The fifth episode of Season 2 of Hell's Kitchen aired on Fox on July 10, 2006. On that episode, the annual Blind Taste Test, one chef made an unexpected comeback and a heartbreaking elimination of the hardest worker of the season.
Intro[]
Back at the dorms, Virginia, who survived her second nomination, was not happy she had to spend another day with Sara and called her the bitch from hell. Now knowing that Sara was not a good person as she once believed, Virginia declared war against the former, saying that she was now an enemy for betraying her. However, Sara did not care one bit, telling Virginia to grow up. Meanwhile, Rachel felt Ramsay had some choice words for her after her worst performance since her arrival and felt he expected more of her because she had more to give.
Later that night, at 2:30 AM, Heather expressed surprise that Ramsay did not switch out Virginia for Rachel during elimination as he sounded like he would have. However, Keith felt Tom was the easy choice for elimination, declared that the blue team was strong now. With seven people left in the competition, Keith felt closer to the grand prize.
Team challenge[]
The next day, the chefs came downstairs in the dining room. Maribel noticed that Ramsay arranged a table with some high-quality appetizers. Ramsay explained that taste is essential for a chef and asked the contestants to try some of the dishes, including cheese fondue, chicken kebab, caviar and pâté. Sara was a little confused why Ramsay was serving caviar to them after a horrible dinner service, but they all tasted the dishes. After tasting the dishes, all the contestants said they enjoyed the dishes, but Ramsay revealed that the dishes were all fakes. The fondue was spray-on cheese, the kebab was a TV dinner, the pâté was made from crushed hot dogs, and the caviar was from a catfish. Once learning that, Virginia was upset as she took the tasting seriously, but Keith said the pâté tasted good as it was made of hot dogs and that hot dogs were slamin. Now feeling that the chef’s palates were like a cow’s backside, Ramsay said they had some work to do and announced the Blind Taste Test as their next challenge. Rachel was forced to sit out to even the teams at three members each. When Ramsay announced that the losing team would clean up the kitchens from the previous service, Garrett was disgusted as all of it was left out overnight.
The first pair was Keith against Maribel, and the latter knew how important it was for the red team to win as they have been getting into arguments lately. Both identified potatoes, but only Maribel correctly identified seared tuna. Keith made everybody laugh when he was struggling to get Ramsay's spoon in his mouth. Neither got oregano, but Keith tied the score at two each by correctly identifying pear chutney, saying he knew that because he made a batch yesterday. On the second round, Heather went up against Virginia, with the latter wanting to use that opportunity to step it up. While both missed sea urchins, they each scored on chicken and hot dog. However, Virginia scored on Swiss cheese, but Heather did not, as she guessed parmesan. After two rounds, the score was 5-4 for the red team, and Sara was in glee that Heather only got two. The last ones were Sara and Garrett. Coming into the challenge, both were confident about their palates. They correctly identify scrambled eggs and spinach but failed for kiwi. With the score being 7-6 for the red team, Garrett had to score on the final ingredient to tie it up and was given braised short ribs as his taste. However, Garrett incorrectly identified the ingredient as turkey, so the red team won the challenge. While Garrett was dismayed that a man from Texas could not identify short ribs, Ramsay praised Virginia as she had the best individual performance overall, with 3 out of 4. However, Garrett arrogantly brushed that claim aside as she got easy guesses.
Scoring[]
| Red Team | Blue Team | ||||
| Chef | Score | Total | Chef | Score | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maribel | 2/4 | 2 | Keith | 2/4 | 2 |
| Virginia | 3/4 | 5 | Heather | 2/4 | 4 |
| Sara | 2/3 | 7 | Garrett | 2/4 | 6 |
| Results | 7-6 | ||||
Reward[]
The red team was rewarded with a photo shoot for TV Guide. Sara said the taste of success was sweet, knowing that it was time to regroup as a team after some personality conflicts. During the reward, the women had a positive vibe. Maribel called it a party, Sara could not believe something she could do in her life, and Virginia liked the positive vibe. As the photoshoot proceeded, Sara blew gas in Ramsay’s direction. A disgusted Rachel felt the former was not leadership-worthy.
Punishment[]
The blue team had to clean both kitchens after the previous night's dinner services. During the punishment, Keith called it the worst punishment yet as everything was caked with leftovers, while Heather was envious as she was a woman also and was on that team before. Later, Garrett tried to talk with Heather as he used to be on dish duty when he was in prison, but Sous Chef Scott asked for a volunteer for a job. Garrett volunteered and was told to get some champagne bottles for the photoshoot. When he arrived there, the women, especially Sara, were rubbing salt in the wound by showing him their pedicure, and Ramsay told him to get out as he stank. When Garrett came back, he said that job was crap as he got mocked by Ramsay and the red team, but Keith said he would have rather done that instead of washing dishes.
