The second episode of Season 3 of Hell's Kitchen aired on Fox on June 11, 2007. In that episode, the teams competed in their first team challenge, one chef's health began to decline, dinner service proved to be problematic for one team, and one chef went home after failing to stand up for themselves.
Intro[]
Back to the dorms, the women met up together with Bonnie voicing her dismay on how much the team argued with each other to Melissa. Bonnie especially disliked how Ramsay called them evil and twisted, calling it harsh. Joanna said she did not want to be up for elimination again and did not want to hear any more from Ramsay. Meanwhile, the men expressed concern for Aaron's health problems in service, but he reassured them that he was alright. However, Aaron's comment on under eating caused more concern, and he secretly knew he was the weakest link on the men, knowing he must suck it up for the team.
Team Challenge[]
At 5:56 AM, Sous Chefs Scott and Mary-Ann woke up the chefs with pots and pans, with Josh sarcastically stating he loved it. The two teams gathered in the dining room with a waiting Ramsay. He reminded them of their embarrassing service last night and stated he has never seen so many fish items in the garbage bin in his life, adding that they lost $1000 worth of product. To give them a lesson on respecting their product, Ramsay told both teams that they would be catching their own fish, and brought them outside, exciting Bonnie as she always wanted to do that.
Outside, they headed to the loading docks, and Ramsay opened a truck full of Dover Soles. He told the contestants to catch them as the deliverymen tossed them to the chefs. The chefs caught the fish and put them in buckets, with Ramsay giving Eddie a small fish to match his size. However, that reaffirmed to Eddie he came to show how little people could get stuff done. Once all the Dover Soles were caught, the teams brought them back inside, but Aaron cramped up while carrying his and Eddie's bucket, much to the latter's concern. Once everyone came back in the kitchen, Ramsay revealed that they would be using those Dover Soles for their next challenge, the Dover Sole Challenge. That caused distress for Aaron, who admitted he was dizzy, and Ramsay told him to take some time off, which evened the teams at five each. Ramsay showed them how to clean a Dover Sole properly, and the team that could clean the most Dover Soles to Ramsay's standards would be the winner. Josh felt it would not be a problem as he loved working with fish.
Both teams had 30 minutes to clean as many Dover Sole as they could. Melissa overheard the men counting down how many fish they prepped and knew that the women would not win if they did not have a lot prepared on their end. However, Joanna reminded the women to focus on quality and not quantity. Eventually, time was up.
During the judging, the men were up first with Eddie's two Dover Soles, but only one of them was deemed acceptable. Brad cleaned three, but only two were accepted. Vinnie could not clean his portions properly and scored no points, while Rock did not do much better with only one acceptable portion. Josh was up last, and he managed to have all four of his portions correctly cleaned, giving the men 8 points at the end.
When it was the women's turn, Melissa managed to get four points as well. Julia, knowing that she belonged in Hell's Kitchen despite her inexperience, had a good performance by getting two Dover Soles in. However, both Bonnie and Jen failed to get their Dover Soles properly cleaned, and both score no points. Joanna was the last one up, and she revealed to have only done three, Jen hoping they were all perfect to win. Fortunately for the women, all three were deemed acceptable, and they won 9-8. A happy Joanna said that winning the challenge redeemed herself for being nominated last night.
Scoring[]
| Blue Team | Red Team | ||||
| Chef | Score | Total | Chef | Score | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eddie | 1 | 1 | Melissa | 4 | 4 |
| Brad | 2 | 3 | Julia | 2 | 6 |
| Vinnie | 0 | 3 | Bonnie | 0 | 6 |
| Rock | 1 | 4 | Jen | 0 | 6 |
| Josh | 4 | 8 | Joanna | 3 | 9 |
| Results | 9-8 | ||||
Reward[]
The women went fishing with Ramsay in the Pacific Ocean. When the women left for their reward, Bonnie told Aaron to get better and take care of himself. During their reward, Ramsay caught a fish that he named Eddie, and they took a photo together with the fish. During lunch, Ramsay reminded the women they were all capable of winning, and Bonnie called the time with him priceless.
Punishment[]
After hearing the women's reward, Josh was upset as the men should be fishing instead. The men were punished by prepping the remaining Dover Soles for the following service. During the punishment, Vinnie saw four ounces of roe coming out of one fish and felt sick looking at it. Aaron came back four hours into the punishment after sleeping upstairs but was still dizzy and aching from his cramps. Aaron contemplated quitting the competition due to his poor health, but Brad disagreed as it would leave the men down a member. So, Aaron was convinced to stay, with Rock knowing that the most important mission was supporting the former through the next dinner service. Afterwards, the men had a group hug.
Before service[]
Later that night, the women got into more revealing outfits which excited Josh and Eddie as they used Bonnie to help them with menial tasks. Meanwhile, Aaron confided to Julia about his standing with the younger men as they knew more than him, but Julia told him not to worry about the men's experience.
The next day, both teams prepped their stations for service. Once prep was finished, Ramsay revealed that they would have a pan-fried Dover Sole special on the menu that night. As the second part of their punishment, the men had to decide who would serve it tableside and debone the fish, with Brad immediately calling Aaron's name. After the meeting, both teams split off to do last-minute work, and Joanna was willing to follow Melissa's lead to prove to Ramsay that "Hell's Bitches" was no more. In the blue kitchen, Rock believed Josh was trying too hard to be a leader as the latter was leading by speaking rather than through an example.
One hour before service began, Aaron went out to the dining room to meet with Ramsay and Jean-Philippe. Even though Ramsay tried to give Aaron a pep talk, he continued to black in and out during the talk, eventually sitting down due to stress. Fortunately, Aaron bounced back, and Ramsay told him to come out of his shell, even though the former was still cloudy. Once everyone was ready, Ramsay told Jean-Philippe to open Hell's Kitchen.
