Hell's Kitchenette

I thought I'd be excited when Virginia got nominated--indeed, after her remark about Gordon's spicy hot dog I wished for nothing else. Again, for the video editors, this must be like shooting fish in a barrel. But it wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be, so I'm glad she got to stick around. Her airheaded flirting was actually the least annoying thing in this episode. The prize for most annoying goes to Sara's snarky 'tude (you have to love those coworkers who never make mistakes--they're such a joy).

Overall, I have to say, this series of "Hell's Kitchen" is disappointing. Men versus women is one tired, tired theme, so it's good to see that broken up a little--maybe if they mix the teams up a little or whittle it down to individuals things will perk up a bit. For now the women are catty (wow, what a shock) and the men are just sort of floundering incompetents.

Once again, I can't imagine any of these people successfully running a big resort restaurant. I know that this whole experiment is ostensibly an exercise to scare up some fresh innovation, but I can't help but think there must be lots of qualified people who could really make something of this opportunity. Even really talented people whose peers agree they deserve success can have a tough row to hoe once they're in charge of a restaurant.

Once, when I was in Vegas, I had the pleasure of seeing a man attack a teppan chef in an effort to get the snazzy restaurant he was in to reimburse him for his $500 sweater. Someone--not me, for a wonder--had spilled something on it. Something plain, like water. I'm no expert, God knows, on $500 sweaters, but I think it could have been saved. Let us pause to consider our society's wondrous capacity to create humans such as this, shower them with money, and then release them into an unsuspecting resort population. Now let us pause to imagine ANY of these contestants running a kitchen that has to appease this kind of clientele often enough to avoid bankruptcy.

I can't do it. If you can, my hat is off to you.