Episode Title: "Day 1"

Synopsis: Chef Gordon Ramsay returns for a fourth season of culinary torture, and this time it promises to be more personal than ever before: The winner from among the 15 chefs will get a job in an L.A restaurant owned by Ramsay himself. In the premiere, the 15 are divided into teams (men vs. women), but first they must prepare their "signature dishes." One offering makes Ramsay retch, but he does like several of the others. At the first dinner service, however, he doesn't like much of anything. A contestant is eliminated from the competition.

Airs: Tuesday, April 1st, 2008; 9 PM EST; Fox; Season Premiere

Discuss.

What a sorry group, especially the men's team.This is the fourth season of Hell's Kitchen. Wouldn't someone who really wanted to win the competition have practiced cooking Risotto and pan searing scallops prior to coming on the show? Those two items appear to be on the menu every season. Wouldn't it have been reasonable to at least look at the menu prior to service?Though studying the menu didn't seem to help the women's team much.

Bobby, Jason and Dominic were the worst of a rotten group.Bobby showed no leadership and left his team to drown. He appeared to only want to be captain so he would be able to choose the two to be eliminated if his team lost.I suspect Bobby stayed tonight because he is one of the few memorable contestants. As for Gordon, his act is getting old. I actually prefer Chef Tom's style on Top Chef.

It looks like it's another group of average to inept chefs this season. It wasn't always like that -- there were much better contestants in the earlier seasons. But there's no show if Gordon Ramsay can't go off on his group of chefs. If the show picked chefs at the level of the people at "Top Chef", the show would be radically different -- one, the kinds of things Gordon would nitpick about would be much different, and the frequency of his criticisms would be lessened. For this week's elimination, the bottom two should have been Bobby (the "black Gordon Ramsay" and the four-star general of the guys' team) and the fat schlubby guy that was lounging around at the beginning of service and looked lost all throughout the elimination challenge. The stay-at-home dad looked equally lost too, but I think he was eliminated for being boring more than anything else (though he didn't help with the scallops disaster either). The girls weren't much better than the guys, and they were only slightly helped by knowing the menu in advance. They squeaked by with a victory just b/c the guys were that much more inept. Gordon in disguise at the beginning was funny though in an April Fools day gag sort of way. I liked how everyone freaked out once they figured out who he was. The horrible signature dishes from just about everyone was pure comedy.

Entertaining in a trashy way, but I much prefer the Gordon Ramsey from "Kitchen Nightmares" on BBC America.

I had the same thought about the scallops and risotto; if I knew I was going to be on this show, I would be practicing that stuff every damn day.

I kind of enjoy this show, but it bugs me that they cast inept cooks rather than people who have actually worked in busy kitchens (it's not like there's a shortage of nutty personalities among that talent pool). Agreed they had better chefs in earlier seasons.

Episode Title: "Day 2"

Synopsis: After being awakened by chickens in their living quarters, the contestants must pluck what once clucked, then cook them for the evening's family-style dinner service; another contestant is eliminated from the competition.

Discuss.

EW's recap:
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"Hell's Kitchen": Something's Fishy

After proving herself a poor judge of filets, Corey tries to shake things up by nominating good fellow contestants for elimination.

by Whitney Pastorek

Hello, my little flourless chocolate cakes, and welcome to the continuation of "Hell's Kitchen". I had soy chicken drumsticks for dinner tonight, and I'm still not sure why, so please don't be upset with me if I take my overwhelming meal resentment out on Jason. You remember Jason, don't you, kids? Bald guy? Sort of husky? Picks his feet before service? Hates women? Yeah.

I'm going to get this all out of the way up top: Jason is a pig. Jason is quite possibly the most reprehensible character this show has ever seen. Tonight, Jason belched out another batch of disgustingly sexist comments, and to be frank, I'd like someone to set him on fire. And then I'd like to stand above him while he stops, drops, and rolls . . . and apply mascara. I don't even wear mascara, people, but if it prolonged his agony, I would put some mascara on before I put out his burning chef's jacket. I think what pushed me over the edge was the glint in his eye as he spat, ''You can keep your f---ing house, 'cause we're going to the ocean, bitches.'' That wasn't a glint of irony or humor. It was a glint of ignorant, entitled cruelty, and I'm not going to put up with it.

