Welcome back to Hell’s Kitchen! It still blows my mind that this is season 17, can you believe it? ME EITHER! Let’s do spoilers!

Last week we learned that taquitos are NOT burritos, filo (phyllo?) dough for spanakopita must be cut in strips, losing reward doesn’t mean you win service and that Vanessa just wasn’t ready, y’all. She’s gone home to get that hug from her mama she’s been a-hankering for.

In the elimination ceremony, Ariel took it upon herself to put up Vanessa for elimination, instead of Manda (who totally lost them the night with all her potato and bean mess-ups) and Dannie is mad, but she can’t argue that Vanessa is the better chef. I mean, that’s who Chef Ramsay sent home and all…I don’t think Ariel is a team player (bringing up Meese’s uncooked fish but not owning up to it), but she’s not wrong. Chef Ramsay asked her who she thought was the weakest chef, and she had the floor…bai Vanessa. Boom

A fun discussion re: semantics Danni: “you better not be yelling at me” “I’m raising my voice and asserting myself” “this conversation is over and if you want to continue to talk I will continue to keep raising my voice” and wow, I had no idea Ariel was so young, she’s only 26, I was thinking mid-forties, easy. Alan is just disappoint there wasn’t more hair-pulling.

The next morning at 5:30 am, the chefs are awoken by chefs banging a cart full of camo gear loudly. Excuse me, what in the Sam Hill is Jackie wearing in a shared bedroom with a bunch of other women?

Somehow I missed Ashley’s implants too. Anyway, Elmer’s excited because he thinks the camo gear means he gets to kill something! Blood on his hands by the end of the day, fingers crossed! Meese doesn’t think Jackie should be allowed firearms and Chef Fcuking Ramsay is making cheesy rubber ducky jokes? COME ON!! Oh no, wait, it gets worse! Next there’s a helicopter dumping MOAR rubber duckies into the water! Where’s the Fonz and the shark?

The groups are split into pairs, one member of each team paired up with a member of the other team, they have to gather 5 duckies worth of ingredients and cook head to head. The teams are Ashley vs. Elmer, Ariel vs. Chad, Kristin vs. Jared, Jackie vs. Frank and Hassan vs. Meese and you see the rest below. They canoe aboot and fight over ingredients and I wanna know who’s cleaning up this crap after?

Ariel and Chad have the stupidest discussion ever wherein nobody wants to admit to wanting an ingredient: strategy? I call Morons. How things shake out:

Back at the kitchen, we get a great breakdown of each team, YAY!! Manda is confused by the giant Ashley-foobie-type duck breast, and Elmer c’ain’t rightly remember how he’s supposed to cook duck, but he thinks it’s fine. Frank has NO CLUE and he’s worried because he’s right in that duck is not just something you can finesse. It has a metric tonne more fat than any other type of poultry, I’ll say that.

Judging time! A two-Michelin-starred judge will be in attendance, a Josiah Citrin

and Jackie is SO.’CITED!! I feel pre-emptive schadenfreude for her.

Joe and Manda are up first; his dish has bok choy and once he says tamale, both chefs are confused and he scores a 3:

Everyone thinks Manda’s duck is mealy and over-cooked:

Chad’s meal montage gets 5:

Ariel’s used a pomegranate glaze and it also scores a 5:

Jackie’s wax bean puree *herk* gets an underwhelming 5

But duck noob Frank prays for and receives 7 points and a lot of praise for his wax bean risotto *herk*:

Danni has made some awful-looking collard greens, only scoring 5, but still beating

Alan and his greasy and bland deep-fried collard greens

But Meese surprises all of us by using the leg and not breast, but it tastes good enough for 4 points

Hassan doesn’t do as well with his cabbage puree *herk*, only adding 2 points to the men’s total

The women are almost caught up! It’s 22 to 21, can Ashley bring it home for the ladies? Or will Elmer just bury them further? Let’s see!

Nope, Elmer has left all the rubbery raw fat attached and Chef Ramsay says they would be shut down when a customer chokes to death on it. He gets 4 for his trouble.

Ashley gets 6 for her complicated-sounding dish.

Jared and Kristin are last: oh come on, Jared, you’re not on Top Chef, and if you were, you’d have everyone laughing at you for that ridiculous attempt at plate decoration! He gets 6 anyway, even though he had to work with those stupid purple sweet potatoes that he never shut up about, leaving the women 5 behind by five points.

Kristin’s looks marginally better, fancy even, but it doesn’t score well, just 3 and the women lose AGAIN.

The boys are going yachting and dining in penthouse restaurant for a fancy. The women have to prep dozens of ducks for a appetiser. The ducks have their heads on still!

The Blue Team runs onto their yacht for the day and slurp oysters for hours *herk* and make seal noises at seals. The Red Team is sitting down to a lovely lunch of duck feet sandwiches and I’d STILL rather eat those than oysters. But not on white bread, pleez.

Of course Jackie eats them; she’s gross, yo. Calm it down, Jersey. You’re 32, no need to show us your all your ass. And I don’t mean her behind.

