Hell’s Kitchen Season 22 gets a bit fishy in episode 5

Hell’s Kitchen is known for drama and the heat in the kitchen. So it makes sense that as episode 5 kicks off, we get to see plenty of drama thanks to Jason and his inability to keep his mouth shut. And yet, it wasn’t just him causing the drama.

Of course, it was a pretty quick scene, but it was enough to let us know that things are not that calm in the Hell’s Kitchen dorm. But we have cooking and challenges to do. And for a chance at an epic award, teams have to take part in a surf and turf challenge.

It’s about using their palate to determine what two proteins have been combined. And they have to do it in the shortest time possible. This challenge is about believing your tastebuds, as much as your eyes.

For the women, it was a struggle to determine the proteins at times and yet they finished in 13 minutes and 14 seconds. This meant that the men’s team had to be faster than the ladies and yet at one point instead of bringing up surf and turf they brought up two turf dishes. There is a lot of pressure on the guys to get this right and it is clear that they are fighting to be the winning team after losing the last dinner service.

A surf and turf challenge on Hell’s Kitchen leads to a fishy experience during dinner service

Even though the blue team was super aggressive about the challenge, they did end up winning an axe throwing award. This meant that the red team was stuck in the kitchen prepping salmon for the dinner service. And these salmon are not only huge, but they need to be completely scaled, deboned, and broken down.

In the prep leading up to the dinner service, a big thing we noticed was that Melissa was truly unhappy with her team losing the reward challenge and it was like she completely shut everyone out, even though they are supposed to be working as a team.

If there is one thing that every single chef who heads to Hell’s Kitchen should keep in mind, it is that you win or lose as a team until the end. It’s not every man for themselves, it is a team effort. And it would be nice to see more of these chefs acting like they have worked in an actual kitchen before and understand that it requires cohesion to make a dinner service or even a challenge successful.

Dolph Lundgren is at the chef’s table for the blue team, while Paula Abdul is dining at the red team’s chef’s table.

Unfortunately for the red team, they start off with a complete mess as they send up raw lobster, rubbery scallops, and risotto that has not been seasoned. It’s a rocky beginning, but they aren’t alone as the blue team hasn’t figured out their timing and never dropped the scallops for their opening ticket.

As the red team continues to struggle, the blue team is finally able to get their first appetizers out to diners.

Honestly, even as both teams are both able to get dishes out to diners, it is clear that they are both struggling to get the dinner service completed. Sammi on the red team seems to have stepped up to be a leader, which looks to be working for the ladies. On the blue team, Brad actually gets sent outside to stare at the Hell’s Kitchen sign to take a breather because he is so hyped up that he just needs to chill.

In the end, both teams are able to finish service, but it was not smooth in any way. The blue team ends up winning dinner service, which leaves the red team nominating their weakest members. So who will be nominated? Considering it is a three-way tie between Sandra, Melissa, and Raneisha, it should be interesting to see who goes up in front of Chef Ramsay.

Ultimately, the two chefs nominated are Sandra and Melissa. So who goes home? Chef Ramsay actually sends Melissa home.