So here's what we're going to do: We are not going to talk about Jason anymore in this TV Watch. We are going to pretend he doesn't exist, in the same way he refuses to acknowledge the equal abilities, intelligence, and inherent human value of the female gender. If he should choose to alter his behavior, we will once again mention his name — though given his complete lack of cooking skills, I don't expect he'll be around to ignore all that much longer. Meanwhile, should I need to cite him in order to adequately describe the actions of other "Hell's Kitchen" contestants, he will be known simply as ''Toolsack.''

[Deep breath in...]

Let us now commence talking about tonight's episode.

[ . . . and exhale]

After the disastrous dinner service of last week, the men reassessed their game plan. Bobby, especially, knew he had to make some changes. ''I'm done layin' back,'' he said, assuring all of us that now the four-star general was coming out. Oh, now. Okay! Here's your first mission, General: Get out of bed at 5:45 and pick all the wasted valuable food out of the garbage. In fact, how 'bout if you all get up! Yes, even you, Man Who Sleeps in Tighty-Whities, Man Whose Identity I Did Not Rewind in Order to Confirm Because One Glimpse of That Was Enough! Dig in there, kids! Pull out those unused scallops, those mounds of what looked like pig bladder! Let that trash squish between your bare toes! Feel free to dry heave, Jen! (PS: Nice lip gloss. You borrow that from Sharon?)

After the indignities of the trash pickings, our cheflings looked pretty exhausted. But their challenge for the day hadn't even begun, so after showering, everyone reassembled in the kitchen to learn how to filet (pronounced ''fillit'') halibut. Now, I'm no fishmonger, but Mother of God, who knew halibuts were so freakin' huge? I now have to add halibuts to the list of things to fear while scuba diving. (It's a long list, including sharks, naturally, but also manatees and those fish that swim into your urethra.) The cheflings were told they needed to get as many perfect six-ounce fillits out of the halibut as they could, and once all was said and done (also, at the end of the day), both men and women came up with 41. It was the first-ever tie in a "Hell's Kitchen" challenge, and it ended with a tiebreaker where Ben picked out the single fillet that weighed closest to the aforementioned six ounces, defeating Corey, who missed it by a mile.

With their win, the men headed out to eat a lobster lunch on a ''100-foot superyacht'' with Chef Ramsay — the first time Bobby had ever been on a boat, which is why I suppose he does not refer to himself as an admiral. The women stayed home and prepped fish for the night. Best moment of the episode: The men walked through the kitchen on their way out the door, and Jen instructed the women to get busy with the cleavers and make that fish fly, showering the guys in a sort of halibut ticker-tape parade. This led Matt to complain that they ruined his expensive cologne. But maybe if Matt didn't coat himself with so much man perfume, he could have smelled the crap he gave Ramsay last week, and Chef wouldn't have puked. Just a thought.

Time for service, and the traditional Confusing of the Menfolk. Chef Ramsay asked Petrozza to name the five appetizers on the menu. Petrozza couldn't, so Ramsay kicked him out of the kitchen. (Pop quiz, hotshots: Name the five appetizers on the menu.) Petrozza went to study, came back, and now couldn't name the desserts. Ramsay kicked him out again. This time Petrozza just sat upstairs muttering, ''I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done,'' until Bobby came and shook some sense into him, buttoning his coat and sending him downstairs to try again. This time, thank God, the man could name the entrees, and Ramsay let him back into the kitchen, then opened the doors.

First problem: Craig and Rosann had been sent into the dining room to help Jean-Phillipe handle customers, but Rosann forgot to bring orders to the pass, and Craig hit a woman on the head with a chair. (I assume he was just too short to get the proper height on the thing.) Second problem: Everyone was making raw everything tonight. The men seemed best able to overcome this and actually managed to get half their entrees out to the room, but the women struggled mightily, largely thanks to the incompetence of Sharon, a.k.a. Barbie. Our ''room-service chef'' really took it on the chin tonight, with Ramsay making comment after comment about her relationship to makeup. Look, Sharon had no clue what she was doing, sure, but I didn't think she was wearing all that much stuff on her face today, and she definitely seemed to be trying to learn. Then again, our buddy Gordon's never been overly nice to the girly-girls. Once he called her ''a showgirl with a feather coming out her ahhss,'' I was pretty sure Sharon's fate was sealed.

