The eighth episode of Season 19 of Hell's Kitchen aired in the UK on November 18, 2020 and in the US on February 25, 2021. On that episode, the chefs rolled for their ingredients, four chefs cooked for their lives, and one failed to live up to their nickname.
Intro[]
While going back to the dorms, Kori knew she was one of the stronger chefs here and said that if someone wanted to nominate her, they better have a good reason because she was not going down without a fight. On the other end, while Jordan acknowledged that she made mistakes that night, she refused to believe she was the weakest chef that night as she was dragged down by both garnish and fish and grew frustrated by the people who were flying under the radar. As Jordan continued to bitch about that night to everybody, Lauren told her to let it go and snap out of it, while Declan could not vouch for the former because he was not in the red kitchen that night.
Team challenge[]
The next day, both teams came downstairs to see four men in white tights, with Nikki comparing them to robots. The four men then performed an acrobatic performance for the chefs, with Lauren amazed at their strength before claiming she could do that in her sleep. After the performance, Ramsay revealed that they were the acrobatics troupe called Absinthe, and after they left, he explained that he used them as an example of the power of teamwork. For their next challenge, Ramsay revealed that they would be playing the only team game in Las Vegas, the Craps Challenge. As the Sous Chefs dragged the craps board into the dining room, Mary Lou said she was not a gambler, but she was a lucky person that people could feed off her. Ramsay explained that one person at a time would role a multi-sided dice to land on a letter. They must then quickly decide on an ingredient from that letter their team would cook with and added that one chef from each team would roll twice to gather six ingredients in total.
Coming down to the board, Cody rolled first for the blue team and landed on H. Cody called out haricots verts as the blue team’s first ingredient, while Kori had her team blow on the dice before she rolled. Kori landed on M and picked mushrooms, while Amber rolled a C and called out celery root. Lauren rolled R, and while most of her teammates called out different ingredients that started with that letter, she chose rice. That bewildered Ramsay as he reminded Lauren that with a letter like R, there were many protein choices to pick from, while Kori hoped it did not bite them in the ass later. Then, Adam rolled C, and after a long thought, he picked carrots, dismaying Declan. Afterwards, Mary Lou rolled an M and picked monkfish despite never cooking before, while Marc rolled a P. After, Declan used his Jedi mind trick to convince Marc to pick pork, and it seemed to work as the latter picked the right protein. Nikki rolled an M and picked Miso, while Declan landed on H and picked honey, and Jordan landed on T before deciding Thai Chili, something Nikki wanted as it fitted well with their ingredients. Cody went up again for the final roll, rolled an S, and picked serrano as he felt the blue team was missing a heat component. Lastly, Kori went up again, landed on S, and picked sprouts.
Afterwards, both teams had 40 minutes to cook five of their own dishes using the ingredients they rolled on. Declan felt that the blue team’s ingredients were basic enough to make easy dishes, while in the red kitchen, Lauren needed Nikki’s advice on how to prep the monkfish as she never cooked one before. In the blue kitchen, Cody decided to make a schnitzel in the same way he learned in Germany, but Sous Chef Jason warned him not to brown his butter too much. Twenty-five minutes left, Jordan decided to make fish and chips, hoping Ramsay liked her flair as she planned on redeeming herself. Ten minutes left, Adam felt that the pork was the main component of the dish as there were many ways he could cook it, while Amber decided to follow in the eat with your eyes idea by making her dish bright and colorful. However, when Amber sliced into her pork, it came out raw, so she decided to mark them on the grill to cook them more. However, Adam warned her not to kill the pork. Ninety seconds left, Nikki struggled to make a rice cracker, and eventually, both teams had their dishes cooked and plated on time.
