‘Hell’s Kitchen’: We’ve never seen Chef Ramsay do THIS before!

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Chef Ramsay was driven over the edge -- or at least driven out of ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ -- by a crop of contestants who seemed hellbent on serving diners frozen halibut or overcooked garnishes.

We’ve never seen Ramsay give up, but he seemed to tonight when he threw up his hands, walked out of Hell’s Kitchen and called sous chef Scott to come along with him. The competitors he left behind had no choice -- they had to get cooking.

And cook they did -- impressing Chef Ramsay when he finally came to his senses and returned. (Though I’m sure a lot of this drama was for the camera’s sake, it sure was funny seeing Ramsay walk past stunned diners, out the front door and into the parking lot. Even Scott seemed as if he was caught off guard by it all.)

These back-to-back episodes helped us get rid of a lot of the fat. Van was a hothead who appeared on the verge of melting down when things didn’t go his way. There’s no chance that he could handle the pressure of running his own kitchen. Sabrina deserved to be sent on her way too, if for no other reason than she was willing to set up her teammates: She let them believe they were serving lamb to special guests and Olympic medalists Sasha Cohen and Jonny Moseley when in fact it was venison. It’s one thing to be competitive and let your teammates make mistakes. It’s another thing to stab them in the back. That’s not leadership, especially because it ultimately reflects on Chef Ramsay. (Later, Sabrina had the nerve to wonder why she and her teammates couldn’t just ‘unite.’ Hmmm. Wonder why.)

By the end of the night, we were down to the Top 5, we saw Chef Ramsay splatter a poorly prepared fish dish like a fat kid doing a cannonball into a swimming pool, and Dave hurt his arm yet again. (I kept reaching for the TiVo on that one. I thought he hurt his ‘good’ arm -- i.e., the one not in the cast -- but then later it looked as if the ‘bad’ arm was the one that had been re-injured. Weird.) We saw Ariel start to slip up -- maybe I will be proven wrong for picking her to be in the final three -- and we saw Kevin skate through another service without any major screw-ups. I can’t tell -- is he really good, or is he just really good at staying on Chef Ramsay’s good side?

Really, though, I had only two questions at the end of the night: Who would have picked Tennille to still be in this thing, and am I wrong for disliking Suzanne as much as I do? Is it crafty editing, or is she really as obnoxious and immature as she appears to be? I will give her this: She has done fairly well since she was sent over to the men’s team. I thought she would go there and be exposed. So far, that hasn’t been the case.

-- Rene Lynch