After an explosive first show that spanned over two weeks, Ramsay realized that the team really doesn’t trust each other still despite the teamwork exercise he gave them last week.  This week he decided to test the team work of each team and wanted to observe how they put their differences aside to come up with a solution.  This week’s challenge Ramsay split the team up into three groups of two to make sausage from scratch.

Each team had to make the sausage six links to the specified width.  The women got off to a blasting start. Tennille actually got her act together (for this week at least) and managed to bang out the first sausage for either team.  The women took a commanding lead; three of the six sausages needed to win the challenge to one of the men.  The men were not going down without a fight.  They managed to get within one before the women brought it up to five.  The men jumped on it and tied it up, but Robert and Jim couldn’t seem to get even one sausage made.  Robert was doing his part, but Jim couldn’t manage to get his end together.  The women brought up their sixth sausage but Ramsay rejected it.  Never fear, another woman team brought up the sixth sausage that had six perfect links to win.  Ramsay was very upset with Robert and Jim.  The punishment was to clean the entire dorm.

In the dorm, Robert was insulted with Andy’s comments about master chefs who can’t make sausage.  Robert got right into his face, which almost came to blows but he managed to constrain his emotions and got back to work.  Meanwhile, Dave’s wrist ended up breaking and he needed a cast.  He didn’t want to give up, so Ramsay let him go get it fixed and return.

The night’s dinner was demanding because they were feeding some of Hollywood’s elite.  The teams were strong throughout the whole service and there wasn’t much that went wrong.  However, for the women, the weakest link was Tek who screwed up the first order and slowed the women down.  While for the men, it was Andy who screwed up the meat sending his team down to a stand still.

At the end of the night, the men were starting to struggle because of the meat mess ups, but then comes Dave who gets them back on track and the morale they needed to catch back up to the women.  The competition was tight; whoever got all the entrees out, would win.  The women were one dish away with the men from winning, but Lovely messed up the garnish which allowed the men to run to the pass and get the last entree out to win.

What we saw tonight was Robert taking the lead for the men.  He showed the same spirit and quality that got him to the top three for the men last year.  We saw another break down by Lovely and the women, who can’t seem to get anything going this year. Ramsay was highly impressed with Sabrina and said she was the best of the worst, so had her choose two chefs to go home. Before he dismissed the teams back to the dorms, Suzanne got the largest balls ever and asked Ramsay for a play-by-play of how the women lost.  Ramsay was not impressed, making Suzanne think she would be put up for elimination.

Sabrina didn’t need to talk to anyone, she knew exactly who she was putting up tonight.  Her choices were Lovely and Tek. Ramsay asked Lovely why she should be kept in Hell’s Kitchen, being the third straight night she’s been put up for elimination (this is the third night meaning she has been in the bottom two each night).  Ramsay said he made his decision, then called for Suzanne.  Suzanne turned pale white expecting Ramsay was going to override Sabrina’s choices.  Instead, the head chef surprises everyone when he says, “Sabrina, who would you send home?”  Sabrina replied, “Lovely.” Ramsay said he couldn’t agree more and sent Lovely home.

Season 5 wasn’t even two months into the books before Season 6 hit the waves and with the new crew, it proves to be a season of more firsts and head scratching.  It wouldn’t be Hell’s Kitchen without it.

The season premiere ran two weeks long in a two hour debut.  It started out a bit different from the rest of the seasons because it started out with a challenge and usually challenges come the second week of the new season.  For the first time, the challenge was a group effort because they would all cook their signature dishes and the team with the most accepted by Ramsay wins.  Out of a group of twenty, only nine dishes were acceptable by Ramsay.  It came down to a 4/4 tie before the last two contestants got their chance to show what they had.  Ramsay looked at the red team’s dish and was very disappointed, but fell in love with the blue team’s dish making them the winner of the challenge.

The blue team got their reward while the women had to stay and prep and clean Hell’s Kitchen.  The women were none to happy but they managed to memorize the dinner menu.  The blue team, after they got back, had the opportunity to learn the menu but decided to play around instead.  This decision was not the best choice for them, as they would find out in the next day’s first dinner service.

