Watching Reality TV

Wow, the show is really getting down to the end, isn’t it?  It was alarming to see that there were three left where there had been five the week before.  And the contestants are reeling from the loss of Julia.  She was seen as an inspiration to the other competitors and even Rock gets a little tearful after her departure.  Everyone was sad to see her go, even Gordon.  Heck, he even offered to put her through culinary school.  That’s got to mean something, right?

The first challenge is making a gourmet meal out of an American classic meal.  Jen selected fried chicken, Rock selected spaghetti and meatballs and Bonnie selected franks and beans.  Bonnie tried to dispute the American classic-ness of franks and beans but it’s pretty hard to say hot dogs aren’t American.  They all made really fancy looking dishes from their assignments though.  The judges?  Their mothers!  Plus we got to see Gordon’s mother and it was rather cute that he wouldn’t swear in front of her.  Or let anyone else do it either.  Anyhow, the mothers tasted the dishes without knowing who had made what and they all unanimously agreed on Jen’s chicken.  Her reward was getting to go to lunch with her mom and Gordon and his mom and then getting a $1000 shopping spree at a cooking supply store.  Not too shabby!

Dinner service was going to be an opportunity for each contestant to show their aggression at working “the pass”.  In preparation, Gordon gave each of them some training on how to be obnoxiously rude to their staff.  Which was HILARIOUS.  Bonnie, if you can believe it, was a complete natural.  I mean, she darn near bit Gordon’s head off.  Pretty funny.  Rock was surprisingly lackluster and needed further coaching.  Jen tried a little too hard, swearing every other word but eventually got a good command.  It was just funny watching Gordon play meek for a change and say things like “Yes, chef.” and “Sorry, chef”.  Ha!

So the plan was to sabotage each of the contestants as they worked the pass and Jen was up first.  And, as expected, she didn’t catch that a pasta dish was missing it’s crab and was ready to send it out before Gordon stopped it.  After that, she was vigilant and did pretty darn well.  But now the other contestants knew to look for sabotage and both Rock and Bonnie caught theirs.  Which I didn’t think was entirely fair because they had to learn from Jen’s example and Jen was going into it cold.  But, whatever.  Dinner service went well and Gordon had a touch choice on his hands.

It came down to Bonnie or Jen.  And I thought for sure Bonnie would be going home.  But instead it was Jen.  I think if you took that episode as a measure, then yes, Jen made sense.  But considering the entire competition so far, I thought Bonnie should go.  I felt a better final two would be Rock and Bonnie.  But at least now we know that Rock will win.  Right?  We know that, don’t we?  Because I don’t think a nanny should win “Hell’s Kitchen”.