Smallscreen Features
'Hell's Kitchen' Recap: Jason is no girlie man
By April MacIntyre
Apr 16, 2008, 17:56 GMT

Alright Donkeys, last night's Hell's Kitchen reaffirmed my gut feeling that Gordon has a troupe of clowns on his hands; hardly anyone there that I can imagine worthy of the quarter-million dollar salary and the stewardship of a serious kitchen.

The show opens with the women fuming over Corey's political maneuverings as she tried to winnow Jen and Christina out of the filly herd.

It backfired, Ramsay overrides her decision so now she has to face the wrath (and mouths) of her two intended victims.

The entire crew is once again woken early and sent scrambling for live chickens running around their apartment; lovely.  If you have ever been around chickens, you know they crap often and everywhere they walk. 

Then with chicks in hand, the sleepy-headed chefs are given cleavers and told to prepare...cue dramatic music...their chickens from scratch!  PETA be damned.

No slaughtering on this show, Donkeys.  This is the set-up for the challenge du jour: Cutting up a whole chicken into eight perfect sections, wings, drums, breasts and thighs.

Sounds easy, but when was the last time you ever cut up a whole chicken?  We are used to buying our meat already portioned and prepared; rarely do you ever find an average person filleting a chicken, fish or large cut of beef. Half the kids I see at my kid's school don't even know how to peel an orange for chrissakes.  Did I mention he was in 10th grade?

The women are fastidious and nail it.  Jason of the Tighty Whiteys (see last week's recap) blathers that GIRLS can't win this and it's a manly provenance to carve meat, ergo, they will win this challenge.

Tall hat Craig blows it; he mangles a chicken and takes the longest time doing it which sets up subsequent B Roll showing Matt losing his sh*t over Craig's culinary incompetence.

Again, the producers who gave us Jason's "Tighty Whitey balls" moment now give us the fetching visuals of the women prepping for their reward.  We see one shaving her legs in a sink and one putting on clothes that should have never aired.

The prize is a craptacular barbecue restaurant (replete with a Gilley's inspired "Urban Cowboy" electric bull) on Sunset that I know.  It would flip me out that my reward was nowhere near as nice as last week's Lobster, caviar and yacht excursion the men enjoyed.  Ramsay would have gotten an earful from me.

The girls return and the weirdness begins.

Corey fancies herself a Siren, and tries to lure Ben to the hottub for the purposes of malicious psych ops; yet the only sad bastard that takes her bait is Jason. Again, we never needed to see him in trunks.  Jason has one beer and is anyones.  He sings like a canary and the women make copious mental strategy notes.

The night's service was worse than the week before.

Jason is assigned desserts, and must have a memory problem, he cannot recite them to chef.

Louross is up to drag smokey McChokey back to the kitchen.  Jason again is put on the spot, and blows it.  He quits! Ramsay asks hm three times over, "are you sure" and finally he mans it up enough to say hell yes and lamely recalls his menu and is back, ostensibly.

The appetizers rock out, but the meat is this week's falling knife moment that makes Ramsay sputter with spittle with rage; he close it down; the show is over.

In N' Out Burger on Lankershim once again becomes a late-night mile long line of turned away patrons needing to eat.

Vanessa blows the meat station. Vanessa is a grill cook, She cooks meat for a living yet has a senior moment and forgets how to do it.

Jason blew desserts too, but you knew that was coming right?  Desserts are for GIRLS. Jason doesn't do GIRL stuff.  GIRLS have coodies.

Ramsay bangs his head on the table, again and again and again.  It was a bit scary.

Lest we not forget another character, Black Gordon Ramsay General Bobby was sent out to cook tableside and was so busy making pals with the pissed-off patrons that Gordon is at near aneurysm point and practically kicks him in the ass to beat it.

So here we are: Christina and Petrozza are selected to nominate one teammate. Petrozza picks Jason and Christina picks Vanessa, who is beating herself up mercilessly for her awful performance at her station.

Chef Ramsay picks Jason, who says maybe if he cried like a GIRL he would still be there, and announces he is doing the manly thing and getting drunk.

See you Donkeys next week.