It was the worst dinner service of Hell’s Kitchen.  The women knew the menu but couldn’t cook anything to save their lives, while the blue team fumbled around doing things on the fly but managing to do the same as the women.  Another first came during the dinner service.  One contestant was asked to leave before the service was through, and he was on the blue team.

Gordon Ramsay also asked Robert, who left last season with health issues, to be his guest while he and his wife enjoyed a meal at Hell’s Kitchen.  Robert graciously accepted.  It was good to see he was doing okay.  Robert left last season in the top three for the men; he honestly he had a great chance of being one of the finalists.

After Ramsay ousted the blue team’s contestant, he went out and asked Robert to rejoin Hell’s Kitchen and take his spot in the blue kitchen.  Robert accepted, and it’s the first time a contestant has ever come back.  Unfortunately for Robert, it was too late. Both teams couldn’t get an appetizer out to the floor and for the first time in Hell’s Kitchen, entrees were not served.

Ramsay said both teams lost and chose to send Melinda home, as the red team did the worst of the night and didn’t send out one appetizer while the men did.  Robert was asked to join the red team to even them out.

The next day, Ramsay opened up with the usual challenge.  This challenge was to clean and prep shrimp for some shrimp cocktails.  Each one had ten minutes to clean as many shrimp as they could.  This contest was close, as the blue team won by only one shrimp, because Tennille blew her prep.  She was slow and still managed to only have two acceptable shrimp out of eight. The red team would then have to clean all the shrimp in prep for the night’s dinner service.

Again, this dinner service was a fiasco.  Tennille and Van worked the floor prepping a shrimp dish right at the tables, something different for the enjoyment of the patrons.  However, Jean-Phillipe was none to happy with Van.  Van refused to listen to Jean-Phillipe which made him lose his cool, causing the two to come to blows in the kitchen.  Ramsay, who already had a disaster in the kitchen with the failing chefs, took it to both Van and Jean-Phillipe.  Tennille served some raw shrimp to a pregnant woman which jeopardized the red team’s chances to win.  A mess up like that to a pregnant woman could have made her very ill.

The chefs were so bad on both teams that no entrees were served again and the ones that were, came back.  Ramsay made each table shrimp cocktails and that is all the dining room ate that night.  Ramsay shut down the kitchen in disgust and said both teams were losers.  Each team was to choose two members for elimination.

That night, Ramsay asked the red team which two they chose, and they unanimously chose Tennille and Amanda.  When he asked the blue team, Joseph said they know who they are and why.  Ramsay asked him to tell him the two and why again and Joseph completely lost it.  He threw off his jacket and got right in Ramsay’s face, asking him to take it outside and that he is “nobody’s bitch.”  Ramsay quickly told Joseph to “get the hell out” and Joseph, who was one of the best in the kitchen, threw his chances away over something so stupid.  After he left, the blue team put up Tony and Andy.  Ramsay asked the two women and two men to step forward and ended up asking Tony to leave.

Now the men are down in chefs, so Ramsay brought Robert back to the blue team.

At 2:00 AM, the chefs get woken up by sirens.  Frantically, they run down stairs thinking Hell’s Kitchen is on fire, only to be greeted by hundreds of firemen just calmly standing around.  Ramsay tells the troops that they lack team work and aren’t well prepared, therefore, asking the fire department to show what readiness and good teamwork looks like.  He asked the chefs to go inside and cook pasta dishes for the firefighters as the challenge.

The women this time came together as a team, in a close one again, beating the men by one dish.  Finally, the women have something going right for them, losing the first two challenges and two dinner services.  The men must stay and scrub the fire trucks outside.

While the women were in a relaxing spa, the men cleaned the trucks, but this challenge would hurt two of the blue team’s chefs, Andy and Dave.  Dave got his hand caught in a crevice of the truck which caused his wrist to swell, while Andy sprained both his ankles as he went back inside Hell’s Kitchen.  This was not looking good for the blue team.  Both contestants were taken for X-rays and found they only had some torn ligaments and sprains.  Both decided to continue in Hell’s Kitchen.

