Hell's Kitchen 7/17/12--"8 Chefs Compete" summary

Previously on “Hell’s Kitchen”: an eating challenge. For no reason. Then the blind taste test, which everyone always fails. Except Justin, he got all his foods correct. And Kimmie, because she’d rather volunteer to sit out and then bitch about how everyone else sucks. Barbie and Kimmie sort of get into it, but Kimmie is not threatening, unless you’re threatened by crying.  The teams have to come up with menus, and Kimmie is shot down, sort of, and also Robyn. The menus are OK, and mostly pass muster with Ramsey (no thanks to Barbie spending forever cleaning mussels or Clemenza spending forever cleaning his jacket). However, Clemenza has just served quail that hasn’t been boned properly and Ramsey is not happy. (click for more)
What’s with all the two part episodes this season? Why are we stretching things out so much? Anyway, Clemenza quickly confirms that he is not giving up. Well…points for carefully editing the previews so he didn’t show up in any of them. I still don’t know why it says EIGHT chefs compete. The women are also planning on how to improve their menu. Small fixes for both, it seems. Ramsey says no excuses. Justin doesn’t think the women’s team is any better than his own, just that his team can’t get their shit together. Agreed.
   
There are diner comment cards, but it looks like you can’t pick the menu you want. It just depends on where you’re seated, like any other night. Everyone is ordering flatbread so Christina’s slammed. She gets yelled at, sort of, and asks for help. Barbie feels that Christina only asked for help because she fails, not because she was too busy and Barbie wasn’t doing anything. Robyn is supposed to be cooking squash blossoms stuffed with scallop and lobster mousse, which is Justin’s dish. She jacks it up, and it sounds like in confessional that she blames Justin for making up something so complicated. Justin tells Robyn to cook them all the way through (duh), and she tells him he told her five minutes, so she cooked them for five minutes. Justin of course is like “Do you know how to cook?” as if he wouldn’t be on her case if she cooked them for too long on her own. Now they are overcooked. Robyn has to make more.
   
The women are moving quickly. Barbie asks Kimmie if she needs help, and Kimmie says no. So far, everyone is polite and professional. Barbie ruins it by interviewing that she offered and was refused so forget it. It looks like right after saying she was fine, Kimmie tells Barbie to take some steaks out of the oven. But it’s followed by confessional from Kimmie about how she doesn’t need help? Maybe she was talking to Christina. Anyway, Kimmie’s steak is overcooked, Ramsey makes everyone taste it, they all say it’s overcooked, Kimmie curses in confessional about how they shouldn’t taste her food and tell her what’s wrong with it. What? It’s obviously not right. Barbie interviews that she offered and she can cook meat and duck. Yes, but can you SHUT UP? I can’t believe she’s coasted this long when even Kimmie is a better team member. Hell, Robyn was a better team member when she was on that team and everyone hated her. Speaking of Robyn, she’s run out of squash blossoms. She blames Justin, but she ruined at least two orders that we saw so I’m going to agree with Justin on this one. She has to go explain to the tables what’s going on.
   
Men and Robyn move on to entrees. Kimmie’s meat is cooked properly, and she says the meat station has to be right because if the meat station screws up, it screws up garnish and fish. Then she brings up overcooked rib eye. Ramsey makes her promise she’s not given up. He yells, and she’s got this sarcastic “Oh my God you’re yelling at me AGAIN” look on her face. Like the camera caught her mid-eye roll. I would kick her out just for that. Ramsey says he doesn’t care if the whole team goes home. Good idea. Finally she gets it together.
   
Justin and Clemenza try to get out their first table of entrees, but there aren’t any onions for the steak. Brian just forgot. Then he brings up like, a soggy tangle. Finally they are good. Dana is putting out excellent halibut but raw lobster. Dana explains (only to us, not to Ramsey) that she thought the lobster claws at her station were already fully cooked and she just needed to reheat them. Justin is taking charge, but Clemenza seems to be lagging. He at least is not talking. Clemenza is offended, but if Justin can get them to not fail like they’ve been doing, then good for him. All of a sudden, Ramsey stops the women to point out that Tiffany has taken a pan, dumped the scraps in the trash, and then put more garnish in the pan. I guess you’re supposed to use a new pan? I mean, I reuse pans like that all the time, but I at least rinse them first. Also I am cooking just for me and I don’t care. Everyone interviews that she’s gross. Ramsey yells orders at the men, and Justin responds, but Clemenza doesn’t. Justin tries to confirm with him, but he’s gotten the number wrong, and he’s just pissed at Justin. This isn’t the first time Clemenza has screwed up the orders for lack of counting. I wonder if he just doesn’t have restaurant experience. Clemenza tries to say he has it, but then he just admits he didn’t understand. Justin pulls him off fish.
   
Remember yesterday Tiffany was making potatoes and they were raw? And Dana told her so, and she insisted they’d be fine once they were cool? Yeah…didn’t happen. And they are getting sent back. Tiffany has the balls to whine in confessional that she would just like to get done with service, and all Ramsey has to do is put the potatoes in a pan, it’s not that hard. Wow. Ramsey accuses her of not caring, and she says she does, but she rolls her eyes at the same time so the camera catches her with her eyes on the ceiling. Tiffany swears she cares about food more than she cares about her family, which is completely insane and scary. She also doesn’t have any sense, because she’s bitching to Dana that she’s been serving the same potatoes all night and they’ve been fine. Dana reminds her they were raw before, and Tiffany is like “I put them back in the oven!” Then she bitches to everyone that she needs ten minutes to recook her potatoes that she put up already, or whatever. She’s just delusional.
   
