by Joshua Krol

 

The final six celebrated with rich wine and black chef jackets this week on Hell's Kitchen. The point in the show has come where the remaining chefs must work as a integrated team. No more red against blue or men against women. Each chef must push themselves individually in order to be considered for the top spot in Hell's Kitchen and eventually head chef at LA Market.

 

The next morning the chefs were greeted by Ramsay for their first individual challenge. Everyone knows first impressions are everything and that was the point Chef Ramsay wanted to convey with this challenge. Five prime chefs have been selected to judge the contestants dishes on both taste and presentation. Five portions in thirty minutes, starting now.

 

Trev has been on the hot seat as of late and thought he should push his creativity to the limit. Right away Trev headed for the frog legs with something to prove. All the chefs pushed the half hour to the limit with each working until the last second. With the last second ticking off the clock, the chefs were ordered to drop what they were doing and present their dishes.

 

Gail started the challenge off strong with a total score of 87 out of 100 with her chicken spring roll. That set the bar as Sabrina presented her smoked salmon dish. Besides being smitten by one of the judges, Sabrina's dish didn't have the wow factor she scored a mere 70 points. Things began to decline from there as Julian's boring pita bread and vegetable dish and Nona's shrimp and grits failed to arouse the judges interest as both failed to hit the 70 point mark.

 

Next up was Russell and his Hamachi plate. From the time he set the plates down the judges were simply astounded giving Russell a perfect score on both taste and presentation. Trev followed as his frog legs failed to do the trick as he received the lowest score of all the contestants. Russell came away with the win and the perfect score. As a result, Russell recieved a guided tour of LA Market and lunch with both Gordy and the executive chef of the restaurant. But Gordy has another surprise up his sleeve. Russell is forced to choose one other chef to join in his spoils. Gail is chosen because of her high score behind Russ. The losers, Sabrina, Julian, Trev and Nona are directed to not only clean and prep the kitchen but also to carefully clean the apartments the contestants have been staying in. Needless to say, they don't clean up after themselves that often.

 

Upon their return from LA Market and lunch, Gail and Russ immediately put on their chef whites and headed down to the kitchen to prepare for dinner service. The chefs gather in the kitchen and prepare for their first dinner service as a united team. Before Gordy opens Hell's Kitchen he delivers an inspirational pep talk as he uncovers $250,000 which would be the year salary for the winning chef. With the chefs keeping money on the mind and competition in their hearts, Gordy calls to open for dinner service.

 

The chefs stumble out of the gate. First, Sabrina burns the risotto, and then Gail doesn't cook the scallops properly, followed by Trev's inability to cook lobster spaghetti. As things begin to breakdown, so does Trev as he begins to yell in frustration. While the communication between Sabrina and Trev on appetizers is mute, so is the rest of the kitchen, forcing communication chaos.

 

Nonetheless, the chefs continue to fight after an hour and a half into dinner service. Just as they are able to catch up with the tables Russell tries to push out raw wellington and Gail's fish gets stuck to the pan. The constant flow of poorly prepared dishes forces Chef Ramsay to threaten the entire kitchen which seems to only motivate the chefs as they continue to push through dinner service. That is until enough is enough. After bad dish after bad dish, Gordy is fed up and kicks out the entire kitchen.

 

Very upset with the night's dinner service Ramsay asks the chefs to put up two for elimination. This was an easy decision as Trev and Sabrina could not handle the appetizers which caused an avalanche of failures to follow. At elimination Trev and Sabrina approach Chef Ramsay with sweat pouring from their foreheads. Sabrina's last ditch effort to throw Gail under the bus for her underproduction on the fish station did not work. Her immaturity just could not be overlooked anymore as the 22 year old prep chef is finally eliminated from the competition.

 

 

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

 

(Image courtesy of FOX)

 

 

Follow Joshua at twitter.com/jkrol89

 

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