After calling the look of the dishes exceptional, Ramsay revealed that he was judging each dish on a 1-5 scale, and the team with the most points would win. The red team was up first as Kori presented her sticky fried rice with a red miso poached monkfish. However, Ramsay pointed out that Kori failed to remove the veins, and Adam compared it to a brain. Despite that, Ramsay felt the dish was cooked nicely, liked the idea of the miso, and Kori scored 4 points. Then, Jordan presented her monkfish and chips dish with miso rice tots, and Ramsay liked the flair of the dish so much, along with the out-of-the-box idea, he gave her 4 points. That made Jordan happy as she proved to herself she deserved to be here. Afterwards, Nikki presented her miso and monkfish with a crispy rice cracker, with Ramsay praising the cracker along with the rest of the dish. With that, Nikki scored a perfect 5, leaving Marc to hope that the blue team was carrying heavy bats. Then, Mary Lou presented her sesame-crusted monkfish with crispy rice cakes, but while Ramsay praised the cook of the monkfish, he did not think the rice was sticky enough, giving her 3 points. Finally, Lauren presented her pan-seared monkfish with trumpet mushrooms and rice, but Ramsay found the mushrooms to be undercooked, and she scored 3 points. After the red team’s run, they ended with 19 points.
The blue team was up next as Amber presented her zaatar and honey spiced pork with a haricot vert and carrot salad. While Ramsay liked how the colors popped, he felt she obliterated the pork, and Amber scored 2 points, much to her dismay as that was the worst she has scored so far. Then, Marc’s honey glazed pork chop with salt and pepper haricot vert was criticized for having raw pork, he scored 2 points, and a confident Jordan knew that the only way the blue team could tie them was to score three perfect fives. Cody was up next and presented his pork schnitzel with a herb salad, pickled haricot vert, and fried celery root. Ramsay praised the pork cook and awarded Cody a perfect 5, while Adam’s five-spiced pork chop with celery root purée also scored a perfect 5 for being extraordinary. However, that pissed Jordan off as Ramsay was giving out fives like candy. The last person up was Declan and his honey mustard glazed pork chop, and it was praised for having beautifully cooked pork. With that, Declan scored a perfect 5, and it became a 19-point tie. As the tiebreaker, Ramsay called up Nikki and Cody’s dishes as they were the best of their respective teams. While Declan was confident about his teammate’s chances, Nikki reminded Ramsay about her rice cracker. After tasting both dishes again, Ramsay gave Cody the edge as he rarely saw a schnitzel that good, and the blue team won the challenge, making the latter happy that he and the blue team got to go and celebrate.
Scoring[]
| Red Team | Blue Team | ||||
| Chef | Score | Total | Chef | Score | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kori | 4/5 | 4 | Amber | 2/5 | 2 |
| Jordan | 4/5 | 8 | Marc | 2/5 | 4 |
| Nikki | 5/5 | 13 | Cody | 5/5 | 9 |
| Mary Lou | 3/5 | 16 | Adam | 5/5 | 14 |
| Lauren | 3/5 | 19 | Declan | 5/5 | 19 |
| Results | 19*-19 | ||||
- * Best dish named by Ramsay breaked the tie in the challenge and won it for their team.
Reward[]
The blue team was rewarded with high wire lessons with Absinthe and a special lunch at Nobu. As the blue team left to change, Adam was excited to leave the restaurant. During the reward, the blue team went into the tent, and all the colors of the inside had Declan compared it to being on LSD. They saw the group perform the high wire act, with Amber intimidated by it as she feared heights. Cody went up first for the lesson, and then, the platform under him rose to the high wire, relieving Declan. As Amber went through her lesson with a tinge of fear, Marc did his lesson with no problems as Cody said he was dancing the bachata. When Declan took his turn, he compared the tense feeling of tight rope to having a penny clenched between his ass.
At Nobu, the blue team ate their lunch as Adam called it a Michelin Star-rated sushi restaurant. Suddenly, Ramsay arrived to join them at their table and asked them how the tight rope experience was. Cody compared Marc’s lesson to salsa dancing, and when Amber referred to Ramsay as chef, he politely told her to keep it to Gordon outside the kitchen. Marc said that bonding with Ramsay was great and motivating, while Cody felt the blue team was coming together.
