S20.E08: A Devilish Challenge

[jewel21]

Quote

The remaining chefs compete in a tag-team relay race competition, in which they must cook entrees against the other team. Later, five chef-testants face the first "Cook For Your Life" challenge of the season.

Airdate: 07/19/2021

[mojoween]

Well that was fucking bullshit.  Keona, below Antonio?  Fuck THAT.

Hey did you know Josie is a vegan?  Surprised it hasn’t come up before.

[xcrayon2215x]

The stuff between Josie and Emily was kind of odd. I thought Keanu would go far but based on the challenge her elimination made sense. Sam's celebration was so over the top but I liked it.

[AZChristian]

Fly Linq. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Great fun!!!

[preeya]

That was different and weird. I'm wondering what was the criteria, and how he "calculated" the five under achievers.

Based on prior episodes, comments, and performances I would have thought Antonio should have been one of the chosen five.

Edited July 20, 2021 by preeya

[mertensia]

37 minutes ago, preeya said:

That was different and weird. I'm wondering what was the criteria, and how he "calculated" the five under achievers.

Based on prior episodes, comments, and performances I would have thought Antonio should have been one of the chosen five.

I suspect no one named him because they know he's never winning.

[EllaWycliffe]

50 minutes ago, preeya said:

Based on prior episodes, comments, and performances I would have thought Antonio should have been one of the chosen five.

While I do feel like a certain amount of "the person I fear most is the one I call out as sucky" - personally I find it hard to believe Antonio didn't get called. 

[KeithJ]

11 hours ago, mojoween said:

Well that was fucking bullshit.  Keona, below Antonio?  Fuck THAT.

Hey did you know Josie is a vegan?  Surprised it hasn’t come up before.

I thought it was mentioned before.  I just don't see how a vegan can be head chef at a steakhouse.

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, KeithJ said:

I thought it was mentioned before.  I just don't see how a vegan can be head chef at a steakhouse.

I haven't paid real close attention, or rather, the cameras don't show us, but does Josie get others to taste the food she's making to ensure it's not bland, undercooked, etc., etc.?

[Eolivet]

That was a bizarre challenge. I actually thought for sure Victoria would be gone since she's basically Purple Victoria (shout-out to oldschool Survivor fans). And all that much ado about how Josie doesn't taste her food for ... nothing? And what did their visit to the Principal's Office have to do with the challenge? It seemed like he'd be eliminating the one who didn't incorporate his advice, but that didn't come up either.

Strange episode.

[preeya]

1 hour ago, Eolivet said:

That was a bizarre challenge. I actually thought for sure Victoria would be gone since she's basically Purple Victoria (shout-out to oldschool Survivor fans). And all that much ado about how Josie doesn't taste her food for ... nothing? And what did their visit to the Principal's Office have to do with the challenge? It seemed like he'd be eliminating the one who didn't incorporate his advice, but that didn't come up either.

Strange episode.

This is what he actually said:

"I've taken the rankings that you've all given your brigades and calculated your averages.
And based on how you evaluated each other, five of you will be cooking for life, understand? 

The chef who performs the poorest in the next challenge will be going home.
Five of you will be cooking for your life, understand?"

We only saw him asking who each one of them thought was the weakest. Was there more extensive questioning? I don't understand how he could "calculate averages" from what was shown on screen. Very weird episode.

Edited July 20, 2021 by preeya

[fishcakes]

13 hours ago, mojoween said:

Well that was fucking bullshit.  Keona, below Antonio?  Fuck THAT.

Right? It's ridiculous that he'd let her go on the basis of that one challenge. Even compared to the specific people in the challenge, she's been consistently better than both Victoria and Josie.

2 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I haven't paid real close attention, or rather, the cameras don't show us, but does Josie get others to taste the food she's making to ensure it's not bland, undercooked, etc., etc.?

She hasn't been and it's caused them to lose twice, once on a dinner service and then yesterday in the relay challenge. After the relay challenge, she gave a talking head where she said in the future she'd get someone else to taste for her, so apparently she was too dumb to figure that out before. The part that was really maddening though was that she said in an incredulous way, "I'm NOT going to taste something if it has meat in it!" I don't care about anyone's personal dietary habits, but she works in a kitchen that serves meat dishes. It's her fucking job to taste everything. If she wants to be a chef but not eat any animal products, then she needs to work in a vegan restaurant or open her own restaurant. She shouldn't be competing for a job, a major part of which she refuses to do.

[seacliffsal]

I expected Victoria to go next based on previous episodes so I was shocked that Keona went home as I thought she had been doing well.  The producers probably think it's too early for Anthony to be eliminated so they kept him out of the bottom 5 just in case...

There is a lot of friendliness amongst this group so that makes the show more enjoyable for me.

[jewel21]

Add me to the list of those shocked that Keona went home based off of one challenge, especially with Antonio still around. And, I'm still surprised he wasn't in the bottom five people. How the heck did that happen?

Definitely a strange episode, but hey, at least it was something different and unpredictable, heh. 