The inevitable SHUT-TIT DOWN (which tonight was accompanied by an extra GET THE F--- OUT) came when J.-P. brought a piece of raw fish back to the kitchen; ''Bad. Meltdown. Pathetic. Really pathetic'' was how Ramsay summed up service before elimination. Still, the men got all those meals out, and so the women took the fall, with Corey — last week's Simple/Plain/Blond/Boring girl, this week's challenge goat and risotto hero — being named best of the worst. This really turned young Corey on (perhaps she is not complimented enough at home?), and she immediately went all Machiavelli on us. Seriously, it was awesome: No one was coming to her and begging to stay, so she decided to make a game out of it. ''You're gonna take out the best, aren't you?'' asked Ben. ''I am the best,'' replied Corey. Aw, yeah.

Who'd she put up? Rosann, for messing up the orders? Sharon, for sucking? Nope: ''For strategic reasons,'' she put up Christina, who is clearly a powerhouse, and who Corey felt had underestimated her. And ''for personal reasons,'' she put up Jen, because ''she distracts me from doing my job seriously.'' ''F--- me,'' exclaimed Ramsay. This is like some "Survivor" s---, I wrote in my notebook.

Think about it: For the most part, this show's history has been dominated by the elimination of the most obvious weak link. Occasionally, they throw someone up there to try and mix it up, but that person rarely goes home. Tonight, Corey stepped up and called out two women who had no business being called out . . . and I loved it. Of course, as with "Survivor", there's always the danger of voting out too many strong players too early, thus decreasing your chance to make it to the merge — it seems the same danger applies here. Still, I appreciated Corey's strategy. So did Chef Ramsay. But here's the difference between me and Gordon, other than the fact that he's a celebrity who spends most of his time on a massive power trip, and I'm a girl who ordered the soy chicken tonight because she thought it would be funny: Chef Ramsay ignored Corey's strategy and kicked Sharon off anyway. ''F---,'' said Corey. BRILLIANT! I wrote in my notebook.

If tonight's ep was any indication, I think we've got one hell of a season ahead of us, bread puddings. Do you agree? Were you grinning as wide as I was when Ramsay went off the grid at elimination, or do you think he should have been forced to play by his own rules and boot one of the nominated women? Did Bobby redeem himself after last week's lameitude by helping Petrozza? Could Ben be any cuter? How do you think Jen and Christina will retaliate against Corey? How would you retaliate? And can I ask that we adopt my No Toolsack Mentioning policy on the comment boards as well? NTsM for short!

Zap2It's recap:
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"Hell's Kitchen": The return of the fish fillet
by Josh Lasser

Somehow, "Hell's Kitchen" manages to do the same exact things season after season, same challenges, same rants by Gordon Ramsay, and yet remain fresh and exciting. Tonight's episode was no exception.

Following the standard fallout from the elimination, our chefs were rudely awakened by Gloria and Scott at 5:43 in the morning. It was the usual bullhorn and yelling that the show does every year. That was followed by Gordon's predictable tirade against waste in the kitchen. The contestants were then commanded, as has happened in previous seasons, to go through the trash from the previous night's dinner service and measure the amount of waste from their inefficient cooking.

Sure, we've seen the contestants do this before, but it's always fun to see folks dig into their own filth. Oddly, it's kind of a pleasure to watch. It didn't even disturb me that you could probably intercut tonight's episode with one from last season and another from the season before without really noticing a difference in the narrative.

After going through their kitchen waste it was time for the challenge. This week, the chefs had to fillet halibut. I think this was actually a different fish for filleting from last season, which was a nice change to see. As for the task, to get the most perfect fillets in a specific amount of time, it does seem to test the contestants' ability to wield a knife and cut a fish well.

