Season 2 Episode 5

The fifth episode of Season 2 of Hell’s Kitchen aired on Fox, on July 10, 2006. On that episode, happened the blind taste test, and a heartbreaking elimination of the hardest worker of the season.

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

Intro

After surviving another elimination, Virginia went on a war against Sara, saying that she was now an enemy for betraying her, but Sara did not care one bit. On her side, Rachel felt Ramsay had some choice words for her after her worst performance since her arrival, and felt he expected more of her because she has a lot to give. After Tom’s elimination, Keith now felt the blue team was strong and that he could smell the prize.

Team challenge

The next morning, when the contestants went down in the dining room, Ramsay arranged a table with some high quality dishes. Ramsay explained the taste is important for a chef, and asked the contestants to try some of the dishes, which included cheese fondue, chicken kebab, caviar and pâté. After tasting the dishes, and all the contestants saying they enjoyed the dishes, Ramsay revealed that the dishes were fake. The fondue was actually spray-on cheese, the kebab was a TV dinner, the pâté was made from hot dogs, and the caviar was from a catfish. Virginia was upset as she took that tasting seriously, but Keith said the pâté tasted good as it was made of hot dogs, and added that hot dogs are “slamin'”.

That is when Ramsay introduced the annual Blind Taste Test. Rachel was forced to sit out to even the teams at 3 members each. The first pair was Keith against Maribel. Both of them identified potato, but only Maribel correctly identified seared tuna. Keith made everybody laugh when he was struggling to get Ramsay’s spoon in his mouth. Neither of them got the oregano, but Keith tied the score at 2 by correctly identifying pear chutney. On the second round, Heather went up against Virginia. Both of them missed sea urchin, and scored with chicken and hot dog. Virginia scored on Swiss cheese, but Heather did not as she guessed parmesan. After two rounds, the score was 5-4 for the red team. The last ones were Sara and Garrett. Coming into the challenge, both of them were confident about their palates. They correctly identify scrambled eggs, and spinach, but failed for kiwi. With the score being 7-6 for the red team, Garrett tasted short rib, but guessed turkey, which secured the win of the red team. Ramsay praised Virginia as she had the best individual performance overall, with 3 out of 4.

Reward

The red team was rewarded with a photo shoot for TV Guide. During the reward, the women were having a positive vibe, and everybody was having a good time, and enjoying the moment with Ramsay, until Sara “blew gases” during the shooting, when Ramsay was sitting on her direct right. Rachel thought that was really immature and that it just showed her true personality.

Punishment

The blue team had to clean both kitchens after the previous night dinner service, which was left because Ramsay was too angry to let them switch it off themselves. Heather was envious as she was a woman also, and was on that team before. During the punishment, Garrett volunteered to get some champagne bottles to the photo shoot. When he arrived there, the women, especially Sara, were rubbing salt in the wound by showing him their pedicure, and Ramsay told him to get out as he stank. When Garrett came back, he made his two teammates envious, Keith even stated that anything else was better than doing the dishes.

Before service

When the red team came back from their rewards, it did not take long for Maribel to feel home-sick again, as she was missing her daughter and husband very much. On her side, Rachel developed a great friendship with Heather, which annoyed Sara as she found it unprofessional because both of them were making eyes to each other. Rachel explained to Heather the power struggle in the red team because of her feud with Sara.

During prep, both teams were very confident, and it did not seem that much animosity was going on the red team. In the blue kitchen, Sous Chef Scott was nervous as the blue team was a man down compared to the red team. When the teams were lined up, Ramsay reminded that the goal was still to complete a fully-booked dining room.

