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Hell’s Kitchen-Season Two

The Basic info
Aired-2006
Winner- Heather
Runner Up- Virginia
Sous Chef- MaryAnn, Scott
Maitre d’- Jean-Philippe
Episodes- 10
Contestants- 12

Season two is where Hell’s Kitchen really set its stride.  The first season was something different to recent seasons.  Seasons 2 and 3 helped transition to the later seasons formats.  Season 2 showed that Ramsey canned the whole “No interfering with nominations” and eliminated Gabe right away pretty early in the season.  Season two is also one of my personal favorite seasons because of the characters that really moved the season.  As much as I love the “talent” shown in the show if you can’t be a fun character than why even bother?  Luckily, I will say that HK has done an amazing job showcasing their winners.  

Before I drone on about the merits of this fine season, I will say that season 2 more or less established practices that continue on to this day.  The split between men and women, the coat hanger and burning picture, quite a few popular challenges (Talking about the relay, taste it now make it, and the 100 portions challenge) and the more traditional confessional animation.  The editing was better as well in the fact that they showed off more flaws in the eventual winner than Michael.  Heather was never put up for eliminated yet she still had her moments of inconsistency and this was a huge plot in the mid episodes while she was on the blue team.  In fact, it looked like that if the blue team didn’t win that she would be in very real danger of leaving, something that NEVER happened to Michael aside from the “Back up your claims of experience” that was mostly a “Previously On..” thing.

Season Two of Hell’s Kitchen also has a little known fact attached to it, practically with the winner, Heather West.  From the usually scouting of opinions I gather that Heather is one of the most popular Hell’s Kitchen winners that has been on the show, along with Dave.  Heather was also the first open lesbian winner of a reality TV show.  I found this fact interesting, yet no one seems to bring this up.  Richard Hatch was the first openly gay winner of a Reality TV show and since 2000 the representation of gays in the media has certainly changed since then.  The only time you really get tipped off on Heather’s sexual ordination was when Sara said that her and Rachel were making eyes at each other.  She never had a huge subplot featuring who she dated nor was she the first lesbian on the show (Jessica from season 1) but she was the first one to win a Reality TV show, something Survivor has yet to do.  Fact is, that if you are writing a piece of Representation of LGBT contestants in Reality TV, if Heather isn’t mentioned at all in said piece than I will not take you seriously.  

The other important thing that I will point out is Sara.  Sara is the best Hell’s Kitchen villain that they ever done.  Elise? Season 4 Jen?  Lacey?  They don’t hold a candle to the original.  Sara was basically every negative element on a RTV person that doesn’t social rights things.  She was immature, a liar, mediocre chef, yet she made the top four. (my sweetspot for the   season villain is they are out on the third to last episode at least.  My Season 9 episode write up will explain why this hurts Elise) It’s a fun moment whenever Sara’s around.  She started this one sided feud with Heather about the leadership on the red team, then moved to Rachel, and then sabotaged Virginia then got away with it.  Without her Season two would have been boring.  Sara’s fall was perfect karma.  She sabotaged Virginia early on, she gets sent home directly because of Virginia not wanting to quit.  

Unlike season one that relayed on more of the cooking and strategy, season two broadened these characters.  Michael wasn’t as dynamic as Heather for example.  Heather was an adorkable yet determined chef.  Virginia was dealing with the internal struggle of her existence in the game.  Keith was a confidant chef with an ego problem.   Sara was immature yet she did have a softer side.  Finally Garrett the prison chef that was actually a giant softie.  The Black jacket group was a strong one this season, and personally this season has my favorite final two of Virginia and Heather.  In season five they related the match up to the “Perfectionist” Heather vs the “Creative” Virginia.  The two were almost complete opposite, with Heather being strong on the line and Virginia being a strong challenge performer.  

Another extremely important character this season was Rachel.  Rachel was hinted as a strong chef and a leader.  However every season since this one a strong person at the beginning slowly fall down in skill.  Rachel’s decline could be pinpoint to when Heather was moved to the blue kitchen.  This fall was shocking and from then on usually there is someone in every season that does this, though season three is really when this is noticeable.  Rachel herself is rather noteworthy of this season also because of the supposed relationship with Heather.  At first the two both denied taking the relationship further (For RuPaul’s Drag Race fans, think of how the Ivy/Jinkx thing was like) but after Rachel committed suicide around a year later, Heather had that regret in later interview.  It’s an interesting “what if” for sure.  As for the suicide, a big question about if it was because of the show.  My thoughts are that it sure didn’t help, but an interview with Heather hinted that she didn’t really communicate with anyone.  It’s odd for sure, but I don’t think that it had anything to do with the show.

