Last week, Jason and I had a kind of Gordon Ramsay cultural exchange. I introduced him to Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, and he introduced me to Hell's Kitchen. (I have to hand it to Ramsay: the man's entire image and empire, including Boiling Point and The F-Word, has connotations of unpleasantness. That's something to build a dream on.)
While J got to see the softer side of Ramsay dishing out tough love to struggling restaurateurs, I got to see Ramsay the foul-mouthed, vitriolic martinet in his full glory, bellowing condemnation at a group of contestants vying for a chef's title at a resort restaurant. What made the abuse so satisfying was that I didn't particularly like any of the contestants. I mean, yeah, Rachel seemed to know what she was doing, kinda, a little bit, but she was kicked off last week. And Maribel seemed like a nice enough person, but she definitely couldn't supply the tough leadership that's needed to run a kitchen, so Ramsay was right to send her home last night.
Now that we're down to the final five, though, I'm facing the same kind of ennui that the most recent season of The Apprentice brought: I don't really want any of them to win anything. I didn't even know who they were eight days ago, and now I pretty much despise them. (But then, I've got a kind of turbo-charged hate function.)
Let's start with Keith. Look at this face. Would you allow it anywhere near your $22-a-plate scallop entree? Here is an individual who not only refers to hot dogs as "slammin'," he refers to himself as (and here I must pause to let my stomach settle) "K-Grease." Yes, on purpose. Now, far be it for me to rag on someone for self-applying a nickname (says the woman who answered to "Carl!" during the ongoing bender that was my 20s). But why pick a name that invokes images of oils and fats?
Virginia isn't so much repellent as she's just ... lame. She's a bit of an embarrassment to watch as she rambles on and on, incapable of forming a succinct sentence, any time she opens her mouth. Her constant gushing over Ramsay and ham-handed flirting are particularly unsavory, considering that he's married and she's a newlywed. Jason figures she's got daddy issues, which might explain some of the appeal of the road-worn Ramsay.
Garrett, honestly, scares me. This guy has a hair-trigger temper, a criminal record, a petulant reaction to anything that doesn't go his way, an unpleasant sense of entitlement and a generally nasty disposition. Plus, he's painfully stupid. Do you really have to be told not to flip off the guy who's running the show? Garrett does. And he's an asshole in the sociological sense, too: his freaking profile on the Fox site proclaims, "... he doesn't think the ladies have a chance at winning." If there's one thing that makes me spit nails, it's when a sexist turd calls my entire gender incompetent while using the term "ladies." Garrett's done time for identity theft, but if his behavior on the show is any indication, that was just a precursor for an inevitable assault charge. I just wonder if it will come from his fists or from a badly-prepared dish.
Clearly, I hate Garrett, on a number of levels and for a number of reasons. So consider the sheer volume of bile I must have toward Sara for hating her more. It's a bummer that this picture isn't larger, to capture every nook and cranny of her perma-sneer. In the two episodes I've seen, Sara has flat-out lied at least twice, tried to talk back to Ramsay (which is even stupider than flipping him off), undermined her teammates at every opportunity, shifted blame like Karl Rove in a doo rag -- essentially deployed every tactic in the passive-aggressive playbook. At least you'll see Garrett's rage as it barrels toward you (and you'll probably be able to trip him, 'cause dude is not bright); with Sara, you won't know you've been hit until you pull the cleaver out of your back.
The closest thing I have to goodwill toward any of the remaining contestants is this: I think Heather might be all right. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it's the nearest I can come to rooting for someone. Mostly, I'm hoping that the other four meet with varying degrees of maiming in a catastrophic kitchen accident. But since I'm pretty sure that won't happen on Hell's Kitchen, I can't really work up much enthusiasm for the show. I'll still watch, though. You never know; knives are tricky things.
There's something perversely gratifying about watching a reality show where you hate almost everyone on it. It gives you a way to vent your spleen by providing a range of targets: do you feel like merely rolling your eyes and shaking your head, or are you ready to shoot your TV, Elvis-style? Regardless of how much bile you want to unleash, each episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County gives you ample opportunity to run the gamut of hatred.
