Hell's Kitchen 6/5/12--"17 Chefs Compete" summary

I’m not sure why Fox likes to air these episodes over two days. Why not just make two hours of “Hell’s Kitchen” one night and then two hours of “MasterChef” the other night? Anyway, people failed at cooking, cursing was rampant, “customers” were not fed. Tavon was sent home for generally being unhelpful. (click for more) 

The announcer reminds us what happened yesterday, in hushed excited tones like he’s working a golf tournament. Only louder. Everything is terribly important and dramatic. Royce smokes and brags about himself in confessional. Brian knows his team is jacked up and needs to get it together. 

Early wake-up time! Aww, it’s like, 6:18. It’s light out, FFS. I do enjoy this part though. This year we have some “rappers” and mikes and an amp. “Wake the funk up!” Hee. Scott has armed himself with a rolling pin, I guess in case someone is not woken up by the lights and the noise. Seriously, you guys, not only does this happen every season, but it’s always the same episode. Come on. And every season, it’s hilarious to me. I’m a bad person. Ramsey makes them stand in the parking lot so he can berate them for sucking last night. He calls out Roshni for the scallops, because Tavon is the one who screwed the men’s team and he’s not here. The truck that’s randomly there pulls away to reveal two huge piles of ice. There are 125 scallops in each pile. First team to find all of them gets…something. Yelled at less, I guess. 

See, the other great part of this show is how the piles of ice also contain long strings of kelp, for absolutely no reason. None. Someone was like “Scallops…ocean…kelp! We can get some kelp, right? Get an intern on that.” I guess the scallops are in shells still, because all of a sudden Royce is standing up straight and blood is streaming down his face. He says someone hit him in the face with a scallop. Why didn’t the camera catch that? I think whoever was standing next to him was just flinging stuff around and Royce got unlucky. Guy gloats and says this is karma for Royce throwing him under the bus yesterday. Barbie kind of stands around. The guys win, somehow. He tells both teams to take their scallops to the kitchen and get dressed.
Once everyone is fully awake, Ramsey reveals the real challenge: shuck, clean, and cook as many orders of scallops as your team can. Ramsey demonstrates how to open and shuck scallops, and clean them too. There is a demo plate of scallops, and Ramsey is going to even be picky about how the flat side of the scallop should be pointed in toward the salad. I am going to guess that won’t really come up. Unless they need a tie. First team to get 6 dishes done wins. Work in pairs.

The women take time and are perfectionists, while the men try to make dishes as fast as possible. Clemenza and partner are the first ones up, but they haven’t put the flat side into the center so they have to start over. Barbie and Tiffany have a successful dish. Boys have one large scallop and one small. Women get another point. Boys screw up cutting. I sense a theme. Soon it is 5 to 0 in favor of the women. The announcer says the men will need a miracle…but will have to settle for Guy and Royce. Heh. They actually manage to get a point, so good for them, I guess. Somehow magically the men bring up another plate for a second point, and suddenly the women start failing. Seriously? OK, they only fail once before Tiffany and Barbie come back up. And then we go to commercial, so they’ll be fine. And they are. Barbie is very proud of herself because half the dishes were hers. Brian is embarrassed. Women get to go with Ramsey on a yacht to some island off Catalina. Men have to clean all the crap outside from this morning, and shell and devein some prawns. 

Patrick thinks other people are not pulling their weight. The men throw chunks of ice at the girl’s car as they leave. Everyone hangs out on the yacht. Robyn mentions her fiancée for some reason and Barbie thinks she should shut up and pick Ramsey’s brain. Meanwhile Scott says something about wasting food, takes all the reject scallops, and purees them to make shakes. I love this show. The guys chug them and no one vomits, so I guess that’s something. Royce and Brian get pissy, I guess because Brian wants to make a joke and Royce is offended? Royce contributed to them losing yesterday. Probably you want to shut up and fly under the radar for a few days. The women zipline, only Roshni is so tiny she gets stuck in the middle of the line. Everyone laughs at her while she says “OH MY GOD” a bunch of times.

Right before dinner service, the men seem to have agreed to work together and not hate each other. Barbie and Robyn get in a bitchy argument about tape or something. Robyn asks if Barbie has enough to share, and Barbie says “Not really, but here”, which is just unnecessary. Not that I’ve never done that, but it’s pretty bitchy. Robyn rants and they have a stupid argument, and then Robyn interviews that Barbie is lucky they’re not in “the hood” right now. Except when she crosses her arms in confessional she’s looking up to the corner of the room and she looks like she’s about to cry. Not…really menacing. 

Ramsey tells them it’s about pride and redemption. Also there is a tableside service of shrimp scampi, as an appetizer. Christina and Brian are taking care of it. Don is trying to make pizza, only he seems to be terrified and failing. It’s somehow burnt on top and raw underneath. How do you even do that? Kimmie does a great job on her pizza, but Briana fails on the risotto. She’s brought up three pans with three different colors, for the same table. Ramsey asks her why she didn’t just put them all in one pan. Yeah. Guy says there’s no way his risotto will get sent back, and he is not struck down for his hubris because it’s actually good. Brian seems to be doing fine, except his shrimp are getting sent back for being raw. Ramsey hollers at him from the kitchen, and the camera shakes like he’s that loud. Start over! 

