Hell’s Kitchen Season 20 Episode 5 Review: Young Guns: Stirring The Pot

Hell’s Kitchen Season 20 Episode 5 Review: Young Guns: Stirring The Pot

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

It’s time to pour one out for a personal favorite since the beginning, Morgana, since she was given the boot by the end of Hell’s Kitchen Season 20 Episode 5.

Ugh, you hate to see it!

The mixed-up teams brought some varied results as some personalities clashed and others found a new groove.

The Blue team may have lost the original challenge, but you got to admit that the addition of a couple of the women mellowed the Blue team out and improved their communication skills.

The correlation can’t be ignored, no?

Communication is key, yet it’s something both teams have suffered with for a bit.

The Blue team lost the emoji challenge because of their lack of attention to details and their inability to communicate effectively.

We all know the Blue team would’ve had a better edge if someone (was it Antonio) told Steven that he needed to toss his pasta in the sauce.

The emoji challenge was something new and suitable for this particular batch of contestants.

So far, it does seem as though they all fall short when talking to each other in the kitchen or shouting out orders with anything that resembles confidence.

Ramsey couldn’t resist poking fun at the young batch of chefs he’s dealing with by relying on the emojis and emoticons to urge them to work on their skills.

But the only thing worse than the half-ass attempts at telling each other what dishes they were making was how many refused to follow recipes verbatim.

Nowhere in the challenge did it suggest that they needed to put their spin on the recipes they were making, but too many of them wanted to stand out in some way that they couldn’t focus on following directions.

It was typical.

Trenton’s tartar sauce fiasco and how he chose to screw up fish ‘n chips was enough to make you roll your eyes.

Chef Ramsay’s astonished reaction to the audacious streak some of them displayed was hilarious, though.

The Red team had the edge (again) with that challenge, though, and it meant Payton and Sam would learn what it felt like to be on a winning team.

I give the girls a lot of credit for not taking Sam’s initial response to them to heart. While he claimed his frustration with being on the team had nothing to do with them directly, a few of his comments gave off that he was a classic butthurt dude who had his knickers in a bunch that he had to work with girls.

Sam was a colossal dick at first.

He simmered down by the end of the hour, found kinship with some of the women, showed some interest in Keona, and expressed a level of frustration with Payton suggesting he wasn’t subscribing to bros before; well, you know the rest. But something about him was still irritating AF, so screw him for now.

They all seemed to get along well at the reward session. The most memorable part of it was everyone taking a spin on the mechanical bull. It was good for a few laughs, and it seemed to give them a boost for the dinner session.

Sadly for them, they couldn’t maintain that high.

Shockingly, Josie was a standout at dinner. She still struggles with meats, but her veganism didn’t hinder her this time around.

She also knew how to find her voice and get things done when it called for it. She stepped up big time during the dinner service and showed how capable she is of running the line and leading.

Sam also managed to step up and show why he’s there. Regardless of how he may feel on the new team, it’s given him the chance to shine in a way he didn’t on the Blue team.

Unfortunately, stunningly, Morgana backslid.

Was she always this timid and soft-spoken?

The meek Morgana who cried under pressure felt far off from the young woman who impressed Ramsay repeatedly.

It was frustrating to watch, in part because of how relatable it is to be tacit and have others ream you out for not being loud and assertive enough to their liking.

But this thing with Morgana felt as if it came out of nowhere, and as a card-carrying member of the low-voiced whisper club, hell, it was driving me mad that all of a sudden everything she said made her sound like Beaker from The Muppets.

What happened to Morgana? Was anyone else waiting for a moment when she spoke in the diary session about some personal crisis she was facing that would’ve explained why she was off her game?

Not that I wish ill on any of her loved ones, but I assumed something happened to a relative, and she was in her feelings, and she was emotional about it.

Morgana deflated out of nowhere, lost all of her steam and drive, and cried at the team meeting in front of the damn boys. Dammit, Morgana!

Ramsay determined she wasn’t ready, and he took her jacket.

And after all that raw fish she was putting out the entire service and losing her voice and assertiveness, I guess it made sense.

Personally, after all the chances he doled out to everyone else serving up raw food and having multiple off days, I felt Morgana deserved another chance.

Meanwhile, Payton skated by, well, by the skin of his teeth.

It’s insane that he screwed up on garnish so much and still sailed through. Garnish is what led to Jay getting booted with ease.

How do they keep messing up on what’s considered the easiest station?

Payton also tried to use switching teams and struggling to adapt as an excuse, but that wasn’t the case for Sam, so it made him stand out more. Plus, most of the Blue team has consistently sucked, so did Payton need the benefit of the doubt?

Payton and Brynn don’t get along well. But in Brynn’s defense, she got annoyed that Payton kept screwing up, and she’s seen how disastrous the Blue team has been up until now. She didn’t want his energy bringing down Red.

Nothing that Brynn said to or about Payton wasn’t any different than what others would’ve said, but somehow, he got annoyed with her to the point of calling her out by name in front of Chef about her giving him a hard time.

Wasn’t Payton the one talking about Morgana crying and being too sensitive? So what made him any different then?

Also, in the Red team’s defense, Ramsay telling them to choose three people was enough to throw you off. Morgana and Payton were the obvious choices, and no one else seemed to screw up on the same level or cost the Red team anything.

Unless it happened offscreen, and we didn’t see it, no one else deserved to go up.

Instead, it was a chance to cause more tension and discord when they raced to find someone else to throw under the bus. Since it backfired on them when they chose Brynn last time, they opted for Keona.

But again, it backfired on them since Keona did nothing wrong and got nods of approval from Ramsay the entire night.

The Red team needs to work on separating their personal feelings from professional ones. It’s evident that there are cliques and a hierarchy of friendships, and those who fall at the bottom of it are deemed expendable.

But they can’t keep throwing consistent cooks under the bus. It reflects poorly on them on so many levels when they do.

FINALLY, the Blue team pulled out a great service. It does feel as though the girls brought some balance and calm to the team, and they responded well to it.

They brought some winning energy, and the boys weren’t as helpless and obnoxious. Whether or not it will last is the biggest question.

Good for Kevin. He got time to shine after getting randomly thrown under the bus or disappearing into the background of his team.

Over to you, Hell’s Kitchen Fanatics.

Do you think the right person went home? Which team are you pulling for now?

Hit the comments below!

Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.