The men finished with plenty of time left, and, despite destroying some pieces of halibut pretty badly, ended up with the same number of fillets as the women. As a tiebreaker, each team had to select one person to choose the fillet that was closest to six ounces. Ben, on the blue side, picked a 5.9 ounce fillet. Corey, on the red team, didn't come nearly as close, ending up with a 4.8 ounce piece of halibut.

Consequently, the women were tasked with prepping all the halibut and fish stock for the upcoming service and the men got to take a trip on a 100 foot yacht. Maybe it's because I haven't eaten all day, but the lobster lunch the guys got to have on the boat looked really, really good.

Interestingly, Jen tried to complain about Corey's fish selection to the rest of the team, but one of Corey's teammates defended her, explaining that they were a team and they were all responsible for the loss. That was certainly something we haven't seen much of on the show. Usually both sides are very quick to assign blame and thin the herd.

Before the dinner service started, Ramsay quizzed Petrozza on the appetizers for the night. Unbelievably, incredibly, ridiculously, he couldn't name them (didn't he learn from last week?). Ramsay sent Petrozza upstairs to learn the menu and left Petrozza's station unmanned while he studied. Petrozza tried to memorize what he was supposed to be cooking, but failed another of Ramsay's quizzes, not being able to list the desserts (the first thing asked of him). Petrozza was all ready to quit, he had unbuttoned his jacket and begun to cry when Bobby ("The Black Gordon Ramsay") pulled him back together.

During tonight's service each team had one person from their side helping out Jean-Phillipe in the front of the house. Craig seemed to do a decent job, but it took Rosann 45 minutes to get the first ticket to Ramsay.

After a few misfires, the men managed to get all their appetizers out before Jason and Petrozza fell down on the entrees. Neither man seemed remotely interested in cooking. After some raw fish was sent back from one of their tables, Jason claimed it wasn't his even though he was the only one on their side cooking fish. Maybe there was a phantom cook at the fish station tonight.

Meanwhile, in the front of the house, Craig was rearranging chairs in the dining room and clocked a woman in the back of the head with one of the chair legs. Okay, so that was bad, but was that worse than Rosann trying to not bombard Chef Ramsay by giving him too many orders at once? She, inexplicably, opted to hold some orders for over an hour because she didn't want to, I don't know, burden Ramsay with too much work. Clearly she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

It is true that it really wouldn't have made any sort of difference though if she had given him the orders as Sharon and Christina couldn't iron out the cooking of the entrees anyway. It seemed like it was mostly Sharon's fault, but Christina certainly ended up looking bad because of it. In fact, most of the women's team looked poor during service.

When Ramsay shut down the kitchen it was the women's not being able to get food out and not the men's raw fish that lost the day. The women were declared the losers, Corey was deemed best of the worst and was put in charge of nominating two women for elimination.

Corey opted to nominate Christina and Jen tonight, leaving the truly incompetent Sharon still in the contest. Ramsay was not amused. Jen hasn't shown herself to be worthy of winning over the last two episodes, but she didn't deserve to end up on the chopping block this week.

Christina let loose with some tears when explaining why she should stay. Jen decided to inundate Ramsay with a huge list of the things she has done thus far. It went on and on, and p!ssed Ramsay off. It didn't p!ss him off enough to can her though. Ramsay wanted to get rid of Sharon from the beginning, and he explained that he had no faith in her and would never allow her to run his restaurant. Despite the fact that she wasn't nominated, Ramsay eliminated Sharon tonight.

Possibly it was a good decision, but it will certainly have terrible repercussions for Corey, who now has two people she tried to eliminate gunning for her.

A couple of observations and a question or three:

- After last week's elimination, Jason stated that he didn't know what he was getting into with the show. Really? Well, he is clearly an idiot as he stated that the women were useless in their kitchen without a man to lead them.

- Are they doing lamb wellington this year instead of beef? That sounds just fantastic.

- What do you think? Should Ramsay have eliminated Sharon? Does the fact that she stood out as an impossible choice mean that he should have gotten rid of her despite the fact that she wasn't nominated? Where does Corey stand now?

Episode Title: "Day 3"

Synopsis: After being awakened by chickens in their living quarters, the contestants must pluck what once clucked, then cook them for the evening's family-style dinner service; another contestant is eliminated from the competition.

