We have made it to episode nine season 23 of Hell’s Kitchen. And in an episode titled, “Lonely in the Kitchen,” it likely comes as no surprise that the reward challenge was is the one where every 10 minutes a chef leaves the kitchen, until only one chef is left, standing to cook all of the dishes.
Usually, this is one of our favorite episodes. It’s the kind of episode where you get to see just how strong these chefs are. Because as each chef is pulled out of the kitchen, the people left behind have to pull more of the weight. It is also a chance to see how everyone communicates, as the chefs who have been pulled out of the kitchen can still, yell out instructions to the remaining chefs.
However, this episode was not nearly as much fun as they usually are. And a lot of that may have to do with the fact that Gordon Ramsay chose a season of all head chef for the first season exclusively filmed on the East Coast. There is something about this group of head chefs that doesn’t seem to be working for us. And that may have to do with the fact that they don’t seem to be working with each other.
This season it has felt like these chefs are not communicating with each other at all. And this episode was no different. It really felt like some of these chefs were trying to sabotage each other. And obviously, we are not seeing every single thing that happens in the kitchen, but the lack of communication was very telling. Interestingly enough, it did feel like Ramsay noticed the issues very quickly in this episode or at least during dinner service.
I think what made this episode so difficult to watch was that if people had communicated with each other, this could’ve been an entirely different experience in the kitchen. And it got to a point where it was exhausting to watch Gordon Ramsay yelling at people.
I do have to point out though, that once he decided to actually kick the blue team out of the kitchen, things did seem to calm down at least for the red team. It was almost like once the blue team was gone the red team figured out their stride and pushed through those initial hiccups.
When it comes to watching Hell’s Kitchen, we are here for the drama. We tune in to watch the challenges that Gordon Ramsay is setting up for everyone, and to see how everyone does during dinner service. But this season has felt like such a struggle. There has yet to be a truly successful episode even though it did feel like things were starting off strong back during the premiere.
Or maybe it is just us who feels like this season has not been nearly as successful as previous seasons of Hell’s Kitchen. But we do hope that the chef start to communicate with each other, because at this point it doesn’t seem like we are rooting for anybody to win. I admit that at this point I just want it to be over, so that we can move on to Kitchen Nightmares.