where did Ramsay and Chef Scott go when they walked out? Finally, with Ariel now shaky, do you see Dave or (WOW) Tennille joining Kevin in the finals?