Hell’s Kitchen Season Nine Coverage: Clowns

The way this episode started, you knew something was up.

The contestants were awoken by clowns honking their horns and throwing confetti. The reason, according to Gordon Ramsey’s sous chef, “If you’re going to act like clowns, you should be woken up by clowns.”

Thus starts episode three of Hell’s Kitchen.

First, Ramsey asked for a volunteer from the red team to go to the blue team. The red team was unanimous with letting Carrie go. Ramsey had other plans and let Natalie join. This was the start of the red team’s troubles.

This episode’s challenge: feed mothers and their babies lunch in what Ramsey dubbed “Mommy and Me Challenge.” The babies were given quesadillas and macaroni while the mothers got Paninis. Both teams started off strong with feeding half the dining room in twenty minutes. That was until Jamie burnt a quesadilla. You would think a contestant would know not to bring burned food up to Ramsey at this stage.

The challenge was very close but came down to one ticket. The blue team won at the last second. Once again, the red team lost a challenge and their punishment was to clean the dining room. Not only that, but Ramsey ordered a playground and the red team needed to assemble it for family night the next evening.

Meanwhile, the blue team goes to Medieval Times where they are treated to a show and free sword-fighting lessons.

That evening, Carrie lights a fire in the dorm with Elise. Apparently, Elise feels Carrie is the worst cook on the red team and is not afraid to let her hear it. This continues the next day when the red team is not communicating with each other at all.

This came back to haunt them at dinner service.

Family night, Hell’s Kitchen most popular night, has the regular menu, plus a kids menu featuring chicken fingers, a burger, spaghetti and a Margerita pizza. Chino and Gina were made waiters for the night. Chino, as usual, starts on the wrong foot by writing a check with no sides and illegible writing. This gives the red kitchen a head start. The only other bad thing that happens in the blue kitchen is Tommy burning chicken tenders. Will decides to get on Tommy’s back and literally tells Tommy how to do everything step by step.

The red kitchen, however, is a different story. It starts with Jennifer cooking the wrong entrees. How did she hear burger, chicken fingers and beef wellington? Getting one item wrong is one thing, but three?

This bad luck continues with Amanda under-cooking bass and decides to finish cooking it in the oven. Wouldn’t that just make the bass hard? The last straw was when Carrie burns a lamb, causing Ramsey to force the red team to go to all of their tables and apologize to all the patrons before being kicked out. This is the first time any team was forced to apologize to the patrons.

While the blue team finishes up diner service for both kitchens the drama continues in the dorms with, what else, Elise blaming Carrie for their failure. Why? Carrie wasn’t the only one who messed up; Jennifer and Amanda also provided bad service. It now seems obvious Elise has something against Carrie and wants her out. Looks like Carrie is the red team’s whipping boy.

At elimination, Ramsey, seeing the discontent in the red kitchen, does the right thing by choosing who should be up for elimination. Jennifer, Carrie and Amanda are put up for elimination.

Amanda went home.

What happened in this episode with the red team was a disaster. After finishing strong last diner service one would think that would continue. The rising drama in the dorm has caused the team to lose that vigor along with their teamwork and now the blue team seems to be the stronger team now. There’s no way the red team will put aside any animosity they have for Carrie and that will be their downfall. Looks like Hell’s Bitches is still strong in Hell’s Kitchen and viewers want to see who’ll throw the first punch.