Hell's Kitchen: And the Winner Is...

After a season’s worth of typical “Hell’s Kitchen” insanity — grisly injuries, a cook getting in Chef Ramsay’s face, and countless pulverized, under/overcooked pieces of fish — I was a little shocked at how competent our final three was.

Honestly, in my four seasons (yikes!) of watching this eminently watchable train wreck, Kevin, Ariel and Dave are as good as a final trio gets (on this show anyway).

The winner would be headed to Whistler, British Columbia to run the Araxi restaurant — and to potentially offend the rest of the world with his or her lack of knowledge about world cuisine.

At least that’s where it looked like Dave might be heading when he found out he had to create an Indian dish in 45 minutes. Each of the three finalists had to make a dish from a different country — Kevin drew Mexico, Ariel drew China — before presenting it to an esteemed chef who specializes in that cuisine. (And whose names I honestly don’t feel like looking up because they don’t matter and I’m lazy.)

Dave seemed to spend most of his allotted time trying to figure out which meat/protein would offend the Indian judge/chef least before finally settling on pork. Through the magic of editing, his late start was a non-issue and all the competitors finished on time.

Ariel bumbled her way through an intro and effectively eliminated herself from contention (that and her “watery” sauce). It really came down to Kevin and Dave, with Dave picking up the win in part due to Kevin forgetting his chocolate sauce. (Remember when he forgot the garnish during a team challenge with Tennille?)

As a reward, the three guest chefs/judges prepared a lunch for Dave, his fiancée and his sister, the latter two of whom still look a bit too much alike for my taste. (Seriously, Dave — it’s a little icky that we can’t immediately tell which one is your sister and which is your fiancée.)

The dinner service brought one of my favorite parts of “Hell’s Kitchen” — each of the three finalists getting a turn to run the pass. (Unfortunately, it didn’t bring back the segment where Ramsay acts meek and has the finalists yell at him in order to show them “leadership.”)

Kevin was up first and performed strongly. I’m a big believer that reality show contestants should at least check out a program beforehand so that they know what they’re getting into. I don’t know whether Kevin had seen “Hell’s Kitchen” before, but we at home know that Ramsay always has a little sabotage up his sleeve. In the end, it didn’t matter because Kevin passed the sneaky quality-control test with flying colors. I’m also pretty sure he was being intentionally nitpicky toward Ariel’s lambs in an attempt to rattle her.

Dave was up next and basically did a bad impersonation of Ramsay, throwing stuff and kicking a garbage can. Unfortunately, he failed his first two quality-control tests before finally settling into a groove. Though he may have been overly forceful, he did a nice job of getting results. (And I love how the slightly-menacing Chef Scott can only take so much abuse: “Watch it.”)

Ariel was up third, failed her first quality-control test (it all looks like mashed potatoes to me too) before passing her second one, and had a hell of a time managing Kevin. As I mentioned before, I’m pretty sure Kevin was intentionally trying to rattle Ariel here by cooking and working slowly (we ALL know he’s better than that). I think that Kevin believed he’d have an easier time beating the one-armed bandit in the finals. Whether that was Kevin’s plan or not, he got what he apparently wanted as Ariel received the boot at the end of the first hour (and got to keep her jacket).

Kevin and Dave were unnecessarily asked to change clothes, ride a glass elevator that probably would’ve made me dizzy (at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel) and meet Ramsay at a rooftop. There, he presented their challenge: create a dish worthy of the Araxi restaurant in 45 minutes.

It was Kevin’s lobster vs. Dave’s venison as a curiously enthusiastic crowd cheered them on. (Honestly, who the hell WERE those people?) This being “Hell’s Kitchen”, the challenge came down to the final judge whose name I won’t bother looking up because none of us care. In the end, it was Dave making it 2-for2 in challenge wins for the evening. (This probably should’ve given me a hint as to who was going to win.)

He earned first pick among six returning contestants for the final dinner service. For the record, the teams ended up being Dave, Ariel, Robert and Suzanne (good call picking Suzanne — she’s hateable, but a solid cook) vs. Kevin, Van, Amanda and Sabrina. However, all I could think the entire time was “where the hell is Tennille?”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think she’s an amazing chef or anything, but I was mildly shocked that the show missed out on a chance to bring the season’s preeminent quote machine back one last time. In fact, when Amanda consistently screwed everything up in Kevin’s kitchen (the scallops, the risotto, the customer’s orders after Kevin kicked her out and made her a waitress — ok, that last one didn’t happen) I fully expected Tennille to show up, yell “Get off my station, PLEASE!” and take over.

Alas, no Tennille at all. Instead we were left with Kevin angrily yelling at his team (except for Van, who was a rock star) before eventually figuring out that a calmer approach may be more effective.

Over on the blue side, Dave took a mellower approach than he did when he ran the pass in the previous hour and it looked better on him because he’s just a mellow dude. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think Robert messing with him was funny, but other than that Dave was an effective, confident leader.

And that ended up being the reason Ramsay chose him as the winner. Coming into the finale, I figured a Dave victory would be a result of reality show producers not being able to resist an irresistible angle (chef overcomes debilitating injury). However, Dave went out and pretty much dominated over the last two hours of the finale and beat two strong competitors (Kevin, especially, was a favorite from day one in his own mind and in reality) to earn the win.

After an unnecessarily sensationalistic premiere and first few episodes, this turned out to be a surprisingly engaging and strong season of “Hell’s Kitchen.” I’m looking forward for the show’s return in the summer. How about you?

So what’d you think of this episode? Did you enjoy the outtakes at the very end? (I think they should show outtakes at the end of every episode, but they won’t because that would only remind us how phony a lot of this show is.) Did you miss not having the chefs design their own sides of the restaurant? (I’m guessing they took that part out after Danny won last season with such a tacky design job — or maybe they didn’t think two dudes would care what their faux-restaurant looked like.) Did Ramsay make the right decision? Finally, I really need an answer — where the hell was Tennille?!