Mirabel wasn’t extremely noteworthy in this season.  She missed her family thus she turned into a mess.  She’s one of those reality subtexts, and she didn’t even show up for the finale.  She was spent, and sometime that happens to contestants on a RTV show.  She wasn’t that good either, but mostly stayed because of Polly and Rachel being worse than her.  Gabe is kinda in the same boat.  Gabe was nominated through Ramsey making that a first, and a message.  Giacammo had a strong signature dish but completely failing to figure out that the gas wasn’t on sealed his fate.  And last in this line up is Polly.  Polly was presented as a kind of an Elsie copy (mother of six, inexperience) but ended up not being able to serve appetizers for around 90 minutes and getting her station replaced by Heather.

The last player that I haven’t got to cover yet is Tom.  Tom is someone who was seen as sexist and someone who just can’t get away with nothing.  When sexist contestants come up, usually the winner is a female.  (averted with season 6, but season 6 had the two winning female contestants appeared in the season at some point so it works in that case) Tom was really the first time it had happened.  With this shows first female winner and divide by sex I have no doubt that that was there for a reason.  Tom himself was widely incompetent.  It was a wonder how he lasted that long.

So I’ve been trying this whole write up to not completely gush on this season and Heather.  Heather is defiantly in my top five favorite RTV winners.  She’s not my favorite contestant but she’s a huge favorite of mine of course.   Season 2 is also in my group of my favorite seasons, as well as being my first season that I saw all the way though.  Also this isn’t the last time we’ll talk about Heather or Sara or Virginia.  Sara’s character template and Heather and Virginia’s lasting legacy are important in later seasons.   So file this all away!

Sorry for the wait on this- Next Week we will visit another favorite season of mine.  The tale of Hell’s Bitches, a Waffle House Cook, and a guy named Rock.  Also an added bonus of gushing over a certain Pastry Chef.  

Reality RAW- In the beginning, when Elsie was cast...

Hell’s Kitchen- Season One

The Basic Info

Aired- 2005

Winner- Michael

Runner Up- Ralph

Sous Chef- MaryAnn (Red) Scott (Blue)

Maitre d’- Jean-Philippe

Episodes- 10

Contestants- 12

Season one of Hell’s Kitchen started out very basic.  As basic as you could get in fact, especially compared to later seasons.  It was almost like a different show, even if you compared it to season two.  The teams weren’t separated by sex, Ramsey and JP got confessionals, the intro was very different, it was just different.  Also this season was also weird in the fact that it had 7 males and 5 females instead of the even spilt that other seasons have. (Discounting the odd numbed contestants of 4 and 6 that is)  Also what’s different (but still something common the first two seasons had) was the general lack of experience that the overall contestant field had.  In total, only three contestants had major experience in line cooking.  Out of those three two of them were the final two.  It’s a bit of an understatement to say that the first season was pretty predicable in retrospect.

Michael was no doubt probably the strongest chef in that season.  The first three winners did have a sense of obvious to them.  While Heather and Rock had glaring faults (Heather was inconsistent and Rock had a temper) Michael didn’t really have any as big as Heather and Rock.  Really the only problem of his was that he didn’t really have the charisma compared to Ralph, and that is really just a comparison to Ralph.  Ralph had big talk and usually didn’t have the ability to back it up, which is more of a problem that Michael had.  Also Michael was like Hell’s Kitchen’s only answer to Richard Hatch.  He was a strategic competitor and written a story, but the problem is that he broke Hell’s Kitchen.  Now you can’t put up strong people.  Now you can’t sabotage to test contestants at the hot plate because Ramsey stole that ability.  Michael tried everything to get ahead, even though he probably didn’t need to.  Because of today’s format there will be no more Michael type players of Hell’s Kitchen.

The other 10 contestants all had their little quirks.  Carolann provided a wonderful quote about inexperience, but ended up the first boot due to not helping out on her team, despite being competent.  Hell’s Kitchen is a team competition, not individuals. She wasn’t horrible, and far from the weakest chef in the red team, but you need to show teamwork.  This idea is still present in these current seasons, the most current being Dan from season 11.

Dewberry was straight comic relief.  Usually those people usually last longer past their expiration date but sometimes those people get out earlier that you’d expect.  Jim from season 6 is an amazing example of that.  Dewberry was unintentional funny.  He also somehow ended up in the finale to get picked as a team member despite being second off and not ever working with the two finalists.  He was a horrible cook but extremely entertaining.

Jeff was the first nontraditional eliminated contestant that appeared on the show.  He blew up on Ramsey and picked a fight with him in the hallway and got hurt.  Therefore he got kicked off.  He also argued with MaryAnn, and was probably a driving factor to her leaving the show after season three.  In the end, Jeff was pretty insignificant yet probably affected Hell’s Kitchen and the red kitchen’s Sous Chefs.  He doesn’t really talk about the show either.  Ha.

