Another week, another testosterone-fueled rivalry between Josh and Rock. Josh argues for the camera that he didn’t deserve to be kicked off, over a scene of Rock giving him advice in the kitchen. Not sure which version of the show Rock is watching--maybe one in which Josh is played by Vinnie?-- but Josh isn’t remotely the screw-up Rock wants him to be. Maybe we’ll get the flashback episode in which Josh killed Rock’s cat back in kindergarten or something.
Back in the womens’ dorm everyone is giving Bonnie the cold shoulder, even Jen who stood up for her, oh, five minutes ago. Melissa, typically, is unapologetic and calls Bonnie “a failure waiting to happen.”
For this week’s challenge the teams have to hit a grocery store to plan a menu for a wedding reception-- a meat dish, a fish dish, and an appetizer. It’s ‘Top Chef’-style challenge, though with the typical ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ backbiting and drama-- Rock argues that his childhood in the ghetto gives him an angle on buying cheaply, even though the men go $37 over budget.
What’s really thrilling once they get in the kitchen, though, is that they’re actually cooking something different. After weeks of scallops and beef Wellington, seeing someone searing sea bass feels like a revelation. Less revelatory, and more typical, is Melissa bossing everyone around in the womens’ kitchen, at one point telling Julia “Don’t ask Bonnie questions, ask me.” Rock, overhearing in the mens’ kitchen, chants to himself “Hells’ bitches, hell’s bitches, yes!” This man’s schadenfreude truly knows no bounds.
It pays off, though, as the bride and groom-to-be come in to judge the dishes and have the teams neck in neck until the meat entrees. The women serve what literally looks like an oversized hot dog cut into slices, while the men come up with a ribeye with onions and blah blah, yummy stuff. Melissa repeatedly tries to not serve the dish, which only makes the women look stupider-- ever heard of playing off your mistakes? ‘Project Runway’ pulls those kinds of tricks off all the time.
Needless to say, the men win the challenge, and wind up with a spa day-- you can so tell they expected the women to win. The men have robes brought to them in the kitchen, which seems bizarre, and head off for a day of moaning happily. The women, in the meantime, go gossip on the porch, and Bonnie almost gets a classic “She’s standing right behind you!” Mean Girls moment while bitching about Melissa. Melissa insists on picking a fight, though, and tells the rest of the women their problem is that they need to grow some balls. Now if that happened, wouldn’t that make them no longer the womens’ team? Am I the only one seeing a logic hole here?
For their punishment the women must meet the gayest wedding planner in the universe. Well, their punishment is to decorate the dining room for a wedding, but honestly-- gayest wedding planner ever. I don’t know where they found this guy, but he seems to be imitating Martin Short in Father of the Bride or possibly Hank Azaria from The Birdcage. He tells the women they are going to “deck the halls with chiffon and flowers” and create a “garden of gorgeousness.” He quickly becomes my favorite character on the show, particularly when he gets in a fight with the maitre’d during dinner service. But I’m getting ahead of myself-- it’s worth mentioning that the women continue fighting while preparing the decorations, with Bonnie threatening (in private) to strangle Melissa with chiffon. There’s those balls, girl!
Dinner service! Melissa actually crosses over to the mens’ team to harass Rock about the potatoes, which would seem to indicate she has run out of people to fight with on her own team, but oh no. She actually does most of her fighting with Ramsay, who reminds her that if she’d shut up for 30 seconds she’d learn something. True! She proceeds to mess up the potatoes and annoy everyone, capping it off by ruining a dessert by...accidentally drowning it in water? Honestly, at this point I could take over the girl’s kitchen tongs.
Meanwhile, Josh ruins the risotto, as he has done every week since this damn show began, but everyone else generally has their acts together. They actually finish dinner service! Funny how things go so well when you have such an obvious scapegoat. The women, clearly, are the losing team, and poor Jen is left with the task of choosing a bottomtwo-- Melissa, duh, but who else?
Jen chooses poor pretty Bonnie, who looks terrified as always to go up before Ramsay. He asks Melissa to take off her jacket... in order to put on a blue one! WHOAH. Melissa has joined the mens’ team, leaving them with the four against three advantage and the women with a team that actually gets along. Honestly, it seems like the best possible decision. Melissa is a competent cook, and while she’s guaranteed to clash with Rock and probably Josh-- does Brad even have a discernible personality?-- they’ll probably shut her out enough to have a functional kitchen.
Next week: lobsters! Nothing else seems to be worth teasing, so lets just hope it’s a line by line recreation of the lobster scene from Annie Hall, starring Rock and Josh. Ratings gold!