The menz get a special guest! Its Chef Ramsay and hells yeah I’ll call you Gordon! You just make sure you CALL ME, you fine-arsed horny Scottish rugby player in heat. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s his hair. And maybe that vein in his arm right there.

Joe grabs the bull by the horns and asks Gordon if he can use him as a reference later, they all laugh and laugh but Joe means it. Gordon stops making eye contact.

Prepping for dinner service, the Red Team has Christina! Yay! She is helping them set up, and suggests they start with the kitchen prep list, which Jackie helpfully titles The Fcuking List. Christina finds it and is FURIOUS. She sends Jackie for a timeout and tells her that in any other kitchen, Jackie would be fired. Imma go out on a limb and say that Jackie probably would not be fired for writing that in most of the kitchens she HAS been working at. And that brings up this point:

I hate stunt casting; it’s makes time drag at best and is manipulative at worst. Jackie hasn’t shown WHATSOEVER that she can cook, she can’t handle direction, THIS is who is going to run Chef Ramsay’s BLT Steak kitchen at Bally Casino in Vegas? My plump arse she is. So; she’s there to stir the pot and say outrageous things, whatever, man. Don’t waste my time.

Christina’s come a long way since her season, she is very clear and straightforward and takes no shite whatsoever. She calls Jackie the cancer in their team; find it, work around it or cut it out. Jackie finally bucks up and apologizes to Christina.

The Red kitchen will be hosting the devil itself: Kris Jenner. That’s so cute that they spell PIMP “Manager / Producer”!

And the Blue team chef table will have Dita Von Teese, yay! She was cool, I hope she still is!

Dannie and Frank are doing tableside confit and Ashley forgot to turn on the gas AGAIN!! Nevermind, Dita is in the hizzay and she looks great! Elmer is in lurve. Hilarious repartee, reminders to be gentlemen: there be ladies aboot, they’re still managing quite well with service. Appies are flying out and I’m not seeing any major problems yet.

The Red Kitchen, however…no food out yet. And Kris Jenner arrives, I actually agree with Jackie for once: dese boots!!

Celebrity is a double edged sword; everyone is fawning over Kris Jenner, whom I’ve heard is beautiful and petite in person, but give any Kardashian internet post 5 seconds and the hate will ASTOUND you. So, being a celebrity in person can get you pretty much anything you want, it just means that you will probably never ever be able to read the internet ever again.

Manda got Kris Jenner’s risotto out to the pass, and THEN tasted it; Chef Ramsay is not happy.  Wait a farking minute; KJenner just put out a cookbook?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Manda is losing it

Entrees are firing on the Blue Team, where Kevin and his tiny man-pony are having ANOTHER bad night.

Jackie is completely incompetent, yeah? She seems nice, you know, little rough around the edges (but not quite as many jagged bits as she would have us think) but she is over her head. Another note re: Stunt Casting, our Elmer flirting and quite clearly doing a bit with Dita von Teese. He may not be able to do math or read words (his words), but he thinks he understands body language and thinks he has a shot with Ms. Burlesque Lingerie Designer. Have I showed you Elmer recently?

Jackie is STILL bitching and Meese screwed up all the garnish so he drags them all off to the closet so Kris Jenner and her harpy friends don’t overhear his screaming. KJ et al. are loving it, though, all giggles and covered mouths and they end up missing the part where he says he’s eaten better food in prison. Must.resist.urge to look on Google. Nevermind, he had a show called Gordon Behind Bars, no Chained Heat: Chef Style or anything. Sigh.

And shame of all shames, Chef Ramsay calls the Blue Team over to help the women. Hassan (pronounced HAA-ssen) ran the Blue Kitchen tonight, and now he’s all over the Red Kitchen. I was just wondering who was going to emerge as a leader; nobody had stepped up yet.

Service is over and the ladies have to think of 2 people / cancers to cut out. They just haven’t been able to find their rhythm at ALL. Of course Jackie is up for elimination and if she stays, it’s because she says stuff like “Tweedledum, Tweedledumber and Tweedlefuckface”.

I would put up Meese and Manda first, though, they seem to be falling behind at crucial times and that is the core and essence of Hell’s Kitchen: the ability to handle a LOT of pressure at once and rise to the occasion. Also, to get better as it gets harder, not falling apart.

Elimination time: Chef Ramsay asks Manda; she says Jackie and Meese. Jackie becuz: attitude, Meese becuz: not talking during service. Now I haven’t seen Jackie dump a full ashtray on anyone yet, like in the promo, so I know she’s staying, so it’s down to whether Ramsay pulls another out of line or not. Like Manda.

Meese is sent home with a “you are just not ready, young lady” and that was a pretty nice way to do it, Gordon! She doesn’t handle it well, however.

But Chef Ramsay isn’t done! He asks Hassan to get in line and tells him to teach the Red Kitchen how to roll like they are over in Blue. Hmmmm. Alan is worried that Hassan might be a catalyst for the women, we’ll see.

Chef Ramsay has this to say about Meese: “after being nominated 3 times in a row due to the lack of communication, Meese may want to consider changing her name to Mouse.” Oooooh burn

See you next week!