Punishment[]
The red team was punished by prepping Wellingtons for both the restaurant and Gordon Ramsay Steak, which included preparing the mushrooms for the duxelle. Lauren was not happy about it after hearing that because she failed to get a four due to her undercooked mushrooms. During the punishment, the red team received crates of mushrooms from a delivery truck, and Jordan said they had more mushrooms than she had body masks. As the red team cleaned the mushrooms, Kori noted that after that day, she hated mushrooms.
Private Interviews[]
Later that day, both teams were back at the dorms returning from the reward and the punishment. Suddenly, the phone rang, Amber picked it up, and Ramsay told her to bring everybody down to the dining room. Everybody raced downstairs, with Marc comparing them to bats out of hell, and once everybody was together, Ramsay said he had an announcement. There would not be a dinner service that evening, but regardless of that, someone would still be going home that night, causing Kori to freak out a little as it could be her going home. Based on the events from the Craps Challenge, Nikki and Cody had the best dishes from their respective teams, so Ramsay told them to host private interviews within their respective teams and nominate two members for elimination. That made Cody feel uneasy as the burden of picking people for elimination fell on his shoulders, and he thought that the lovely day he had with the blue team made it more difficult.
With both teams sent back to the dorms, Nikki knew that nobody from the red team has been perfect and hoped she made the right choice. Speaking to Lauren first, Nikki reminded the former how she needed somebody for support, but Lauren did not believe that and felt that Nikki was on a high horse. Lauren said she only asked questions due to her talkative nature and felt Nikki should not oversee nominations as she deemed the latter the weakest chef. After the interview, Lauren talked with Declan about her chances as he did not want to be nominated as he busted his balls for the competition. In the blue team bedroom, Cody told Marc that while he respected him, he felt that it was a draw of the hat and said that the competition pushes them. Marc agreed with that as he was the guy with all the answers back home, but after being that person in the first couple of days, he took a backseat and felt Hell’s Kitchen turned him into a better man for his family. At the patio, Nikki tells Mary Lou that the red team sees her as a team member and not standing out with her voice, but the latter said she did not want to scream at people as everybody back home could hear her. Then, Nikki told Jordan that while she was a strong cook, she also felt that she shuts down whenever she got into her head or was confronted by a negative experience. However, Jordan got pissed by that as she vented to Nikki how she was surrounded by people who had thirty-plus years of experience compared to her two, but the latter knew that her outburst only proved her point. After finishing her interviews, Nikki struggled with who to nominate. Meanwhile, Cody told Amber that while she was a strong cook, he felt the competition was starting to get to her. Amber argued that Ramsay knew she could cook, felt that Cody was not seeing her positive traits out of fear, and felt that Adam should go up instead as she did not see him as a strong cook. While Cody agreed with that, he told Adam what Amber suggested, making the latter feel that she was crazy. Adam argued that he has strived in dinner service while Amber has struggled ever since she moved to the blue team and told Cody that if he put him up for elimination, it would make him look stupid in front of Ramsay.
Cook For Your Life Challenge[]
Later that night, both teams came downstairs, where Ramsay asked Nikki and Cody who their nominees were. Nikki named Lauren as her first nominee, with Jordan as the second, while Cody named Marc as his first nominee and Amber as his second. After calling the nominees to the front, Ramsay announced they would participate in the Cook For Your Life Challenge. The four nominees had 45 minutes to cook a dish that told him they were worthy of staying in the competition and becoming his Head Chef at Hell’s Kitchen in Lake Tahoe. The safe chefs went back to the dorms as Declan called it a curveball while he and Adam discussed Amber’s chances and how she tended to tear up while under pressure.
