What is going on with Andy Husbands’ meat cookery on Hell’s Kitchen? The man is a noted barbecue master and we’ve never had a bad protein at Tremont 647, yet seemingly every week he seems to bungle a meat dish on the show. This week started off okay for Andy: when paired with new enemy Van in a sausage-making challenge, the two performed admirably, creating one perfect link after another. During service, however, everything fell apart for the Boston boy.
Andy was assigned to the meat station, where things went poorly from the start. He sent out cold lamb twice before getting it right, a fact that was loudly announced to the kitchen (and the restaurant) by Robert, who seems to be actively trying to get Andy out, tattling on him to Gordon at every opportunity. Matters only got worse for Andy when, in the final moments of service when the red and blue teams were neck and neck, he tried to send out some mostly raw chicken, causing teammate Kevin to scream at him while completely in his face. Fortunately, the chicken was fine on the second try and the blue team won, keeping Andy safe for one more week as Lovely finally went home. We are, however, increasingly beginning to suspect that our local favorite is not long for this show. A few more thoughts:
• The sausage making challenge seemed to be little more than a flimsy excuse to make a lot of dirty jokes about how you need to pound hard to make sausage. The high/low point was the following exchange:
Gordon: Tennille, how thick do you like your sausage?
Tennille: I don’t like sausage.
• Robert is quickly surpassing Amanda as The Worst. This week, he got into two screaming fights with Kevin, one of which ended with him breaking a broom. He also contributed the following conversational gem, during a conversation among the men after Suzanne asked Gordon for a “play-by-play” of how the red team lost service: “Here’s the play by play: you’re a dumb bitch.” Charming.
• What the previews for this week’s episode promised: Celebrities. What we got: Drew Lachey, John O’Hurley, Kristy Swanson, Tom Green, Kid from Kid ‘n Play, and Melissa Clarke.
• Quote of the night comes from Jim: “The blue team is falling apart. We have Dave and his wrist and Kevin and his ankles and Robert and his morbid obesity.” Runner up, from Tennille: “Suzanne thinks she’s a leader. She don’t know what a leader is. A leader doesn’t get hit in her mouth like Suzanne is about to.”
• Next week, the chefs will cook for a returning war hero because everyone knows that the best way to calm someone who has recently returned from war is to expose them to lots of yelling. Nicely done.
