Hell's Kitchen: Bloody "Hell"

If I were Van, I'd consider asking the producers if I could wear a suit of armor.

Between Kevin’s ankles, Dave’s hand, and Robert’s trip to the hospital, the men had already been decimated by health-related issues BEFORE last night’s nasty-looking accident left Van as the only unscathed blue team member remaining in this season of “Hell’s Kitchen.”

But we’ll get to that later.

The continuation of “Hell’s Kitchen” found Suzanne overcompensating for the fact that she’s not a team player and no one likes her. I already talked about this last week, so I’ll just quickly summarize. I don’t believe Suzanne is purposefully trying to make her teammates look bad, I just think she’s completely oblivious to the feelings of others. Even when she was “sincerely” apologizing, it came off as slightly phony because you got the feeling that she didn’t really understand what she was apologizing for. Oh well.

This week, Ramsay decided the theme of the week would be French cuisine, an essential element for any respectable. That’s why the blank stares and overwhelming incompetence during the crepe making challenge was very discouraging.

Each team had to create a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert crepe. After watching Ramsay easily whip up a crepe during his demo (and toss off a quick French convo with Jean-Philippe) it seemed like this thing would be a snap. If we were to believe the way the show was edited, it was actually a minor miracle that anything got done. The chefs had 20 minutes to complete the challenge, but, according to the unseen narrator, no one was done with any of their crepes with only five minutes remaining.

Of course, everything got done and the challenge came down to the wire. Ariel’s breakfast crepe beat Van’s spongy contraption (for a second I thought guest judge Jean-Philippe might sabotage Van as a way of getting revenge for their week 1 faceoff). Andy’s lunch crepe beat Tennille’s overly spicy one. Suzanne and Kevin tied on the dinner crepe. Once Suzanne was done with her flowery description (“You sautéed some meat and onions and put it on a crepe – SAY THAT” – Tennille) the challenge came down to Sabrina vs. Dave.

Dave’s dessert crepe was so tragic, it deserves its own paragraph. I didn’t even know what I was looking at until Ramsay summed it up perfectly – it looked like “a plate of diarrhea.” Needless to say Sabrina’s pear and chocolate crepe won, leading me to wonder exactly how bad Sabrina’s dessert crepe would have to have been for the men to win.

As a result, the women earned a lunch at a fine French restaurant and (in a landslide for the “WTF Award”) a miming tutorial in which Sabrina got to fake beat up Suzanne.

The men had to stay behind, prep and scarf down cow tongue and head cheese. Dave looked like he was going to be sick, while Andy happily cut slices of head cheese for himself and scarfed them down. (Why was I not surprised Andy actually liked this stuff?)

Right before the dinner service, Andy suffered what looked like a nasty wound on three of his fingers. Though there wasn’t any blood on the potato grater or anything, the wound looked bad enough on its own and Andy had to go and get stitches.

He returned in time for the dinner service – which featured French cuisine – but was out of it the entire time. He struggled at the crepe station, struggled with his risotto and even had trouble making a salad. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that he was on some sort of painkillers, but Andy has been so consistently incompetent that I really can’t tell. Either way, he was eventually tossed from the kitchen by an irate Ramsay.

Fortunately for the blue team, Kevin and, ESPECIALLY, Dave stepped up to the plate, with Dave running around the kitchen and doing everything short of serving the food to the customers. This prompted Ramsay to tell Dave that he was a much better cook with one hand, and prompted me to maybe reconsider my preordained Kevin/Ariel finale.

Over in the red kitchen, Suzanne was brutally bad. She was out of synch with her teammates in terms of how long it would take her meat to be ready, and sliced her lamb too early when she wasn’t under or overcooking it. Sabrina’s struggles seemed to stem from the fact that her’s and Ramsay’s palates are just out of synch. What’s salty to her is bland to him. Eventually, these two got the Andy treatment and were kicked out of the kitchen, leaving Tennille and Ariel (and sous chef Heather) to finish.

No winner was declared and both teams had to come up with two consensus nominees, eventually settling on Andy and Suzanne. Even if I liked Suzanne, this was the right choice based on last night’s service. Ramsay tried to create some drama, but eventually sent Andy home.

I know he didn’t get the time to adjust to his injury the way Dave did (if you remember Dave wasn’t in the kitchen during the first service following his injury), but it was Andy’s time to go. He just wasn’t very good.

However, Ramsay wasn’t done. He had one more trick up his sleeve, and sent Suzanne to the blue team. Now, I’m sure the red team is happy to be rid of Suzanne, but I’d caution them not to get overly complacent. Last season, the red team got too happy when they dumped the reviled Lacey and promptly lost the following dinner service.

So what’d you think of this episode? Do you mind the “Fear Factor”-like punishment for the guys? (After having to prep the kitchen, it seems like overkill to me.) How will Suzanne fare on the blue team? Finally, do you think Dave can crash the Kevin/Ariel finale?