45 minutes in, and it’s the women’s turn to fail today, since they haven’t served anything yet. Barbie is searing scallops but she hasn’t counted and hasn‘t cooked enough. Tiffany knows there aren’t enough, but doesn’t care because she knows Barbie will get yelled at. They finally get some food out. Chris has four orders of scallops, and apparently is thrown by figuring out how to cook them, how many in each pan, whatever. So he brings up half of them that are pretty brown, and half that are much lighter. Ramsey makes the whole team go sit and eat them all. Then Barbie fails at scallops too. Robyn insists that Barbie ruins everything.

Ramsey warns the men that if anyone screws up anything this next ticket, “God help them”. So the majority of the team goes to cook scallops, I guess to make sure they can find enough that are passable. Somehow they manage to pull it off, which prompts Royce to say in confessional “Uh! Get a mouthful of this!” I think I threw up in my mouth a little. 

Finally both teams are done with appetizers and we can move on to appetizers. Robyn asks how long for sea bass, and Barbie tells her two minutes. But Robyn keeps asking until Barbie curses at her. Really, I don’t’ think that was Robyn being an idiot so much as it was Robyn not trusting Barbie. This way, the whole team, and probably Andi and Ramsey will hear Barbie say two minutes, so if Barbie screws up later, Robyn won’t have to take any blame. Robyn then interviews that Barbie doesn’t understand time, so I think my theory is right. Then instead of saying anything, Barbie just takes her fish up to the pass while Robyn is asking for times on it. See, now Robyn looks like she’s not ready, even though she was. Or thought she was. The fish is overcooked, and the lamb is undercooked, which is weird but a fail all around. Robyn swears her timing was thrown off, except I don’t see how. She needed more time than two minutes but never said anything. Whatever, no one is going to admit they screwed up. Chris brings up raw cold tuna. The Wellington is good though, and then Chris is ready again, and more Wellingtons, and Royce has been put on garnish and seems pretty flustered. He’s got too many things going, and his potatoes are stuck to the bottom of the pot so Ramsey can wave the pot around. Royce cries in confessional and says he didn’t know how the potatoes were supposed to be. I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Now we’re two hours in and not one entrée has gone out. Barbie has six pans of bass going, and Tiffany actually admits she told her to start them. Then when Tiffany gets yelled at for not cooking fish to order, she is flabbergasted. Really? Precooked fish is really not that good. Tiffany thinks she’s getting her food out just fine so I guess somehow this is Barbie’s fault for doing what Tiffany told her. Barbie is still making scallop appetizers and brings up poor ones AGAIN so Ramsey kicks all the girls out of the kitchen. Robyn immediately blames Barbie and calls her a bitch. Tiffany suddenly loses her fucking mind and starts screaming and smacking bottles around and throwing things on the ground. I can’t even tell who she’s pissed at because there are too many bleeps. It’s kind of scary. The men try again to get out an entrée, and someone brings up overcooked steak. All of you! Get out! Well that was fun.

Ramsey especially yells at everyone about the scallops, then makes everyone losers. Each team must come up with two people “that you don’t want in your team any longer”. Well that was suspiciously specific language. Sounds like they’re swapping teammates instead of elimination. Chris admits he screwed up the fish and the scallops too, so he’s fine with his nomination. The women quickly name Barbie, who kind of gets loud but doesn’t really argue. Kimmie for some reason tries to pick a fight with her, but she’s agreeing with you! At least make sure there’s a fight before you start cursing, Jesus. Christina quickly stops them, because they all know Barbie is one nominee and they’re in agreement, FFS. For some reason the women split up somehow, and Dana says that she doesn’t think anyone else was bad enough to go home. So her plan is to nominate Roshni, because there’s no way Ramsey will send her home over Barbie. That always backfires, Dana! Don’t you watch this show? Everyone agrees though which is stupid. Don gets nominated for screwing up pizza, but Chris says Don did a better job than himself and Royce. Royce says something dumb about how they should “vote [him] off” and he’ll defend his “honor”. Royce also claims he never was shown how to make the mashed potatoes. Guy says man up.

Robyn gloats that Barbie is going home, which is how you know Barbie is not going home. Obviously Barbie is the first nominee, and Roshni is the second. Ramsey almost laughs at them. The men put up Chris and Royce. All four of them come up, and Roshni says she doesn’t even know why she’s up there. Ramsey says “what!?” as if she’s delusional, and then Roshni explains the stupid plan. Dana backs her up. Barbie says she won’t make the same mistakes again, and also when asked she says the worst chefs on her team are Kimmie, who breaks down morale, and Robyn. We all knew she was going to say Robyn. Robyn says Barbie is the one who brings down morale, and thankfully Barbie doesn’t respond. Royce has a horrible reputation, but he says he is dedicated and has knowledge. He says he’s not the worst on the team. Chris is strong and has passion, and he knows he fucked up. Ramsey is “sorry that three scallops and a non-stick pan frazzled your mind.” Ouch. Roshni and Royce! Back in line! Barbie and Chris! You should both go home! But Barbie gets sent back to her team with an ugly smirk on her face. You can see when she gets back there that she had actually started to unbutton her jacket. Chris goes home. Tomorrow there is a surprise! Piss off! Robyn promises to make Barbie’s life hell. Barbie thinks she will win the whole thing. Oh, dude, I was wrong about trading team members. I was wrong about all my editing predictions except Barbie going home. Dang.

Next time: Tiffany loses her shit again, the men continue to stink up the place, there is some gimmick with a phone.