by Joshua Krol

Another two hour Hell's Kitchen episode began with an early morning rude awakening. The contestants were woken up by a group paramedics storming through their rooms and running a multitude of physical tests on each person. As the EMT's completed the physical examinations, the chefs meet Ramsay in Hell's Kitchen for an explanation of the strange wake-up call. Ramsay explains that there is a lack of energy in the kitchen and in attempt to understand why, he ordered the physicals. After realizing nothing was physically wrong with any of the chefs, Gordy explains that mental toughness is what is needed to cook in Hell's Kitchen and is necessary to win the LA Market grand prize.

 

Ramsay then welcomes in a group of fifty paramedics for whom the chefs will cook breakfast. The challenge is to serve the men and women a traditional breakfast (egg white omelet or French toast) as quick as possible. Once again, the red team can be heard shouting words of encouragement while the blue team worries about Raj and his performance. Even after Emily spaced out on the bacon, allowing it to be burnt to a crisp, the red team continues to push dishes out while the blue team fights grease fires.

 

Just when Raj seemed to get his act together and pushes out the scrambled eggs on time, Gordy is unhappy because they are completely unseasoned. Raj starts to argue with chef before shutting his mouth. He should know to never to talk back to Gordy by now! Nonetheless, Raj's actions got him in another confrontation with Chef Ramsay and even less respect from his teammates.

The red team completes their breakfast service quickly. After a quick congrats by Chef Ramsay he tells the women to team up with the guys to get the remaining breakfast out to the starving paramedics who are waving plates in the air and can be heard yelling "Food!" Thanks to the red team's help all the food was served but not at the expense of Ramsay's utter disappointment in the men's performance.

 

With another win, the women win a trip to Santa Monica and with another loss, the men are forced to polish 250 glasses and clean Hell's Kitchen. As the blue team gets started on their tedious cleaning tasks, the women head out for their trip with nothing but smiles across their faces.

 

While in Santa Monica the women get treated to a private trapeze lesson and food service with Chef Ramsay at the Viceroy. While the women sip champagne the blue team focuses their energy on Raj's poor performance. It doesn't look like the blue team has caught on to the teamwork concept yet.

 

The next morning Sabrina skips out on prep work as Ramsay explains that the men have had the weakest start in Hell's Kitchen ever. Hoping to turn that around with the dinner service, Gordy explains that Hell's Kitchen will be serving colorful cocktails in addition to their menu. Trev and Sabrina are chosen to bartend and serve. Hopefully Sabrina will just serve the cocktails and not drink them.

 

As the service starts, the red team shows a team effort although contrasting tastes force salt saturated pasta to be returned from the dining room. While the red team gets a bit salty, Raj attempts to put his personal touches on Ramsay's salmon dish. Are you serious? This results in Gordy asking Vinny to relieve Raj of his fish cooking duties. An hour and a half into dinner service and neither team has been able to successfully get their food out as Trev and Sabrina serve their first round of cocktails while things just go downhill from there.

 

Gail loses focus and lets a fire erupt on the meat she was cooking. Worse yet, the kitchen ran out of the special when there are still three orders of it left to be cooked! This does not sit well with Chef Ramsay as he demands Raj go out and inform the customers of the situation. With Raj out of the kitchen the blue team seemingly pulls it together. In the end, the dinner service was atrocious and Gordy can't declare a winner, so he turns to the customer comment cards. While only 54% of the customers felt the blue team service was above average, this number was even less for the red team at 50% resulting in a red team loss and team member elimination.

 

The girls put up Sabrina and Emily up for the elimination. After both women plead their cases, Ramsay pulls another surprise from his apron. After his pitiful performance throughout the show, Ramsay forces Raj to leave allowing the women to be saved and the men to be relieved.

 

To find out what happened in the second hour click here.

 

 

Hell's Kitchen airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on FOX.

 

(Image courtesy of Hell's Kitchen)

 

Follow Joshua at twitter.com/jkrol89

 

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