Discuss.

That bald fat ass and all his sexist "girls can only clean" comments is REALLY starting to annoy me.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Troy,

It was Jason's time to go, from his lack of motivation in remembering the desserts menu, to wanting to quit after Gordon yelled at him too much, to the actual dinner service where he seemed lost like a puppy and couldn't make simple creme brulee for the entrees without destroying them. It's disgusting how sexist this guy is, and for what reason beyond he's intimidated by women that can outcook him, which most of them can. He had my sympathy for a brief time with the desserts and quitting thing, but to then so easily be coerced to spill team secrets to the ladies just b/c they were in wet bikinis, the botched service, and the sexist comments quashed all of that sympathy. Vanessa probably deserved the elimiantion as much as Jason did, but I'm glad that she's being given another chance at things next week, so I'll chalk it up to nerves to her burning all of that steak like that. I was almost hoping that Christina would have picked Corey just as a big f-you to her coup attempt last week, but Christina took the high road since Corey wasn't the reason for her team's failure, so good for her. They're still gunning for Corey it seems, and one of the guys was right that what Corey did last week created scars on their team that'll never heal. It's crazy how inept most of these chefs are this season -- at this point, none of them deserve to be called the winner or be the exclusive chef at one of Gordon's restaurants. They better improve quickly, and again, the "Top Chef" group would eat these guys up for breakfast and not think twice about it. The difference in skill sets between the two shows' chefs is staggering.

I watched Gordon's show "The F word" on BBC America where he had four Oxford students, none of them professional chefs cooking in one of his restaurants, up to his standards. Those four students all amateurs, could out cook any of this seasons HK contestants. It's no wonder Gordon is so foul mouthed and abusive with so-called professional chefs like Jason, Ben and Craig.

Are any of these contestants serious about winning this show? Knowing that Gordon could quiz him at any time how could Jason still not know the desert menu?If you wanted a 250K job wouldn't it be wise to study the menu and know it backward and forward, up and down?Wouldn't it be wise to know how to prepare desserts rather then just slopping the batter into a dish? Out of this sorry group the only two that seem to have any potential to run Gordon's restaurant are Corey and LouRoss.

Episode Title: "Day 4"

Synopsis: The two teams vie to make the most pasta for the evening's dinner service, with the winners earning a trip to the Santa Monica Pier; that night, an accident in the kitchen lands a contestant in the hospital; another contestant is eliminated from the competition.

Discuss.

it was appaling how bad the guys did when Gordon practically handed them a dumbed-down family menu that any chef worth his/her salt could and should be able to breeze through. Craig's been a trainwreck for awhile now, and when he wouldn't answer Gordon repeatedly when he asked for the time window on his dishes, it sealed his fate. Ben had a rough night having to shovel horse crap like that, and then taking all of Gordon's abuse, even when he thought that he was giving him a compliment at the end. LMAO. The girls rallied, and Jen has inexplicibly become the leader of her team, but anything over Corey I guess. It was rough seeing Vanessa burn her hand like that -- that has to be one of a chef's worst nightmares to happen in general, and that's only amplified when it's in Gordon's kitchen and on television for millions to see. That might cost her next week if the girls lose in dinner service.

EW's recap:
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''Hell's Kitchen'': The Kids in the Hell

After getting a workout with a pasta-making challenge, the cheflings try and mostly fail to serve family-friendly food.

by Whitney Pastorek

Hello, my little weird Thai soups, and welcome to the continuation of Hell's Kitchen. I was already in a bad mood tonight because the San Antonio Root of All Evils beat the Phoenix Suns again, and this episode just put me over the top. Between all the yelling and medical emergencies and undercooked poultry and general cluelessness — ugh, I'm not feeling so good. But no one tunes in to "HK" to feel better about things, so I guess that makes what we witnessed a success. I'd like to thank Craig for doing his part to pick me up at the end . . . but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We opened with last week's closing: Chef Ramsay telling the cheflings to ''f--- off,'' then calling Bobby a punk (in reference to his loaves-and-fishes moxie). Ben, on the other hand, was pretty sure all the yelling meant Ramsay was just testing him (and his ''different techniques'') during the previous service. Yes, Ben, that's what we'd all like to think when we're being criticized. But I can't invoke the Space Camp speech twice in one week, so I suspect in your case, you might just suck a little. Then again, everyone's sucking these days, sucking so badly that Ramsay wouldn't even let them go to bed. Instead, he called them downstairs to clean up the mess they'd made in the kitchen. Everyone begrudgingly got to work, except for Corey, who decided she'd done enough and headed upstairs to sleep. The way I see it, her teammates couldn't hate her a whole lot more than they already do, so might as well cash in some of that hatred for some z's. That's what I'd do, anyway. But then, I'm a sleeper. (Except on Tuesdays, apparently.)