Dinner service

Even before Ramsay called one ticket out, Heather was caught as she was putting spaghetti in a pot to cook. Ramsay told her they were not a fast-food restaurant, and threatened her with on-the-spot elimination. When Garrett tried to comfort her by touching her shoulder, she aggressively told him to not touch her, prompting Garrett to say she had to work with him and not against him. When he called the first ticket in the red kitchen, Ramsay told them to keep talking because at the moment they are going to stop, they are screwed. When he called the first ticket for the blue team, only Keith answered back, and Ramsay told them he was already nervous and they have not even sent anything yet. On the first ticket, Rachel burned her duck and was already on fire. In the blue kitchen, the first risotto Heather sent was bland. He asked her to taste it, and she answered that she found it a little bit crunchy, but not more, before Ramsay asked her to start again. In the red kitchen, Ramsay gave some polite words of encouragement, and the red team sent many appetizers out. After that, Virginia was praised by Ramsay for her great communication about oysters. In the blue kitchen, Keith was doing the same thing, running around making sure everybody was in control of their station, and helped sending out many appetizers. In the red kitchen, a starter came back in the kitchen for having a hair on the plate. Maribel admitted she has black hair, but Ramsay did not care what colour it was. On the blue team, Heather was trying to help Garrett on the meat station to redeem herself. But, he was more annoyed than anything because he felt she wanted to control what he was doing. In the red kitchen, Maribel sent an acceptable risotto, but Rachel sent overcooked quail, and Ramsay pulled all the team aside to taste her quail. After she declared it was a little overcooked, Ramsay tried to humiliate Rachel by giving her glasses from a customer that Jean-Philippe brought to the kitchen. When Ramsay asked Rachel if she really thought he was going to send that quail in the dining room, she got confused and did not know what to answer. Then, he pulled her back in the pantry room and asked her if she wanted to go home. After telling him that she will not let him down, and Ramsay telling her she already had, Rachel got back in the kitchen ready to fight back.

Two hours into service, the blue team already served half of the main courses to the dining room. Jean-Philippe brought an entrée back in the kitchen, and when Ramsay told Keith it was too cold, Keith gave him attitude and did not show any care. Ramsay schooled him on his attitude, as he was not listening nor looking him in the eyes, and compared his behavior to a 5-year-old. He then told Keith to lead Heather and Garrett, who Ramsay said were cooking like donkeys. Ramsay then came to Garrett and suggested him to change the Hell’s Kitchen logo for Donkey’s Kitchen. In the red kitchen, Rachel’s night continued to go down in flames when she sent rare Wellingtons requested medium. She was ashamed of that mistake and apologized to Ramsay, and when she told him she was afraid of telling him the correct time, he answered by telling her he was not scared to tell the truth, and concluded by saying he was nervous for her, which she responded she was too. In the blue kitchen, Heather screwed Garrett’s station when she sent the wrong number of quail orders. Garrett accused her of making herself look good, and that his station was completely fucked.

Three hours into service, the blue team has served most of their customers, and Virginia was praised by Ramsay for her strong performance on the fish station. When Ramsay came for the last entrées of the blue kitchen, nothing came together and Ramsay schooled Keith and Garrett about the communication problems. He asked for the lamb sauce twice, before Garrett sent it. It became one of Ramsay’s most famous rants, along with calling Garrett a “fat useless sack of fucking yankee dankee doodle shite”. In the red kitchen, Rachel overcooked some Wellingtons requested medium, and tried to hide the mistake by covering them with some sauce. However, Ramsay not being a fool, he could tell her Wellingtons were well done by touching it. That was the last straw, and Ramsay shut down both kitchens. After service, Ramsay complimented Keith about his great cooking abilities, and told him if he could only lose the attitude, he would shine.

Post-Mortem

When the teams were lined up, Ramsay complained about the weight of two kitchens on his shoulders. Heather raised her hand to tell she indeed did not perform as good as she could, and added by saying they all should be up for elimination, but also added that they do not deserve to go home. Keith saw that as a way of getting the responsibility off her shoulders. Ramsay declared the red team losers for serving less entrées than the blue team despite having one more team member. Ramsay also praised Virginia for her comeback and improvement, and named her “Best of the Worst”, before asking her to nominate two of her teammates for elimination.

During deliberation, Rachel admitted her performance was very weak, but fought for her survival by trying to convince Virginia to pick Sara. Sara and Maribel said they would pick Rachel for screwing up service. On the patio, Heather admitted to Rachel that she would miss her very much if she was to go, and Rachel told her that if she was going, she would want her to win.

Elimination

Virginia nominated Rachel as her first nominee, and before she announced her second nominee, she gave a very long speech about how she thinks Sara should be nominated, but in the end, she nominated Maribel as her second nominee. Ramsay eliminated Rachel for screwing up her team and lacking confidence in herself. Before she left, Ramsay praised her hard work, before shaking her hand goodbye. During her exit interview, she received a retrospective montage of her run. Heather took her elimination very hard emotionally as she grew really close friend with her.

Ramsay’s comment: “Rachel clearly couldn’t handle it! She buckled, panicked, and actually screwed the kitchen completely. You’ve got no chance of running a successful business, if you can’t handle one section.”

My opinion

The right people went up for elimination was right. Which was Rachel and Maribel. But the blue kitchen was not good as well. Even though Sara was told that she backstab the night before.

My comment: Rachel was moaning about Sara being bad but Rachel was shit today and last dinner service.

Gordon choose Rachel.

RIP Rachel