Rambler

The funniest part of Sarah's demo was the shots of the two kids looking like they were slowly being bored to death. Sometimes I get the feeling that the editors really don't like Sarah at all.

There is only going to be one more elimination, then the three left will shoot pilots and the viewers will vote for the winner among the three. So probably the viewers will vote between Lenny, Luca and Nicole. That’s a nice diversity of styles for the viewers to choose from. I really can’t see Sarah lasting another week, but I’ve been saying that for ages so who knows. The only way I can see for Sarah to get into the finals is if the producers want to gift wrap the win for Lenny. After watching Lenny's train wreck in the yogurt shop I don't think Guy Fieri will be looking over his shoulder any time soon.

What an appropriate end to a pathetic season. Where was the part where the chefs put up sample dishes for Ramsey to critique? You realize the editors don't care about food anymore when you have no idea what the final menus were. Even before Joy left, this was the worst group of chefs they ever had - so congratulations I guess Scott, you were the one eyed king this season.

Actually Howard hated Juan Carlos. He hit the buzzer on him the first time through, and he berated the other judges about liking him the second time through. With supposedly so many good acts I would think they would need all four judges to like an act in order for them to advance, but apparently that is not the case.

I think they are going for a vaccine to prevent people from contracting the disease. Vaccines don't do anything for people already infected. Hopefully there is a secret undercover PETA agent on board who will attempt to rescue the monkeys because that would be a hilarious plot twist.

I liked how Sarah's sole contribution as captain of her team was to assign herself the easiest protein. Poor Nicole had to dream up their theme, and then design and execute the dessert by herself. Then she had to reassure Sarah who was freaking out about not getting wine. All Sarah had to do was make two sides and not burn her steaks. Surely Sarah can't last another week, but I've been saying that every week.

Well that was a bit of a surprise to say the least. It’s hard to believe that the men’s team, that was so inept that it couldn’t even finish a service until about the 5th or 6th episode, has both the chefs in the final. Scott in the final I could maybe see, even though he must have set the record for most times put up for elimination. But Jason? The guy who thinks that teamwork in the kitchen consists of yelling “You dumb little <bleep>” to Sandra? The guy who couldn’t compose a restaurant quality dish if someone held a gun to his head? That Jason? He must have some compromising photos of Gordon Ramsay hidden away somewhere. That’s the only explanation. I guess Scott is a lock to win this, but I said there was no way Joy could lose so what do I know? That probably means Jason will win. And there are those photos. Oh well, I guess I should know by now that my favorites will never win. So goodbye Rochelle, you were probably too nice for this show. Next time, remember to channel your inner Gordon Ramsey and you will do well. And farewell also to Melanie. You may have had an overinflated opinion of yourself, but I did appreciate the gratuitous shots of you in your bra that the editors loved to show earlier in the season so you weren’t as totally useless as some of the others. (lest there be any misunderstanding, that was a bit of sarcasm directed at the editors, not at Melanie)

This episode seemed very boring to me. It needs some action scenes to distract from the glaring plot holes. If this show has another season maybe they could hire a couple of 24 writers to show them how its done. What I have learned from watching too many episodes of NCIS is that if someone is identified as a civilian contractor, there is a 99% chance that he is a bad guy. In that same vein, if a CEO of a major arms manufacturer shows up there is a 75% chance that he is a bad guy (lower percentage because an underling could possibly be the bad guy), unless we also meet the corporate vice president who is married to the CEO's daughter, in which case there is a 100% certainty that the son in law is the bad guy.

I’ve never had Serrano Ham so is it easy to tell the difference between Serrano and Prosciutto? When Nicole was cooking, it sounded like she wasn’t certain if it was Serrano or Prosciutto, but on the other hand Alton seemed to have no trouble from a few feet away. I guess she must have thought it better to tell the judges she told a fib rather than telling them she didn’t know the difference.

Well there went my prediction that Joy was going to win it all. I got complacent because it was so easy to predict the last two winners (Janel and Christina) and Joy seemed to be getting the exact same treatment. Nice job of misdirection from the editors. Although the problem with that is they have made everyone else seem like incompetent nincompoops. Joy running out like that is so totally bizarre to me. He wasn’t even yelling at her that bad. At least if you are going to walk out, wait until he gets to the point where he’s calling everyone over and smashing the halibut with his fist. She could have still probably saved it if she would have just come back and apologized after Andi talked to her, but she was either too proud or stupid to do that, and so it’s sayonara $250,000. Hope she can afford it. At least Rochelle has a decent chance to win this thing now. She looked more assertive this episode when she was calling out times in the kitchen, but on the other hand, her saying “I just don’t know how to plate stuff” does not inspire confidence. Quote of the day from Stan Lee: “I think we wrecked this place by ordering halibut”.

I'm guessing that with Frost gone they are feeling the need to have a non-white face show up on the screen every now and then.