Wendy and Mary Ellen I’m going to combine because I don’t have a ton to say about them.  Wendy was that one that was in over her head.  She was mixed up on water temps and she didn’t know how to prepare meat, yet when she returned for the finale she was a consistent chef and surprised me.  Mary Ellen was fundamentally the opposite.  She was consistent until her last service.  Shockingly she was kept over the less consistent and abrasive Andrew.  She also strangely didn’t come back at the finale.  It’s not unheard of people not showing up to the finale (Only seasons 3 and 8 had no one bailing on the finalists.) but it is a little odd that three people didn’t show.  Jeff is a bit understandable, but not Mary Ellen.

Chris is probably one of the most important eliminated contestants for two reasons.  Chris was experienced but never lived up to his own hype, and Ramsey couldn’t change the nominations.  Chris arguably wasn’t the worst that night, but Michael wanted to “fuck shit up” to put it lightly. He was up against Elsie that night, someone on the other end of the spectrum.  Also Chris is the other person that bailed on the finalist with Mary Ellen.  How odd.

   

Andrew was kinda a hook of some sorts.  He was the bad tempered butt monkey of the blue team.  Literally no one respected him in that place.  If Jeff was MaryAnn’s person that showed that she was a badass, Andrew was Sous Chef Scott.  He tried to cheat a blue team punishment so Scott laid into him.  However he grew.  He canned his attitude which probably saved him over Mary Ellen.  However his bad attitude and bad ability got the best of him and just missed the black jackets.

Jimmy is the first person to individually win a challenge.  He is also the first person to get kicked off the black jackets.  He was saved by never getting picked to be eliminated.  Had Elsie or Michael put him up he’d been gone a long time ago.  He never gave up either.  The same kinda niche of contestant has shown up now and again, but Jimmy was the first.

I would argue that in simple terms Elsie is what the show needed to be popular.  Elsie was the relatable older kickass woman that had no experience what so ever yet made it all the way to fourth place.  She sold Hell’s Kitchen.  It was a sad day in Hell’s Kitchen when she left, however it was necessary.  It was pretty eww how she left the show.  But I don’t think you’ll ever find a Hell’s Kitchen fan that didn’t love Elsie. Add in the fact that she took in the high road instead of rating out the other competitors about them not give them their support for her, she was a very nice lady.  You don’t find that many nice people in Hell’s Kitchen and most of them don’t last that long.  Really the only other “nice person” that made it as far as she did was Jen of season 3.

Jessica, in my opinion, kinda got lost in the fold a little.  I rarely see talk about her, but she’s a pretty underrated character.  Her storyline in the beginning was as gold as it can get in the earlier seasons of Hell’s Kitchen.  She put up her best friend Mary Ellen and she left right after her other best friend, Wendy, left.  She grew and turned into this badass but her lack in the line is really what kept her out of the final two.  She was Ralph’s best friend, and a lot of focus was put on that and the fact that she was Michael’s first choice just to fuck with him.

In summary- Yes season one was a bit too predictable, but it’s the first season.  There was so many things that they needed to work out.  Season two was really the more typical season of Hell’s Kitchen.  This season was more of the ten season introduction to everything Hell’s Kitchen brought to us.  It ran us by the eliminations, the restaurant itself.  Without this season we would be lost.

Later this week- The first lesbian winner, the first Hell’s Kitchen “villain”, and Ramsey’s Hard on.  That’s right, we're talking about season two.

~Heather Out~  

Oh Hey!

Jesus I forgot about this did I?  Ugh. 

Well hi everyone!  The amazing Heather Smith here today to tell everyone where I was for the past few months

-Playing Pokemon Y/X
- Survivor Oz stuff
- Draw... Draw.. Draw...
- CHRISTMAS
- Work
- Tumblr
- Hell's Kitchen catch up
- Drag Race catch up
- Fawning over Kelly Mantle
- TV tropes
- SARA MOTHERFUCKING BAREILLES
- Twitter
- wait what was this list about again?

Well point is that I was a tad busy.  So I will try and restart this place up.  Starting with a couple of things in the works-

Raw Reality- a bunch of my notes over all Eleven seasons of Hell's Kitchen.  I plan on releasing them after when I'm done with all eleven seasons- which should be before the end of the month (I just finished season 10)

Recaps of both RuPaul's Drag Race season 6 and HK season 12, when the come.  Survivor recaps will appear on the S-Oz webbie. 

Some other random things.  I might also post battles that I've had with some of the Pokemon Trainers down in CTS of Survivor Sucks.  Or even random people.  You know me.  Full of surprises!

So, peace, luff, and perfectly cooked chicken wings.

~Heather~