Before service[]
When the red team came back from their reward, Maribel did not take long to feel home-sick again, as she was missing her daughter and husband very much. Maribel tried to focus on the grand prize but said it was hard when she was away from her family. Meanwhile, Rachel chatted with Heather as the two playfully taunted each other. That annoyed Sara as she found their friendship to be unprofessional because both were making eyes to each other. Rachel explained to Heather the power struggle in the red team because of her feud with Sara and said she did not need a loose cannon in the kitchen.
The next day, both teams were very confident during prep, but Sous Chef Scott was nervous as the blue team was a man down compared to the red team, and they had a lot of shit to do. In the red kitchen, Virginia recalled being nominated twice before and knew she needed not to screw up. On the other side, Rachel said that night would determine whether it was herself or Sara that was the leader of the red team, while the latter felt she had a passive-aggressive role compared to the former. Garrett felt the red team was in trouble in the blue kitchen, but Sous Chef Scott warned him not to jinx it. However, Keith predicted that a woman from the red team was going home that night and that K-Grease would kill it.
Later that evening, Ramsay had both teams lined up and reminded them that they have yet to complete a fully booked service. Hoping that they could do it that night, Ramsay opened the doors to Hell’s Kitchen.
Dinner service[]
Even before Ramsay called out a ticket out, Heather was caught cooking spaghetti early. Ramsay told Heather they were not a fast-food restaurant and threatened her with on-the-spot elimination if she did it again. Heather said it was hard to get chewed out after getting pumped all day, but when Garrett tried to comfort her by touching her shoulder, she aggressively told him not to touch her. That prompted Garrett to say that Heather had to work with him and not against him. When he called the first ticket in the red kitchen, Ramsay told them to keep talking because when they stopped doing that, they would be screwed. When he called the first ticket for the blue team, only Keith answered back, and Ramsay told them he was already nervous even before they sent anything out. In the red kitchen, Rachel burned her duck and was already on fire, making Ramsay ask if that was a sign of things to come for that night. Rachel said it was not. In the blue kitchen, the first risotto Heather sent was bland. Ramsay asked her to taste it, and she answered that she found it a little bit crunchy, but not more. Ramsay asked Heather to start again. In the red kitchen, Ramsay gave some polite words of encouragement by shouting out please multiple times. The motivation worked as the red team sent out appetizers to the dining room, and Ramsay praised Virginia for her great communication about oysters because it was the first time he heard someone give him positive feedback. In the blue kitchen, Keith was doing the same thing, running around to make sure everybody was in control of their station and helped send out appetizers. In the red kitchen, a froi gras came back in the kitchen for having a hair on the plate, but while Maribel said she has black hair, Ramsay did not care what color it was. However, Maribel said it could have been Jean-Philippe’s hair and suggested that Ramsay ask him that. On the blue team, Heather was trying to help Garrett on the meat station to redeem herself. However, Garrett was annoyed that Heather wanted to control what he was doing, which got him off track. Maribel sent up a good risotto in the red kitchen, but Rachel sent up overcooked quail, and Ramsay pulled the red team aside to taste her quail. After she declared it was a little overcooked, Ramsay tried to humiliate Rachel by giving her glasses from a customer Jean-Philippe brought to the kitchen. When Ramsay asked Rachel if she really thought he would send that quail in the dining room, she got confused and did not know what to answer. Then, Ramsay pulled Rachel into the pantry room and asked her if she wanted to go home. After telling him that she will not let him down, and Ramsay told her she already had, Rachel got back in the kitchen, ready to fight back.
The blue team has served half of the main courses to the dining room two hours into service. Still, Jean-Philippe brought an entrée back in the kitchen as it was too cold and had too many breadcrumbs. When Ramsay told Keith it was too cold, the latter gave him an attitude and did not show any care. Ramsay schooled Keith on his attitude as he was not listening nor looking him in the eyes and compared his behavior to a 5-year-old. Then, Ramsay told Keith to lead Heather and Garrett, who Ramsay said were cooking like donkeys. After, Ramsay came to Garrett and suggested he change the Hell's Kitchen logo for Donkey's Kitchen. In the red kitchen, Rachel sent up rare Wellingtons that were requested medium, further dismaying Ramsay as Virginia was forced to take back her perfectly cooked salmon. Rachel was ashamed of that mistake and apologized to Ramsay. When she told him she was afraid of telling him the correct time, Ramsay answered by telling Rachel he was not scared to tell the truth and concluded that he was nervous for her. Rachel responded she was too. In the blue kitchen, Heather screwed up Garrett's station when she sent up the wrong number of quail orders. Garrett accused Heather of making herself look good, and that caused his station to get all messed up, while Ramsay told them that they were making their final three tickets painful.