Justin has taken charge, but he’s overcooked steaks. He thinks it’s close enough, just barely over, and Robyn for some reason is insisting they all need to help each other. I don’t know what brought that on. Now it will be six minutes, but Ramsey doesn’t believe him for some reason. Justin tries to throw Clemenza under the bus, saying he doesn’t know what’s up with the fish, but that doesn’t really work either. Tiffany is taking her potatoes out of the little cast iron casseroles they were being served in and putting them in a pan to finish cooking them. But are you going to put them back in the oven? That’s the best part of a gratin, the potatoes are all baked together and crispy on top. She also has no idea how long it will take, and Christina can’t resist needling her in confessional about how this gratin was all Tiffany’s idea. She tells Kimmie she has no idea, what do you want her to say, shrugging. Andi comes over, and Tiffany quickly says she’s sorry, because teacher has seen her being a brat. Andi rockets to the top of my list of sous chefs on this show, right under Scott, because the first words out of her mouth are “You’re not sorry.” Love it. Andi calls her sloppy, calls her on her attitude enough times that Tiffany finally says “OK, I’m not sorry” and then KICKS HER OUT. OK, she sends her to take a break, which means she can come back, but it was so great. Now Tiffany’s crying about how everyone made fun of her and made her look like an idiot. Did it to yourself. Dana has been put in charge of the potatoes, but she can’t get them to cook. The men are on the last table, somehow, but Brian tells Ramsey the sea bass wasn’t right so he’s recooking it. Somehow this pisses Ramsey off and then he spies Clemenza eating so now they’re all getting yelled at. So the men’s team gets kicked out. Aww, so close.
   
When they get back to the dorms, Justin and Clemenza immediately start yelling at each other about Clemenza not knowing how many fish were up or whatever. Scott and Ramsey finish the last table, and the women finally get done. They realize the men have been kicked out, and Tiffany says so, as she’s finally returned. Dana points out that they know that even if they’ve lost, so did the men.
   
Ramsey produces the comment cards. But he tears them up, because he can’t get over the fact that the teams came up with their own menus and still couldn’t get it done. There is no winning team. Everyone come up with two people.
   
Justin quickly puts up Robyn, and Brian follows. Robyn of course puts up Justin, because she thinks he told her the wrong thing about his dish and screwed her. Also she asked for help and he said he was too busy, mainly because he didn’t think she should need any help. Any points Robyn might have gotten from me fly out the window because she is complaining to Justin that the squash blossoms were all different sizes. As if that’s his fault. Clemenza doesn’t like Robyn, but he also doesn’t like Justin. He votes for Robyn. Dana votes for Tiffany, who says she was “set up”. What? Everyone is voting for Tiffany. Dana and Kimmie want to also vote for Barbie, for taking so long in prep. Kimmie pauses in her litany of things she hates about Barbie, so Barbie steps in to defend herself, and Kimmie gets bitchy about being interrupted. Whatever. I will note though, Barbie says she prepped the lobster that screwed Dana. Dana calls Barbie on making faces at everyone and having attitude, and Barbie makes faces in confessional. Tiffany doesn’t want to vote at first, but then she votes for Kimmie and Barbie. Christina has to pick between Barbie and Kimmie for her second vote, and it seems to be a choice for her between Kimmie’s constant questioning of things and Barbie’s attitude. The other team is at a standstill because they can’t agree on the second vote. Everyone voted for Robyn, but they seem to be tied between Brian and Clemenza.
   
The men’s team puts up Robyn. She smirks and tells Ramsey Justin wouldn’t help her. Oh, Robyn, you are digging your own grave. Justin says he doesn’t want to deal with her, and he’s embarrassed she’s still talking. Brian then says Clemenza is up because of the fish and that he “got his ass handed to him during prep”. Huh? Oh, because he went to clean his jacket. Still. The women put up Tiffany for failed potatoes and Barbie for slow prep. Barbie MAKES A FACE. Seriously, you’ve been told everyone knows you have an attitude because you make faces all the time, and then in response you make bitchy faces. Ramsey does not change the nominees. Tiffany says she’s a team player and she loves working with these women, and she starts crying, and she wants to stay. She swears she has passion, but Ramsey says she’s not standing out. Barbie swears she has been a team player (everyone behind her laughs) but then she says the only person that matters to her is Ramsey. Clemenza swears he didn’t lie, he just didn’t understand Ramsey. He doesn’t think he had that many problems. Ramsey knows Robyn isn’t a team player, because she’s nominated again. She’s trying valiantly to save herself, but Ramsey points out he doesn’t have another team to put her on. Robyn swears that tomorrow is a new day and she’ll be fine tomorrow, but I doubt it. Justin shakes his head. Tiffany is eliminated. She is not a leader. She wishes she could have made it further. Clemenza! Back in line! Everyone back in line! Kimmie is crying. Ramsey warns them that he can’t wait any longer for them, and if they don’t fix it, he’ll have to start getting rid of them more quickly. And since the season finale seems to be in two weeks, he’s going to have to. Kimmie promises to fight for Tiffany, and Justin is tired of Robyn. Barbie says she’ll be around more, which sucks.
   
Next time: southern food and gospel music. Kimmie fails, after all her big talk about all her comfort food, which is somehow not surprising. Brian makes smart ass comments. Also it looks like he gets kicked out in the middle of service.