Quick Take: Hell's Kitchen, "2 Chefs Compete"
The new Executive Chef at the Savoy Hotel is...
Review: Hell's Kitchen, "2 Chefs Compete"
(S0715) In his interview Jay is certain he can beat Holli. They head up to their quarters and Holli remarks that they are alone. The next day they begin working on their menus. Jay says he was focused on getting to the end. Holli says she wasn't expecting it.
The chefs are informed that Ramsay wants to take them somewhere special so they dress to go out and the producers make sure to include a gratuitous shot of Holli in her bra. They go to the London West Hollywood. They keep up the appearance that it's one of his restaurants but in truth Ramsay sold it in 2009. On the roof, a large audience greets them for their final challenge: one hour to cook five dishes, which are an amuse bouche, a cold appetizer, a hot appetizer, a fish entrée, and a meat entrée. They are to be judged by head chefs from Ramsay's London restaurants.
Jay wins the amuse bouche, Holli wins both cold and hot appetizer. Then Jay wins the fish entrée, causing it to go down to the last dish to determine the winner, an all-too-familiar scenario on Hell's Kitchen that is rather suspicious. It feels like the producers engineered it to build suspense and keep people through the commercial break. The winner of the meat entrée and thereby the challenge is Jay, which entitles him to pick first from the returning chefs to make up his kitchen staff.
Coming back in the order they were kicked out are Benjamin, Autumn, Jason, Nilka, Fran, and Siobhan, who is taking Ed's place, who left between Jason and Nilka. Ramsay greets them and seems happy to see them all. He reacts strangely to Fran. Although I believe he meant it as a compliment, he insults Fran by asking her if she had been on The Swan, a makeover reality show for an unattractive person.
Jay picks Benjamin, who in his interview has to continue to declare he is better at everything than Holli. He really comes off like a jerk. Hope the quitter likes the guy he sees on TV when he watches these. Holli picks Autumn, stating she was almost in the final. Jay picks Jason and Holli picks Nilka. Jay picks Fran and Holli gets Siobahn. Everyone retires upstairs and Jay says in his interview he is disappointed he can't spend the night alone with Holli. Classy.
As they prep, Holli is concerned about Siobahn and rightly so. Ramsay calls Holli and Jay into his office and tells them he is sending them both on a trip to Australia. Seems odd and I don't remember finalists on other shows being awarded trips.
Service commences and both Siobhan and Fran struggle with appetizers. The meat station is also a stumbling block as Jason and Nilka have trouble cooking lamb and venison, respectively. Benjamin starts to run the kitchen for Jay who says he's a great sous chef. Autumn tries to do too much but won't take help because, as she yells out, Nilka and Siobahn don't know what they are doing.
They are tied at three tables to go, and Jay finishes first. They both did a great job and the service showed Ramsay ended up with the best two chefs left to run a kitchen. As they await the result, Ramsay tells them he is proud off of both of them. Because he won the challenge, finished service first, and is older, I am leaning toward Jay.
The winner is Holli, and her son is adorable as he celebrates with her. Unfortunately for the viewers, Ramsay again offers very little reasoning as to why the winner was selected. He says she's grown as a chef, and that's true, but what went into the decision, such as what Holli had over Jay, would be a much more satisfying experience for the audience.
This is actually the first season of hell's kitchen that lost my interest to the point that I dropped out around the midway mark. Sounds like the end run went more or less predictably.
Only other thought is that from what I'd seen of Siobhan, she would definitely be the nightmare person to have selected to one of the finalst's teams.
Oh, and totally agree too that Ramsay does a terrible job in explaining why the winner was selected. I also really hate how they typically cut out of the season without exit interviews with the winner, the finalist, etc. We've sat through a whole season with the purpose of finding a winner here, how about some reax before we go into hiatus, you know?
Every reality show should have a recap episode. Especially so we can get reactions from people after all the bad-mouthing in the interviews is revealed.