Hell's Kitchen Episode Four

Since the new episode airs tonight, I figure I'm not spoiling anything by going through last night's episode today. Besides I need to catch up.

Before we begin, I have it on good authority that the energetic Texan Van is the son of wrestler Luna Vachon and therefore the grandson of Butcher Vachon and grandnephew of Mad Dog Vachon. This would explain a lot about him. By that I don't mean that he's a crazy hot head because he's got wrestlers in the family, not at all. I'm saying that his wrestling family have often portrayed themselves as hot heads and, maybe, that wasn't that far from reality.

Onto the show!

- The first thing the recap shows? Van and JP's arguement. Ha!

- Recap: women win challenge, injury prone guys, women lose service but no elimination due to Joseph eliminating himself.

- Lovely starts thinking too much of herself right away, believing that Chef Ramsey believes in her and wants her around. Tennille and Suzanne start bickering right away. Suzanne says her statements haven't been personal but Tennille is taking them that way. Van and Kevin discuss Andy and his weaknesses.

- Noting the tensions on the teams, Chef Ramsey notes that people in his kitchens need to be able to work together. This leads into Challenge! He immediately starts creating two person teams, lumping Suzanne and Tennille together, then Van and Andy. Ha! This should be fun. In interview Van refers to Robert as 'Big Uns'. Double Ha! Amanda lucks out by not getting a partner and gets to sit out.

- The two person teams are to make six-inch sausages. The first team to fill their rack with six chains of properly done sausage will win. Entertainingly, the female team expresses no experience with making sausage while the men do. This leads to a lot of snickering and double-entendres as the challenge is explained.

- Suzanne and Tennille are the first team to bring up a link and it's correct. Suzanne's from Wisconsin so she must know something about sausage, inna? In interview, Suzanne notes that they don't get along but can work together. She tried to brush off their personal differences when they got teamed up.

- Kevin and Dave get a chain up for the Blue Team. With that, the sausages start flowing... from the inexperience ladies. Van and Andy gets one up as Andy explains, and we see, that Van's a yeller as a communicator. Jim keeps popping the skins and irritating team-mate Robert. With the score 5-4 Red Team, Ariel brings up what could be the winning chain of sausage and we go to commercial.

- A couple sausages are too thin, the Blue Team still has a chance... until Lovely and Tek bring up a winning chain. Robert and Jim produced nothing and get hollered at.

- Punishment: Cleaning the Dorms.

- Reward: private 'Oktoberfest' style party.

- The men are not happy about losing. Kevin starts grumbling about executive chefs that can't make a sausage and Robert gets upset. He gets in Kevin's face and then expresses his displeasure to Jim about what happened with them. He seems to calm down quickly, noting it's frustration with what happened with the team. In Interview he notes that he's been called a loser all his life and that no one has had any faith in him. He doesn't have to take it and won't. Last season he explained to Chef Ramsey that relatives called him by a nickname Chef was using for him and that they didn't treat him well. As a result, he associates the nickname with abuse and asked Chef to stop using it, which he immediately did.

- The girls get sent to the best sausage joint in California. It looks like half-a-dozen places in Milwaukee but not as homey.

- As punishment continues, Robert explains himself more calmly to the guys, especially Kevin, and they grasp his desire to win, blaming Jim for that team's failure. Sous-Chef Scott gives him a hard time, noting Robert's competitive spirit should come our during the challenge, not punishment. Robert explodes, noting he almost died for this last season and breaks a mop. Wow. I have the weirdest feeling he's not going to make it close to the finals. Not that he'll get sick and fall out again. It's just that he hasn't seemed to click yet upon returning. This new group seems to have him more agitated than he was last season. I can see him just not finding a groove and getting eliminated halfway through.

- The rest of the day goes by without incident. As the Teams prep for the next night's service, the Red Team is still on a high from winning the challenge. The Blue Team is failing apart a bit, in part from losing and in part from the remnants of the injuries. Dave's wrist is killing him. The doctor calls Dave and informs him that the MRI shows a fractured wrist which is normally treated with a long arm cast. It would mean being unable to move the thumb on that hand. As we go to commercial, Dave considers what to do.

- Dave goes to discuss this news with Chef Ramsey. Chef doesn't make the decision for him, pointing out that the injury isn't to his dominant, stronger hand. He has no reason to believe Chef will bring him back like he did Robert. Dave decides to stay. Chef Ramsey doesn't disagree and seems pleased that Dave is staying. Dave is relieved that he's staying. He explains what's going on to the team and rushes off to get the cast put on his arm. I like Dave. He seems to know what he's doing in the kitchen. I hope this works out for him.

- Service starts without Dave. Chef Ramsey picks a 'Greeter' from each team: Ariel from the Red and Jim from the Blue. Hell's Kitchen is open! And celebs show up for tonight's service. I use the term loosely as Tom Green is shown walking in. He's not that funny. Out of the bunch they show, Christopher 'Kid' Reid is probably the biggest star. Oh! I take that back, there's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kristy Swanson.

...Who did you think I meant?

- Nothing can leave the kitchen until the Greeter makes and delivers an amuse bouche, a small pre-appetizer, along with a little conversation. They are still meant to work in the kitchen. Ariel is quick about this task. Jim is not.

- Suzanne immediately starts giving Tennille advice on the appetizer station. This is not well received. Tennille's food goes out well. It's Tek's spaghetti that gets sent back for being too salty, despite us seeing her taste it before sending it out. She freaks a bit and Tennille lends a hand. Second attempt goes down well with John O'Hurley.

