The carryover from the prior episode is that both Jen and Christina are incensed at Corey's nomination of them for elimination and vow to maneuver to get her out. We'll see how this works out tonight.

The Chicken Challenge

It starts before dawn with chickens running loose in the bedrooms to wake up the chefs. I had read that the chefs were going to have to pluck and kill them, but that isn't what happened. Gordon Ramsay was most interested in their skill at cutting a chicken into 8 parts. He demonstrates and the chefs had better be taking careful mental notes. The 6 Women and 6 Men have 3 minutes to cut up their chickens. Ramsay scores each piece pass or fail. Jen had a 6. Shayna had 6. Then Vanessa, Corey, Rosann, and Christina all scored perfect 8s for a total of 44 points for the Women. Jason started the Men off with a 6, Petrozza got an 8, but Craig scored only 2 and made it mathematically impossible for the MEN to win. The losing MEN had to pick peppers like migrant workers on a 100 acre farm in "100 degree heat"(it actually never made it above 93 that day on the farm). The MEN get dressed in appropriate attire and look at this beautiful new bus that is parked in front. However, Gordon pulls the old switcheroo on them as that bus departs and reveals a dilapidated old bus behind which is their real transportation. The WOMEN get to go to the Saddle Ranch restaurant on the Sunset Strip where, by total coincidence no doubt, HK3 loser Aaron is there to greet them and invite them to ride the mechanical bull.

When they return Corey(who has a nice body to go with her blond hair) tries to entice Ben into the hot tub with her. Christina is more successful with Jason, who shows what a loser he is by allowing the selected WOMEN at the hot tub to quiz him for "secrets" of the MEN's team. What kind of secrets are relevant to a cooking competition? Probably that Bobby knows how to do this or that. This is all a bit absurd, but indicates how far the WOMEN will go for victory(almost all the way). When the MEN's team assembles the next morning Jason is warned that he is considered the weakest link on the team.

Bobby is selected to do tableside preparation and plating of a chicken, peppers (no doubt picked by Peter Piper), capers and crème fraiche. He does a super job with the customers. When late in the service a table of 6 had 5 orders for other than chicken and 1 for chicken, Bobby brilliantly improvised and offered the customers each a small plate of the chicken dish while they were waiting. I look at Bobby as the next Rock right now. After his rough first episode, he now has it together and with his superior experience as a real executive chef is likely to leave his competition in the dust.

Jason did not know the dessert menu. He is sent by Gordon upstairs to learn it and was extremely fortunate that it was too early in the service for desserts to be needed. When he comes back Gordon quizzes him and he fails and wants to quit, then Gordon mercilessly gives him a verbal thrashing. Jason is able after that to name the dessert menu and get back to his station in time for it being needed. However, he states that Ramsay is just setting him up for a further verbal thrashing to come(watch what happens).

Ramsay tells the entire group of chefs that they must work and communicate simultaneously. There is not sufficient cross-talk going on to indicate that sufficient communications are happening. Rosann puts something inappropriate into the caesar salad and Ramsay is mostly under control. It is now 1.5 hours into the dinner service and almost nothing has come out of the kitchen for the 3rd night in a row. Craig screws up an appetizer by not having bacon ready, then Ramsay make the difficult decision to not hold up the appetizers for that table over the bacon. Vanessa cooks one order of meat rare and that sends Ramsay into a tirade. Ben is doing the fish station. He botches a salmon dish, then on the redo he botches it again due to undercooking. Roseann botches 4 meat entrees when her pan catches fire. Ramsay demonstrates the proper technique for putting it out after ensuring that nobody is in his intended path to the sink. Jason is doing souffles that are not rising. He first tells Ramsay he will coat the rim with sugar(huh?), then he says he will add sugar and some other ingredients to keep it from sticking(huh?). It's pretty clear that he doesn't have a clue on how to properly make a souffle(I don't either but I am not on the show).

It's time for judgment. Ramsay is more than annoyed that the teams do not appear to be improving despite his expert training. Neither team is judged the winner. Ramsay asks Petrozza and Christina to each nominate one individual from their team for consideration for elimination. For Petrozza it will be either hapless Craig or inept Jason. For Christina most expect her to nominate Corey, but Christina is too smart for that and no doubt realizes that Ramsay will require proof of why Corey, which she doesn't have. She intelligently decides to go for either Vanessa or Rosann, who had the biggest problems. The actual nominations are Jason and Vanessa. It's a close call, but Vanessa survives and Jason is gone not because of his many screwups but because he gave up. So Jason was correct in assessing that Ramsay still wanted to beat him up one last time. Good riddance to Jsaon! The MEN will be better off without a loser like him pulling them down.

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