This time for dinner, both teams were on the ball.  They had some mess-ups but both managed to get a full dinner service complete.  The comment cards showed Ramsay that they finished but were far from perfect.  The women had an 81% approval, while the men had 83% and won the night based on the comment cards.  The women were to put two up for elimination, and they chose Tennille and Lovely.

In the end, Andy left Hell’s Kitchen because he was just not mobile enough, though he gave it a valiant effort.  Ramsay did not send any of the women’s choices home because Andy left that night.  They got a stay of execution, but Ramsay said neither Lovely or Tennille have a chance to win.

It was a crazy three days, and two weeks of the new season.  Already many firsts have occurred and the fur flew, so if the rest of the season is as good as the first two shows, it is going to be great.  Last year’s contestants really didn’t impress me and so far, neither do these.  I hope someone emerges to make me believe they deserve to be the winner.

Just when I thought last week’s dinner service on Hell’s Kitchen was bad, they went and proved me wrong. This week was by far the worst service of any Hell’s Kitchen I have seen.

The contest this week was a taste test; to be a good chef you must have an impeccable palette. Chef Ramsay challenged the chefs to a blind fold test to see if they could guess the ingredients. Surprisingly, Robert and Giovanni didn’t get any of them right and Lacy failed too; but the surprise was Carol.  She got most of the ingredients in the Minestrone soup correct sending the red team to victory. Their reward was that they would be in a TV Guide photo shoot, taken right at Hell’s Kitchen. The blue team’s punishment was to wait on the red team and prep both kitchens for the night’s dinner service.

The dinner service had two celebrities in the house, so the pressure was even more intense. Paula, for the red team, had appetizer duty and screwed up her first risotto, but she managed to get on track and banged out the rest of the appetizers. On the blue side, the appetizers really did fly out of the kitchen with Robert on the station, but that would come to a screeching halt for the entrees.

Lacy was on the blue team’s meat service, which did her in. I don’t know what was more raw, her meat or her back side after Ramsay laced into her. She completely had a breakdown, confusion set in and she told Chef Ramsay she couldn’t cook meat. Ramsay screamed in shock, “You can’t cook bloody meat, GET OUT!” and threw her out of Hell’s Kitchen, or so we thought. He went back into a storage room and yelled at her for a few moments, before bringing her back on to the kitchen floor. Lacy would only last a few more minutes before Ramsay told her she wasn’t good enough and took her jacket. The men were down to three, but came together like never before and beat the red team on dinner service.

The red team had a complete lack of communication between Andrea and Carol. Their feud is becoming toxic, and ultimately cost the red team the win. Carol had a breakdown on the meat as well and couldn’t cook the Beef Wellington to save her life. She wouldn’t communicate with Andrea, so Andrea’s food was over or under cooked. The kitchen was at a stand still and Chef Ramsay pulled the plug and sent all the guests home.

Ramsay is completely disappointed in both teams, but the men did win, coming from behind to out serve the entrees with three less people. Chef Ramsay sent the red team back to nominate two people for elimination. The team was in complete agreement on Carol, but were conflicted with the other nominee. It came down to Andrea or LA.

When Ramsay first asked who the red team had nominated, Paula said they weren’t in agreement which really set the chef off. He said that the team’s communication was horrific, and that once again they have failed as a team. Paula said the nominees were Carol and LA. Then Chef Ramsay asked who the other was and that was when Paula nominated Andrea. So Ramsay asked Carol, Andrea and LA to come forward. He asked the team which nominee was in complete agreement and they all said Carol. He asked Carol who she thought the other one should be, and Carol actually said Andrea over LA, unlike the rest.

In the end, Chef sent LA home. He said he chose her for two reasons, lack of communication and lack of leadership necessary in a person running a five star kitchen. Carol and Andrea were spared, but their feud could cost them both the Hell’s Kitchen win. For the first time on the show two people were sent home, Lacy and LA.