The next morning came, as morningtime is wont to do, and Ramsay assembled everyone back in the kitchen, then informed the group that because their services have been so colossally bad of late, they were being demoted from grown-up food to kiddie fare, and "Hell's Kitchen" would seat its first-ever ''Family Night'' that evening. And what do kids love? That's right: pah-sta! Nothing a kid loves more than some good old-fashioned clam spaghetti, especially if the clams are really mussels, and super big and gray! For the challenge, though, it was time to make all that pah-sta, which involved a great deal of cranking and pounding and flouring and more cranking. Whoever produced more pah-sta via the aforementioned ''pah-sta aerobics'' would win!

Well. Since Toolsack wasn't there to provide this week's dose of sexism, Jen went ahead and handled it for him. But even though the challenge involved all that scary hard physical labor, she ain't never run from a dude, and she ain't gonna start today. And sure enough, after a somewhat drawn-out weighing process, the women took the challenge by over a pound. Thus would the men stay behind and prep both kitchens for Family Night, and the women take off for a fun-filled afternoon at what may be the only place in Los Angeles that's actually tackier than the Saddle Ranch: the Santa Monica Pier! Yes, the ladies all piled into a Hummer limousine — by the way, happy Earth Day, everybody! — and headed west to ride the excruciatingly underwhelming roller coaster and shout their freedom into the ocean while secretly plotting to throw Corey off the Ferris wheel. [Author's note: Actually, the Santa Monica Pier is pretty much fun if you stay off the rides and stick to skeeball. Also, Fox has been holding its big TCA party there every summer of late, and since it's traditionally the most fun of the big TCA parties, I'd hate for anyone to think I don't want to go. I want to go, Fox.]

When the girls returned from their big reward adventure, Ben was shoveling horse manure from the Family Night pony rides in the parking lot, and inside, the men were rallying around Craig, who was on the pah-sta station. Nothing to worry about there, of course. As Craig put it, pasta isn't rocket science — and if those aren't famous last words, then I'm pretty sure the Suns-Spurs series can't get any worse. Ramsay declared that the first team to finish service would win (such optimism!), yelled at J.-P. to take off his tie, and opened Hell's Kitchen. At this point, all I could think was: Those kids are gonna learn some fun new words tonight.

The women got their first apps out right away, thanks to Vanessa (who'd finally stopped crying), but Matt sent out a bunch of raw chicken wings — always trying to help people get to know their intestines, that Matt — and Ben's onion rings were insufficiently crispy. Instead of fixing them, Ben sunk into Chef Ramsay's eyes for a bit, and between the eye-sinking remark and his constant belief that C.R. is testing him, I'm pretty sure that Ben is developing quite the man-crush on Ramsay. I'm also interested to know what happened to that part of his goatee where no hair grows, but that's neither here nor there, nor is it the most interesting thing that happened tonight, because somewhere right about now, Shayna set a pan on fire. The flames shot high above the stove, and as Vanessa jumped in to move the pan off the burner, she managed to splash boiling oil on her hand, and got carted off to the hospital. This was nowhere near as dramatic as I'd hoped after seeing the scenes in last week's previews, but speaking of touching hot stoves, I guess I'll never learn.

