If we're being honest, we have to admit that we don't watch Hell's Kitchen to see who wins. Well, we don't watch any reality competition to see who wins. The producers wrap things up as quickly as possible once the winner has been announced. Nobody wants to just look at a winner. We want competition. We want conflict. We want suspense.
But there's even less interest in the HK winner than in, say, the Survivor winner. The Survivor winner gets a million bucks. The HK winner gets a supposedly coveted position at a supposedly prestigious restaurant, but as we all know, the winners actually disappear into the kitchen corps or (worse) return to HK as a sous-chef. So when we think about who deserves to win, maybe we ought to think not about our favorite contestants — the ones who seem, you know, competent or relatively well-adjusted — but about the ones who deserve that particular career arc.
In the first challenge, the contestants have to select a world cuisine and make a dish that matches it. Kevin thinks he got the easiest one — Mexican. Dave thinks he got the shaft — Indian. And Ariel is happy with her choice — Chinese — because she thinks Chinese food is "delicious." And there's a celebrity chef judge for each cuisine, causing Dave to self-consciously turn his stained apron around. Poor Ariel completely clams up when asked to describe her dish, and even answers Chef Ramsay's question about cooking Chinese food by saying that she eats it all the time, but that it's actually been a while since she had Chinese take-out. Needless to say, she doesn't fare well. Kevin was confident walking up, and then realized that he forgot to add his mole sauce. Dave's choice of pork as a protein didn't turn out to be fortuitous, what with the large Muslim population of India and all, but his execution on the lentils and spices impresses all three chefs — and he wins! His reward is a set of cookware and the chance to sit at chef's table with his sister and fiance and have the three judges cook for him. And the punishment is polishing silverware: "Do we really need all of it?" whines Ariel.
The reward-punishment dichotomy is intensified by the fact that both winner and losers are in the same physical space. As Kevin and Ariel crane their necks to see what's happening in the kitchen, Dave gets an up close and personal view of some pretty amazing dishes. It's not so much the silverware and the tablecloths that constitute the punishment — it's being this close to a great culinary and educational experience, but being unable to take part. In that respect, it might be one of the best competition outcomes the show has ever presented.
Service time, and that means everyone will get a turn at the pass. This is one of my favorite HK challenges, even though I don't always think we have a fair view of it. Kevin gets started strong, and when sous-chef Scott gives him halibut instead of sea bass, he catches it. Of course, I would mistrust anything the sous-chefs gave me, knowing they've got orders to sabotage; Scott and Kevin have a little cynical back-and-forth about it — "How did that happen?" "I have no idea!" But Kevin keeps sending lamb back to Ariel requesting it to be trimmed differently, and she gives him lip back; hard to say who comes out looking the worse in that encounter.
Dave's idea of running the pass is to completely take charge, snapping towels and swearing. The best moment is when he tells Scott to use a wooden spoon, and gets a muttered "Watch it!" in response. He's so busy pushing stuff out to exercise the quality control that's dear to Ramsay's heart, though, and after two big misses he has to rescue his stint with a couple of minor "this isn't seasoned" catches. Ariel can't tell the mashed potatoes she's supposed to get from the parsnip puree Heather gives her, but she spots the salmon masquerading as sea bass (prompting another great Scott deadpan: "I thought that salmon went with the sea bass garnish." But either she doesn't make sure that her brigade knows the order of requests, or Kevin is sandbagging her by pretending not to understand.
Then Ramsay asks the contestants to each name their comrade who shouldn't be in the final. That's not quite fair; do we really expect the two men not to stick together and both name Ariel? They also have to speak up for themselves — Dave with a crack in his voice as he claims to be capable of running the Araxi kitchen. Chef Ramsay lets Dave, not named by anyone as undeserving, off the hook first, then surprisingly doesn't generate any more suspense but sends Ariel home without further ado. And so the final that we could have seen coming by, oh, about week three or so, is confirmed.