Season 1 Episode 5

The fifth episode of Season 1 of Hell’s Kitchen aired on Fox, on June 27, 2005. On that episode, there was the first theme night and double booking in Hell’s Kitchen, and an unexpected elimination.

Please watch the full episode before you read (below) to avoid spoilers about this episode.

Intro

Following Mary Ellen’s elimination, Jessica was heartbroken back in the dorms and started crying, claiming that it was not right. She was comforted by Elsie and eventually Chris. Meanwhile, Andrew got back in his room for some alone time. He knew he was not safe after being nominated twice in a row. That is when it was revealed that he taped a piece of paper on top of his bed saying “Shut your mouth”. The other contestants were talking about him saying that he could not support the heat of the kitchen for much longer.

Team challenge

Prior to the challenge, when Ramsay asked Ralph who was the strongest link on the blue team, he named himself in that position. He also named Andrew as the weakest, which infuriated the latter, who believed it was crap. When Ramsay asked Chris who was the strongest link on the red team, he considered Michael’s talent and ability, but eventually named himself in that position. Ramsay answered that he was loving the way Chris was putting himself forward on that executive platform, referring to his executive chef position. Chris also named Jimmy as the weakest, who saw that as an additional motivation and claimed that the weakest could go from bottom to top.

With the most successful dinner service behind them, Ramsay threw away the existing menu and declared that for the next service, Hell’s Kitchen would become a pasta restaurant. For the Pasta Making Challenge, after a quick demonstration of Ramsay on how to correctly make pasta and using Chris as a demo, even pouring flour all over his face, each team had 20 minutes to make as much pasta as possible. To even the teams, Chris was forced to sit out. Andrew and Jimmy were holding the pasta on their arms, prompting Ramsay to joke that Jimmy was looking delicious as a blonde. The red team won the challenge, managing to get 2.45 lbs of pasta acceptable, whereas the blue team got 2.41 lbs.

Reward

The red team was awarded a nice tour of gondola with wine and cheese. That was the red team’s third challenge win.

Punishment

The blue team had to make all the remaining pasta for the pasta themed dinner service. All the members were not happy about their loss and argued that their pasta looked better than the red team’s but Ramsay was unsympathetic about it and told the three of them to take their loss with dignity. During the punishment, Ralph was very upset as he still had not get out of the restaurant since the beginning of the competition.

Before service

The night before dinner service, Michael began to apply his strategy by trying to manipulate the other contestants, like Jessica when he tried to get her to say things about how the blue team feels after their loss. However Jessica spotted his plans. When Michael talked with Chris before the latter would get to sleep, he told him he was his friend and that he would love to get to the finals against him. After that, Michael went outside to have a talk with himself and the billboard that was showing Ramsay’s face.

Because the restaurant was hosting a double seating, Ramsay announced that one team would cook and the other team would serve during the first seating and switch at the second because the red team won the challenge, they had to decide if they would cook or serve first. An hour before service, Elsie announced that her team would cook first, so Ramsay asked the blue team to get in the dining room with Jean-Philippe. Jessica was very insecure because she never waited tables before.

Dinner service

First seating

In the red kitchen, the first bowl of soup that Jimmy sent to the plate was dirty, so Ramsay asked him to clean it but was still dirty when he sent it for the second time. After that, Elsie and Chris had to send out the main courses but Elsie was confused and lost. After giving a bad timing, she was corrected by Chris and was given a pep talk by Ramsay who told her that no main courses have gone out as supposed to. Then Chris was schooled by Ramsay for his pretentious behavior when he responded “Oui chef”. Michael, who was on the dessert station did not help his teammates, thinking it would be a hindrance for him to win the prize and focused his attention on his desserts. In the dining room, Jessica gave random entrées to customers because they were tired of the wait, stating that she just wanted to make the customers happy. When the first seating was over, the red team failed to complete the tickets and in the blue team, Ralph received positive reviews from his customers while Andrew received a very hard and negative critic by one of his customers.

Second seating

When Ralph got back in the kitchen for the second seating, his confidence level was high. Little did he know, however, was that Michael was conspiring to give the blue team the hardest work during the service. They talked about getting as much lasagna orders as possible to the blue team because it was the hardest dish to execute. Ralph and Andrew got into a heated argument before the service started because Ralph accused Andrew of not listening to anybody. When the second seating began, orders of lasagna were piling in the blue kitchen. That was when the blue team knew that the other team was trying to sabotage them. Jimmy was nervous being a waiter and struggled to get his orders correctly. He ran up the stairs and some of his customers noticed he was sweating a lot. He was mixing up the orders and sending the wrong order at one table. Moments later, he received tips from Jean-Philippe telling him he had to stop touching himself, because he was touching his hair and his face a lot. In the kitchen because of the orders of lasagna, the blue team was dragging on their tickets and Andrew had trouble communicating. When a customer went to the kitchen for some feedback, Ramsay apologized and told him he could not do much for the moment. After what Ramsay called “dog’s dinners” were brought to the hot plate by Jessica and Andrew, he decided to shut down the kitchens with seventeen tickets to go as the two hour time limit was over.

Post-mortem

Ramsay read the customer comment cards to announce the winning team. The red team got more food out than the blue team. As for the the blue team, they left 42 of their customers without main courses. However, their food was rated as higher quality than the red team’s. The blue team’s service was good while the red team’s service was shocking, despite them having one more team member. Therefore, Ramsay declared the red team losers and after Ramsay reminded Jimmy about his dirty bowls, he named Michael “Best of the Worst” because of his strong performance on desserts. Michael was asked to nominate two of his teammates for elimination.

Back in the dorms, Jimmy pleaded his case to Michael but knew that his dirty plates would probably weigh heavily in Michael’s decision. Meanwhile Jessica and Andrew comforted Elsie who started to wonder if she could keep up with the pressure any longer. Michael admitted to Chris that he was stuck on who to nominate and Chris suggested to put Jimmy and Elsie up for elimination due to their poor performances that night. However Michael knew that he had to nominate people that would get him further in the competition.

Elimination

Michael named Elsie as his first nominee and Chris as his second, saying that Jimmy had a wonderful night and worked hard, which led Ramsay to congratulate Jimmy for being a bullet dodger. Ramsay eliminated Chris for failing to live up to his position as an executive chef. After Chris left, Ramsay had a message for the other contestants, which was the people who were always telling how good they are and self-promote but not deliver the goods was what was pissing him the most. Chris’s elimination served as a straight message to Michael and Ralph, which were the two most experienced chefs in the six remaining contestants. During his exit interview, Chris believed that as an Executive Chef, he deserved to still be around, and felt that Michael took the easy way out.

Ramsay’s comment: “When you come to the kitchen and announce that you’re an executive chef, you expect a little bit more than what I’ve got from Chris. He’s been telling the world that he has that amount of knowledge, than he should have been 10 times better.”

My opinion

I disagree with Michael nominated with Chris and Elise as my nominated was Chris and Jimmy and Jimmy to go.

My comment: Chris went out but Jimmy dodge leaving hell kitchen today after Michael not putting him up to make Chris go.

Gordon choose Chris.