So the women were a man down, but Jen was in control, and things kept swimming along. Meanwhile, in the dining room, children were eating their shirts, and in the blue kitchen, Matt was burning burgers like a trainee at Whataburger. Yet somehow, Ben and Bobby thought things were going well, and started yukking it up, congratulating each other with much high-fiving and mirth. Chef Ramsay, perhaps having eviscerated Bobby enough for one 24-hour period, screamed at Ben for this, then told the men to ''dig deep, touch your [unintelligible], and wake up!'' But Craig served up some spaghetti with clams instead of meatballs, and that was pretty much it — the women finished their service and won, somewhat resoundingly. Somewhere Toolsack is probably crying: Gordon then sent the women over to help the hapless men finish and keep more children from eating their clothing.

The "Rain Man" affliction that's been passed around all season chose this moment to strike Craig. ''I got it I got it I got it,'' he repeated, as women tried to help him get that last damn spaghetti out. Then he burned his hand and cussed. ''You got some attitude, son,'' Jen could be heard to say as we went to commercial. Jen is now a star, according to Ramsay, but Ben is a surprise, and not in a good way — especially not after Ben decided to misinterpret the comment as a compliment. (What is Ben's deal, kids? Do we know where he comes from? Why does he keep getting this Incompetent Prodigal Chef thing from Ramsay?) Bobby, meanwhile, was named best of the worst, and everyone tromped upstairs to talk about who was going home. Well. God forbid Craig should beg. He's not a dog, you see! Not a pet dog! He is a pain in the ass, though, according to Matt, who really appeared to be in no position to talk at that point. And sure enough, when they got back downstairs, Bobby put both Craig and Matt on the chopping block.

Ah, but it was the Most. Shocking. Elimination. Ever! Sort Of: ''There's one more person standing behind you that I need to hear from, and he knows who he is,'' said Ramsay after Matt and Craig stepped forward. Poor Ben! This test would never end for him, it seemed! So he threw down the only card he had left: Cooking is all that God has given him. Now, Ben! That is clearly untrue. You have a fetching fauxhawk, for example, and at least seven eighths of a goatee! Be ye glad! Also, you are neither Craig nor Matt, both of whom are such quivering lumps of metaphorical (and in one case, literal) Jello I could not be bothered to write down what they said during this part!

Until. Until. UNTIL Ben said he'd give Chef Ramsay 100 percent. Matt saw his 100 percent, and raised it: Matt will give 125 percent! Ooh! The ball was in Craig's court! What would he go with? The classy 150? The full 200? The bonkers 1000? ''I don't know percentages,'' offered Craig. ''But, just . . . over that.'' Over that? Matt, sweetie, this is not "The Price Is Right". You can't bid 126 and hope that carries you through. Wait — do you even know that 126 comes after 125? It's too late now anyway, because Chef Ramsay voted your sad little butt home. But look at it this way, Mr. Wizard: At least you can put your penis substitute chef's toque back on without fear of it being set on fire by an angry Brit, eh? That's gotta be worth something. Like, maybe 126 percent of something. (I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.)

Episode Title: "Day 5"

Synopsis: The first challenge facing the 11 remaining chefs: make a gourmet pizza; the winning team enjoys a gourmet meal in Santa Barbara while the losers must take pizza orders and deliver them during dinner service, at which one contestant has a serious accident and is rushed to the hospital; another contestant is eliminated from the competition.

Discuss.

The free pass week was a nice save at the end of the episode after all that build-up to someone going home, though I was halfway expecting that to happen with Vanessa quitting. It would have thrown off the schedule too much to have a double elimination this early in the game. Rosann should have been the one from the girls' team sent up for elimination for her freeze-up in service instead of Christina, and I would have given scrappy Louross a save and gone for either Ben (for being useless) or Matt (for seeming lost so much of the time, though points for trying to bring the team together) for the guys' team. The gourmet pizza challenge was a good one, and it's odd seeing Jennifer work her way up to the frontrunners to win the season outright (that is, if she can keep her mouth shut around Gordon and just cook well). Ben delivering those pizzas in that rinky-dink "HK" go-cart was hilarious, and even though Louross and Petrozza's medium-well beef scam really was "the most ghetto-est thing ever", it was something that they actually pulled it off without getting caught. I hope that Gordon sees that in the footage of the show at some point and makes them account for it (though he won't if he didn't last night). I felt sorry for the patrons that had to actually eat that dish after all that they did to it, ugh.