The blue team has served most of their customers three hours into service, but their last few tables were growing impatient. In the red kitchen, the red team pushed out entrées, and Ramsay praised Virginia for her strong performance on the fish station. When Ramsay came for the last entrées of the blue kitchen, nothing came together, and Ramsay schooled Keith and Garrett about their communication problems. Ramsay asked for the lamb sauce twice, but while Garrett sent it, a fed-up Ramsay called him a "fat useless sack of fucking Yankee dankie doodle shite." Despite that, the blue team served their final entrées. Still, in the red kitchen, Rachel overcooked some Wellingtons requested medium and tried to hide the mistake by covering them with some sauce. However, Ramsay was not a fool as he could tell Rachel’s Wellingtons were well done by simply touching it. That was the last straw, and Ramsay shut down both kitchens to put out Rachel’s misery.
After service, Ramsay talked with Keith as he felt the latter had a spoiled brat attitude that night. Keith apologized as he did not mean to come out that way, but Ramsay felt the former had a big amount of talent inside, with his concern being that nobody nursed it properly. Ramsay told Keith he could cook and handle it as the first hour and a half proved, but when he made one mistake, he disintegrated and suggested that the quicker he lost the attitude, the quicker he would shine.
Post-mortem[]
When the teams were lined up, Ramsay complained about the weight of two kitchens on his shoulders and how it was killing his back. Heather raised her hand to say she indeed did not perform as well as she could and added by saying they all should be up for elimination. Still, she felt she did not deserve to go home. While Ramsay thanked Heather for her brutal honesty, Keith saw that as a way of getting the responsibility off her shoulders. Ramsay declared the red team losers for serving fewer entrées than the blue team despite having one more team member. Ramsay praised Virginia for her comeback and improvement and named her the "Best of the Worst" before asking her to nominate two of her teammates for elimination.
During deliberation, Rachel admitted that her performance was very weak and praised Virginia for her strong performance that night. Then, Rachel fought for her survival by convincing Virginia to pick Sara for many reasons, especially as the latter sabotaged her in the previous service. Virginia considered that and told Sara about that. Still, Sara felt that one incident over overall performance was unacceptable. Then, Sara and Maribel said they would pick Rachel for screwing up the service. On the patio, Heather admitted to Rachel that she would miss her very much if she were to go, and the latter told the former that if she were going home, she would want her to win.
Elimination[]
Virginia nominated Rachel as her first nominee. Before she announced her second nominee, Virginia gave a very long speech about how she thinks Sara should be nominated for the previous service incident, annoying everybody in the process. However, Virginia nominated Maribel as her second nominee, using the hair incident as her defense. Ramsay agreed with Virginia’s nominations. During their pleas, Rachel knew she deserved to be nominated but felt more maturity and compassion for cooking. Then, Maribel said she had a humble background thanks to her Cafeteria Cook position but felt she was improving thanks to being in Hell’s Kitchen. After pointing out Rachel’s struggles that night, and Maribel’s hair incident, Ramsay eliminated the former for screwing up her team and lacking confidence in herself. Before she left, Ramsay praised Rachel for her hard work and busting her ass before shaking her hand goodbye. During Rachel's exit interview, she received a retrospective montage of her run.
After Rachel left, Ramsay said that the field was now in half and warned them that it would get more challenging. While being dismissed, Heather took Rachel's elimination very hard emotionally as she grew close friends with her and said she would have the latter in the back of her head, hoping to use it to get her to the end. Then, Virginia felt her comeback would lose her underdog status, Maribel lost her trust in the former for nominating her, and Garrett said that with only two men left, the women would not beat him down.
Ramsay's comment: "Rachel clearly couldn't handle it! She buckled, panicked, and actually screwed the kitchen completely. You've got no chance of running a successful business if you can't handle one section."
Trivia[]
- This marks the first time a non-black jacket chef received a retrospective montage during their exit interview.
| Hell's Kitchen Season 2 Episodes |
|---|
| 12 Chefs • 11 Chefs • 9 Chefs • 8 Chefs • 7 Chefs • 6 Chefs • 5 Chefs • 4 Chefs • 3 Chefs • 2 Chefs/Winner |