Dinner service[]
The first tickets came in, and both teams got their first orders ready. The women looked to win their first service as Jen wanted to take the men to school that night. Ramsay spotted Aaron talking with the diners instead of being at his station and told Jean-Philippe to get him out of there. As Eddie tried to get his spaghetti ready, Rock and Brad butted in despite the former trying to push them away. That resulted in an excess amount of spaghetti cooked that was not needed. After Ramsay told Brad and Josh to leave Eddie alone, he told the latter to control his station. Eddie felt disappointed because he did not show enough assertion when trying to push Rock and Brad away.
Forty-five minutes into service, the blue kitchen was at a standstill due to the spaghetti incident. In the red kitchen, Bonnie was cooking three orders of scallops instead of the one that was needed, which caused Ramsay to call her a dumb blonde. Bonnie felt like an idiot and tried to calm down, as Ramsay called her a Barbie. In the blue kitchen, Vinnie was prepping the Dover Sole special, but Ramsay saw that it was burnt. Vinnie claimed it was brown but was forced to serve it to the pass for a closer inspection. Indeed, the Dover Sole was burnt, and Ramsay was angry that Vinnie lied to him. Vinne knew he was Ramsay's crosshairs, and if the men lost, he would be going home as Ramsay never saw such illiterate cooking before. In the red kitchen, the women were pushing appetizers out thanks to Jen's leadership, and Ramsay praised her spaghetti. He said they were on their third ticket of appetizers, and Jen congratulated the women as the red diners enjoyed their meal. In the blue kitchen, Vinnie's Dover Sole finally made it to the pass, and Aaron prepared to serve it tableside. However, he was very slow at deboning the fish, taking fifteen minutes for one fish and leaving it cold for the customers. Back in the blue kitchen, Eddie sent up risottos that were too peppery, which Ramsay claimed that he wouldn't even serve to a pig. So, Eddie was kicked off the appetizer station, much to his embarrassment, and Brad took over. In the red kitchen, Joanna realized that she forgot to cook lettuce for one of the dishes, and while she tried to fix it, she got called out by Ramsay for not communicating with him. Joanna got emotional by that but tried to keep control of herself as Bonnie gave her some reassurance. Despite these problems, 23 of the 50 red diners got food, while only 9 of the blue tables had been served.
In the blue kitchen, Josh brought up his first Wellington, but it turned out to be overcooked. Josh said his refire would be ready in three minutes but called that incident an atomic bomb. Then, Josh was forced to admit that his second Wellington had raw pastry, leading Ramsay to feel they were sinking like the titanic. Meanwhile, Aaron's deboning was not going well as many customers found tiny bones in the Dover Sole. When Jean-Philippe told Ramsay that, the latter called Aaron over and told him to concentrate when the latter claimed that he could not see the bones due to the poor lighting. In the red kitchen, Melissa tried to help Joanna out on the garnish station by cooking her spaghetti, but Ramsay kicked her off. Joanna did not like how Melissa was a show-off, and Ramsay told the women to keep their attitude together as they only had three tables left. Three hours into dinner service, the women rallied together managed to complete their service. In the blue kitchen, more problems occurred as Brad's risotto was as peppery as Eddie's, and Ramsay caught Josh holding a dry chicken before slamming it with his palm. That caused a frustrated Ramsay to call Josh a donkey, accused Eddie of not being able to cook a risotto, and accused Aaron of failing to filet a fish. All of those errors led Ramsay to kick the entire team out of service while announcing that the women would finish their tickets for them, much to Brad's embarrassment. Ramsay told the women to finish the men's tickets, along with their desserts, and Bonnie felt it reunited them as a team. The women managed to serve both kitchens together as Julia knew they would have completed service.
Post-mortem[]
Lining up both teams, Ramsay made it clear that the men were the losers for that service. He reminded Aaron how he shook hands with everyone in the dining room like the President of the United States, and the latter apologized for failing that night. Then, Ramsay felt unsafe with Vinnie due to covering up mistakes while deeming Eddie's performance terrible, even though the latter argued he got confused when his teammates came over. Rock was named "Best of the Worst," and Ramsay told him to nominate two of his teammates for elimination.
During deliberation, Rock felt things were heating up and knew he must make a smart decision. Eddie told Rock that the only choices for nominations were himself, Aaron, and Vinnie but pleaded that he was a strong prep cook. After speaking with Rock, Eddie said he wanted to stay and felt Aaron should go home for his health. Meanwhile, Aaron told Rock that he wanted to stay but secretly wanted to leave. Then, Josh told Rock that he did not deserve to go home, leaving the latter to think over his choices.
Elimination[]
Once downstairs, Ramsay told the men that every one of them deserved to be nominated before asking Rock for his nominees. Rock nominated Eddie as his first nominee and Josh as his second. During their pleas, Eddie said he learned to speak up and knew he could go far if given another chance, while Ramsay accused Josh of being fake. However, Josh argued against that and felt horrible over his embarrassing night. In the end, Ramsay gave Josh another chance and eliminated Eddie for his poor performance and not taking control of his station, allowing his teammates to take over. During his exit interview, Eddie admitted that his biggest regret was not being loud and felt he should have torn the place up.
After Eddie left, Ramsay dismissed the chefs for the evening. Aaron was shocked he was not nominated, while Bonnie felt they were in a good position over the men. Then, Josh believed he needed to watch his back because some people wanted him out.
Ramsay's comment: "Eddie's got a big heart. Sadly, he couldn't even hold his own section. He made far too many simple mistakes, and he didn't merit running his own restaurant."