My current theory is that bubble guy is the scientist who weaponized the virus. Of course his brilliant research effort was rejected by the US military - because they don’t like to be portrayed in a bad light and Michael Bay would lose his access to all that navy hardware - and he had to turn to the evil Russians to carry on with his work. I’m not sure why he would be immune, but probably he used his own DNA to make the virus and through some scientific hocus pocus abracadabra, all of a sudden he’s immune. Some lab accident released the virus into the world, because that is what happens when mad scientists fool with mother nature, and now he needs Dr. Scott because he only knows how to make bioweapons, not cures. And it has to be only Dr. Scott because it’s going to turn out that he is her ex-husband/boyfriend/mentor whom she left because he was dabbling in forces beyond his control. All that is so cliche that I will totally laugh my ass off if it turns out to be true.

I don’t get why Lenny had to taste all those peppers. Did he not know how they tasted beforehand? Are hot peppers not used in Cowboy cuisine? If he didn’t know what they tasted like, how was he making his hot sauce before Bobby got to him? It just made me think he was using a recipe that someone gave him, although come to think of it, that’s probably how it would work if he got his own show so I can’t ding him too much on that. But it didn’t help his credibility when he’s all like “wtf is this Habenero? Ohhh it’s hot!” I can’t really blame Loreal for this because she is just doing what the judges asked her to do. She tried to tone it down for a couple of episodes and the judges jumped on her back. Now she’s back in hyper mode, except amped up x2, and the judges are back to loving her so I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes even more off the wall from here.

Going by the editing, I think Joy has this thing won. For the most part, they don’t show her being drawn into any of the petty bickering going on and I don’t think she has ever had a bad service except maybe at the very beginning. She’s also won a few of the challenges so she has shown she can be creative in the kitchen. She is on track with how past winners have been depicted so the only question for me is who will lose to her in the finale. Jason has been shown to be a misogynistic pig so there is no way Ramsey is going to let him go near any one of his kitchens. Scott has been given the "You’ve given up" speech far too many times and they showed him talking back to Ramsey so he’s out. If either them is in the final it will be too obvious who the winner is going to be so I think they are both goners sooner than later. Rochelle and Melanie seem very close in cooking ability. At times they both are prone to zoning out and making stupid mistakes, but they seem to recover quickly and not make any additional errors. Of the two Melanie seems way more confident and assertive so I think she will slide past Rochelle and into the final. I like Rochelle and I am cheering for her to win, but I go back to the episode where they had to design their own menus and she was completely silent and I don’t think Ramsey will be looking favorably on that. One thing I do appreciate about Melanie is that when things go bad for her, she doesn’t dissolve into tears, unlike the other female contestants this year. That annoys the shit out of me and makes me so happy that boo-hoo Kashia is finally gone.

I live in Southern California so I know that Knotts is an amusement park, but would someone who lived on the East Coast necessarily know that? Is the park really that well known outside of California? I believe they are filming in Los Angeles and Knotts is in Orange County so it was probably a one hour commute depending on the traffic. So Emma could have made her comment while they weren’t in sight of any roller coasters. And even if there were roller coasters visible how would they know that was their final destination?

I'm afraid Kate is out of the picture for Jack. She is married to someone who is no doubt about to found innocent of his crimes and will be set free.

How the heck did an unarmed school teacher, who by the looks of it couldn't have weighed more than 110 lbs, manage to disarm a drug dealer with a gun? He must have been the world's wimpiest drug dealer.

I was confused about something in this episode. The Ghost said he tracked the prosecutor down by tracing the IP address of the emails that Painless sent him, but wasn’t it the sister the one who was sending him the emails? I feel like I must have missed something.

I like Rochelle and I'm rooting for her to win this. That said, I’m going to go against the conventional wisdom here and say that I think Melanie is the front runner at this point. Sure she suffers from swelled head syndrome, but that just means that when she messes up in the kitchen, she has been able to bounce back without any loss of confidence, and also she has consistently been doing well in the cooking challenges. I also think she knows how to play this game. So far this season, there have only been three chefs who have shown that they are at least marginally competent: Rochelle, Joy and Melanie. If you’re Melanie the last thing you want is to have Rochelle and Joy on the same team going against you. So she was smart enough to volunteer to join Rochelle and isolate Joy. 2 competent chefs vs. 1 puts Joy under pressure until they get down to the final five. Looking at it from Ramsay’s perspective, I think he sees Melanie as someone who was confident enough in her own abilities that she volunteered to transfer from a winning team to a losing team. And then right after she joined, that team was suddenly transformed from a dysfunctional mess into a well-oiled machine, while the team she left fell apart. Now whether that transformation was due to her abilities or Gabriel finally deciding to show up is open to debate, but I think both she and Rochelle are in a good position for final two right now.