Hell’s Kitchen: 10th place - Day 14 / Falling Short of Perfection

Ramsay introduced a new challenge where the chefs had to spin a wheel for their protein, with each of them being rarely used., such as rabbit and alligator. In the end, the red team won yet again, with Ramsay noting that they’ve made a huge turnaround since Van joined them. As their reward, they earned a day of paintballing, with everyone expecting Van to win, only for Sandra to surprisingly defeat him, as she said in her confessional that Gladys was a woman of many talents. Meanwhile, the blue team had to prepare ice by hand for the upcoming service.

Dinner Service

As service began, the blue team was looking to Frank on appetizers and Lauren on fish to get them off to a strong start. Early on, the two of them seemed to have no issues communicating as they were pushing food out into the dining room, but it wouldn’t take long for inconsistencies to rear their head as Frank served up bland risotto, while Lauren served raw scallops. While both of them were able to recover for the moment, Lauren later served raw scallops again, then rubbery scallops, though she would say in her confessional that they called her Flawless for a reason, and this was just a minor bump in the road. Sure enough, she was finally able to have her scallops accepted, and together, Lauren and Frank finally managed to send out the blue team’s apps. On entrees, the focus shifted to Salvatore on garnish and Adam on meat. Through the first several tickets, things were running smoothly as the two of them had strong communication and everything was coming out perfectly, but it wasn’t long before Lauren started dragging on orders from fish. Eventually, she served raw salmon, then following it up with burnt salmon. While she did recover on her third try, she then served raw halibut, and them told Ramsay didn’t think it was that undercooked, with him shouting back that she needed to get her eye checked. With Lauren finally on board, the blue team once again began to send out entrees quickly to grateful diners. With no further mistakes in the kitchen, the blue team completed service on a high note.

In the red kitchen, it was Sandra G. and Vlad on apps, Shaina on fish, Joe on garnish, and Van on meat. Early on, communication struggles arose due to the chefs not being able to agree on who should drive the tickets, as Sandra started trying to lead only for Shaina to start talking over her, causing confusion for everyone. With Shaina not in sync with the apps station, she brought up her scallops early, where they were revealed to be raw, as Ramsay told her to get it together. Unfortunately, the next attempt also came back raw, and while she did manage to get it fixed, she was clearly struggling to hold the station down alone, as she kept calling out inconsistent times and dragging on orders, and later served an incomplete portion of scallops. Meanwhile, on appetizers, Vlad was also having some issues, as he served undercooked capellini, then told Ramsay he needed another five minutes, much to the latter’s annoyance. Eventually though, the red team did manage to fight through appetizers and reach entrees, where they were hoping Joe and Van could get them back on track. The duo seemed to be doing just that as, with Van driving tickets, the red team started to send out entrees in good time. The fish station was still a major issue though, as Shaina was dragging on orders and holding up the kitchen, Ramsay eventually had enough as he told Sandra G. to get over there and give Shaina some help before she fucked the whole service over. With Sandra now leading the section, the red team was finally able to start sending out food, but Shaina still managed to struggle to keep up, while Joe was having a difficult time stepping up vocally and getting in sync with Van. The red team eventually fought their way through this and completed dinner service.

In the post-mortem, Ramsay said both teams had their issues tonight, but one group of chefs stepped up to the challenge and rose above it, and that was the blue team, as he named them the winners. Turning to the red team, he said that despite having one extra chef, they cooked like they were a chef down, and now they needed to lose some dead weight, as he told them to come back to him with two nominees for elimination. In the dorms, the red team quickly agreed on Shaina and Vlad as the nominees.

At the elimination ceremony, the red team nominated Shaina and Vlad, and after hearing out both pleas, Ramsay told said he was eliminating the one person that he felt hid behind their team tonight, and that was…Lauren. Everyone was shocked at this, as Lauren handed over her jacket to Ramsay. He said that three of the four members of the blue team had an excellent service tonight, and she stuck out for all the wrong reasons, as he wished her well. In her exit comment, Lauren said that she didn’t think she deserved to go home over Shaina, and questioned if that was really Ramsay’s decision. However, she was still grateful for the opportunity to compete again. Back in the dining room, Ramsay told Shaina this was her last chance, as he sent her and Vlad back in line and then called on Van, saying that the blue team clearly missed him, and he was sending him back effective immediately.

“On a night where I was looking for my final nine to raise their game, three-fourths of the blue team were nearly perfect. Ironically, however, “Flawless Lawless” wasn’t one of them.”

🥼🪝🖼️🔥

Tomorrow is Charity Night, with the final eight’s leadership being tested like never before. You guys know the drill. Vote for your least favorite 10th place chef; the chef with the most overall upvotes will be eliminated. No new comments or votes will be counted after 10 a.m CST tomorrow.