- Pressure is on Robert to succeed on apps, from Chef, from his Team, and from himself. He gets a compliment and starts to click. Red Team is ahead until Lovely starts to drag them down. Sabrina tries to help and gets thanked by Chef. Over on the Blue Side, Kevin's Fish and Andy's Meat orders for a table approach the pass at the same time. Kevin's fish is good, Andy's meat is not. As we go to commercial, Chef Ramsey explains that he's letting the fish go out without the rest of the order so that Andy's mistake won't screw Kevin. This is rare. Normally everything has to go out as one. Andy must be about done here.

- Robert starts yelling at Andy, trying to get him to focus but it probably has the opposite effect. He prepares another serving, hashes it up, and Robert tells him it won't pass muster. Once he confirms this with Sous-Chef Scott, he hollers at Andy to try again. If Robert can be accused of taking this too seriously, the Interview footage of Andy could lead you to accusing him of not taking it seriously enough. Andy's quieter and doesn't seem like a bad guy, but he's not showing skills in the kitchen. If he was quiet and had skills, he could go far, like last season's winner Danny. Robert's too loud and Chef Ramsey has to tell him to take it down a notch. Andy's third attempt at the lamb finally goes out successfully.

- Over on the Red Side, Lovely crashes and burns on the garnish section when she blanks out, having no clue what the order is or what she should be making to support it. Don't get me wrong, everyone has moments like this, but you look dumber when you do it in front of camera. You look even dumber when you act like this consistently in front of cameras and then later celebrate little non-victories when you fail in the big time. She's showing no skills.

- Suzanne's lamb gets her yelled at as well. Interestingly, she takes Chef Ramsey to look at the lamb they have in stock in order to defend herself. This apparently turns into a brief instructional moment. The editing isn't clear but that's what seems to happen. There's no real yelling but it shows that Suzanne's not perfect, which is going to make her advice harder to take from people who already don't like her, aka Tennille.

- As we see the Blue Team fall apart from lack of communication, Dave returns with his cast on. He's sent to the dessert station and hustles to help. Chef Ramsey notes that he's only got one good arm and he's outdoing the rest of the Team.

- Chef Ramsey calls a quick huddle of both Teams. Both have three tickets to go. He announces that the first to complete the tickets, wins. Both teams hustle. It's neck-and-neck. Andy brings up a chicken order that's raw. Sous-Chef Scott gets in his face and orders him to fix it ASAP so that it's ready with the rest of the order. Scott's got a gravelly voice in general so he doesn't really need to yell to put some fear in you. This is more intense than I'm used to seeing him. It's interesting. Commercial.

- Both teams have one ticket remaining. Andy's refire is successful. Red Team stumbles. Both Teams scramble to finish. It's very exciting, like the end of a close sports game. The Blue Team pulls out the victory and the guys thank each other, slap on back, etc. According to Chef Ramsey, the Red Team lost by garnish, Lovely's station. Suzanne's confused, thinking that their veg was ready to go before the Blue Team finished and, therefore, Red Team should have won. As they're lined up to discuss what happens next, Suzanne raises her hand and asks for a 'play-by-play' on the ending. Chef Ramsey verbally slaps her down, noting that he says they lost and that they did it with Dave's bad hand and all. Ha! Her intent was good but her timing was poorly chosen.

- Sabrina is chosen as the Best of the Worst for her assisting on all stations and it's her job to chose the Nominees for Elimination. While the guys celebrate their victory, Sabrina has to talk to everyone and discuss the service. We see her talk to Lovely and Tek. She doesn't think Lovely will go home. She says Tek dragged them down all night, whereas Tek admits only to a weakness on the first ticket. In our defense, that's the only failure we saw of Tek during service. Lovely was shown as lost more than once.

- Nominees for Elimination: Tek, lost momentum, and Lovely, failing the garnish station. Lovely's up for the third time.

- Lovely thinks she's defending herself but no one else agrees by their expressions. Tek tries to defend herself, but does so in a very generic way, speaking to her love of food rather than anything specific about lessons learned or accepting her failure. Chef Ramsey considers all this for a moment. Suddenly he frowns and calls out Suzanne's name as we go to commercial. Wha? he might drag her up for questioning him but I'm guessing this is a diversion and he's just going to ask her a question or something.

- Chef Ramsey asks Suzanne, since she's not shy in sharing her opinion, who she would send home. After a moment, which is probably more 'phew' than thinking, she states "Lovely". Chef agrees with her and Lovely is eliminated from Hell's Kitchen. Lovely seems to believe she's learning something from the experience and vows to use it as she goes forward.

- Chef Ramsey warns Tek that's there's no safety net. He then warns everyone that this next dinner service will be the most important of their careers and that something will change. Hmm.

- In Interview, Tek resolves to bounce back. Suzanne seems to think that Chef values her opinion and that the ladies should be concerned because they haven't seen her bad side yet. Robert wants to keep the pressure on the Red Team.

- Teaser for next week, well, tonight I guess: the next dinner service is a 'welcome home' dinner for a soldier. Service seems to go horribly and, based on what they show, it looks like the Red Team loses but Tennille is the Best of the Worst. Robert is celebrating so it really looks like the Blue Team does poorly but not as poorly.

- Did well: Dave (for gutting it out), Kevin, Robert, Sabrina.

- Looked bad: Andy, Jim, Tek, Suzanne (just for mouthing off).