[Yeah No]

This isn't the first episode this season where the elimination makes no sense.  It makes me think that either the editing isn't matching up with the reality or the eliminations are based on some pre-determined outcome that doesn't match up to their actual performance.  Last week's elimination did make sense so at least some of them still make sense but I'm not loving it when I see someone I thought had potential go home before freaking Antonio, who should have gone weeks ago.

[mertensia]

16 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

This isn't the first episode this season where the elimination makes no sense.  It makes me think that either the editing isn't matching up with the reality or the eliminations are based on some pre-determined outcome that doesn't match up to their actual performance.  Last week's elimination did make sense so at least some of them still make sense but I'm not loving it when I see someone I thought had potential go home before freaking Antonio, who should have gone weeks ago.

They always keep one or two people longer than they should. Ratings. Quiet always goes home first.

[Yeah No]

3 minutes ago, mertensia said:

They always keep one or two people longer than they should. Ratings. Quiet always goes home first.

Oh of course, that goes without saying.  But if the eliminations don't at least make some sense to the audience that too might impact ratings.  I know I'm starting to tune out on this season as a result of all the head scratching I'm doing.

[jabRI]

Seemed a bit 'lord of the flies' to me.  Asking to rate other chefs (based on personality not dinner service performance) was a d* move, sorry, Gordon, that was beneath you.  As for Keona, she's a much better chef than a lot of them, and in a regular dinner service would have been able to bounce back.  To come up with this ridiculous elimination was horrible.

Edited July 21, 2021 by jabRI

[Red Bridey]

I was convinced it was a "psych out" test with a twist in that the bottom five were actually the top five, with some weird conclusion to keep the "loser" but I was wrong. Bye, Keona. Reality Competition rules require at least one unfair elimination and you are the sacrificial lamb in this one.

[jabRI]

1 hour ago, Red Bridey said:

Bye, Keona. Reality Competition rules require at least one unfair elimination and you are the sacrificial lamb in this one.

I think I'm done with this season, at this point I don't care who wins, lost what little credibility was left to me.

[AZChristian]

It appeared that - after their one-on-one chats with Gordon - the cheftestants were sent somewhere else to gather until everyone had talked to him.  Good way to keep them from talking about their individual conversations with him, and keep them from plotting.  "He's going to ask you who is the weakest chef.  Let's all tell him it's _________."  

I suspect there were more questions, and answers were given a point value, which is why Gordon talked about the lowest five average scores.  Perhaps many of them rated the biggest competition lower, and no one felt Antonio was going to be able to last on his own merits, so they voted the stronger chefs lower, in the hopes they could get rid of them.

Gordon has been known more than once to excoriate a team because they nominated for elimination someone who was unpopular, rather than an obviously weak chef.

Not sure what happened with this particular episode.  But Keana definitely did not cook well - her pork chop was past "well-seared" to burnt, and I seem to recall her garnishes weren't terribly creative.  Elimination could just as well have been the other young woman, who completely forgot to plate her brussels sprouts.

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 hour ago, AZChristian said:

Elimination could just as well have been the other young woman, who completely forgot to plate her brussels sprouts.

Emily, the vegetarian of two years. I will give her props that if she has to taste the food if it's meat, she will, even though she switched to vegetarian a couple years ago.

What gets my goat is Jose--the VEGAN, who doesn't taste anything, but says she'll get others to do it for her (don't know if she got Christina? to do that for her in the elimination), and is able to present a perfectly good dish? Whatthefuckever.

Steve is my favorite; and I also like Megan and Kiya.

But Keona fucked up that chop, but good.

[KeithJ]

4 hours ago, AZChristian said:

Elimination could just as well have been the other young woman, who completely forgot to plate her brussels sprouts.

Yes, but, in a restaurant, it's much easier and quicker to fix a missing side than a burnt main dish.

[AZChristian]

31 minutes ago, KeithJ said:

Yes, but, in a restaurant, it's much easier and quicker to fix a missing side than a burnt main dish.

That might well have been the determining factor. 

[preeya]

2 hours ago, KeithJ said:

Yes, but, in a restaurant, it's much easier and quicker to fix a missing side than a burnt main dish.

Good point.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 7/20/2021 at 9:42 AM, preeya said:

This is what he actually said:

"I've taken the rankings that you've all given your brigades and calculated your averages.
And based on how you evaluated each other, five of you will be cooking for life, understand? 

The chef who performs the poorest in the next challenge will be going home.
Five of you will be cooking for your life, understand?"

We only saw him asking who each one of them thought was the weakest. Was there more extensive questioning? I don't understand how he could "calculate averages" from what was shown on screen. Very weird episode.

I think that we saw someone rank more than one person, though I can't remember who it was. In any event, it seems implicit that he asked them to rank all 4ish other members of the contestants' teammates and just did the averages of those rankings. 

[MBJ]

Poor Keona.  This elimination did not feel right to me at all.

On 7/20/2021 at 10:57 AM, fishcakes said:

Right? It's ridiculous that he'd let her go on the basis of that one challenge. Even compared to the specific people in the challenge, she's been consistently better than both Victoria and Josie.

I know it doesn't feel good to watch this at all.  Ramsay puts way too much weight in others' opinions, especially people who are like 20.