Back downstairs, Ramsay told the four nominees that they must cook their hearts out and make sure they went back to the dorms as soon as possible. While Jordan showed some anger for being nominated, Ramsay reminded her that there would be more difficult decisions to make in Lake Tahoe than what they were about to cook. So, Jordan tried to put her emotions aside as she did not want to go home. As the challenge began, the chefs started cooking their dishes as they had identical ingredients to cook. These ingredients, handpicked by Ramsay himself, included wild mushrooms, potatoes, parsnips, sprouts, a filet mignon. Marc decided to do a brown sugar rub for his dish and felt he was in the zone as he declared he was an outside-of-the-box kind of guy. However, while Marc wanted to show the blue team what he could do, he was unaware that Adam and Declan did not think he had a chance. Twenty minutes left, Jordan said it was do or die as she had no room for errors on her plate and tried to focus on her dish while hearing Lauren speak out loud, much to her irritation as she needed to focus. Then, Jordan called the challenge the most intense thing she has ever done, which beated out fire school. Back at the dorms, Nikki felt that Amber had a chance to win, but Kori disagreed as the latter could go into her head too much. Back downstairs, Amber was scattered on her dish as she called it embarrassing to go home by that point, while Marc felt she was nervous before telling her to chill out. Then, Amber felt that her swearing game was going up the more she was in Hell’s Kitchen. Eight minutes left, Lauren said she was a badass cook as she could showcase her skills and flavors, before pouring too much oil into her pan, causing a fire. That freaked Lauren out a bit as it could mean her steak could end up burned. Eventually, the four chefs had their dishes cooked and plated on time.
Lauren was called up as the first chef to present her dish and showcased her pan-seared filet mignon with a potato and parsnip purée and a bourbon cream sauce. While Ramsay praised the presentation of the dish, he saw that the steak was rare instead of medium-rare, mortifying Lauren as she never undercooked a steak before now. While Ramsay praised the purée and the bourbon sauce, he told Lauren that her steak needed two more minutes of cooking. Despite that, Lauren felt she still had a shot as the rest of her dish was praised. Marc was up next, felt his dish was a winner and presented his brown sugar coriander rubbed filet with twice-cooked potatoes. Ramsay asked Marc why he used brown sugar as a rub, but the latter said he did it before. Ramsay did praise the rub of the steak but reminded Marc that with a sugar rub, he must add in two parts of salt. Despite that, Marc nailed the temperature of the filet, and he felt the cream would rise to the top. When Jordan went up with her dish, she thought it was a baller and presented her mushroom rubbed filet with parsnip and potato purée and an apple cider drizzle. While Ramsay loved the taste of the rub, he felt that the meat was dry as Jordan sliced it during plating. That dismayed Jordan as she compared her situation to a classic show trap, being confident before having the rug pulled under her. The final chef to present their dish was Amber, who knew that one bad dish could be the end of her as she presented her pan-seared filet with parsnip purée with sprouts blanched in white wine and citrus. Ramsay praised the cook on the steak and the purée flavour but criticized the sprouts for being raw in the middle.
Elimination[]
After judging the dishes, Ramsay said that his decision would be difficult before calling Amber the first chef up to safety. As Amber went back to the dorms, she said she had to remember how much she worked for it and wanted to be the last person left standing. While everybody was happy to see her back, Amber warned Cody to never do that to her again before demanding a beer from him. Meanwhile, Ramsay told Marc he was the second chef that was safe, and he felt his heart was filled with pride. As the blue team welcomed Marc back, Nikki realized with both Jordan and Lauren still downstairs, the red team would lose a member.
Back downstairs, Ramsay had Jordan and Lauren come forward as the former said she was not ready to go home, while the latter felt she deserved to stay for learning a lot. In the end, Ramsay named Jordan the final chef that was safe and therefore eliminated Lauren. As Jordan headed back to the dorms, she said that they could not get rid of her yet as she felt like a champion. With Lauren left standing, Ramsay reminded her she was off by two minutes, but while he pointed out how she took a lot of flak from the red team, to the point of being ousted by them, he admired her for keeping her head down and standing firm. Lauren thanked Ramsay for the opportunity and for learning from him, and Ramsay said if she ever needed help after the competition was over, his door was always open. Lauren handed Ramsay her jacket, and during her exit interview, she said this was not the way she wanted to leave the competition, but declared that she was still Flawless Lawless.
Ramsay's comment: "If you can't fit in with the pack, you need to be the top dog. But Lauren was bringing up the rear."
Trivia[]
- Title Reference: The title refers to the Craps Challenge.
- This marked the first, and only so far, instance where the Cook For Your Life Challenge occurs when there are ten chefs remaining.