‘Hell’s Kitchen’ review: Breakfast is served

At a certain point in time, we have to stop believing the previews for “Hell’s Kitchen,” right? Going into Tuesday night’s new episode, there was a moment when we genuinely thought that someone was going to pick out a pancake out of the garbage and serve it as food. Would this have been completely disgusting? Without a doubt, but it is something that we nonetheless still though was going to happen based on how Gordon Ramsay was talking about doing something that had never been done before.

Instead, it turned out that this “something” was really just the chefs having to cook breakfast. Was it still interesting? Sure, mostly because it gave us something different to watch beyond risotto and beef wellingtons. Plus, isn’t there something a little sadistic in watching someone mess up pancakes? The red team may have won their fourth straight challenge this week, but they could not quite figure this out for the life of them in between Jacqueline burning them and Nedra not having the right spatula.

This episode was overall reasonably entertaining, as we had a random Laird Hamilton cameo and Zach continues to be our choice to win the season, but we’re completely not down for the whole “to be continued” bit on an episode like this. If you’re going to send someone home, just do it and move on! It feels like you’re tricking viewers and then coaxing them to watch the next week, when they would probably do so anyway. So instead we are left this week with a cliffhanger of Mary and Jacqueline being told to go “back in line,” while Ramsay claims that someone else is in too deep.

Who do we think is going home? It may surprise you, but Jeremy. The guy’s health seems to be in danger after what happened during the punishment, and it’s almost like “The Bachelor” in a weird way: if someone’s well-being is damaged by being there, you’re better off sending them home early if you know that they are not the right person. He’s clearly made so many mistakes that he’d be eliminated at some point regardless.

Do you hate these “to be continued” episodes? If you want to read our most-recent “Hell’s Kitchen” interview, you can do so over here.

Photo: Fox