TV

I can’t remember the name of the Hell’s Kitchen winner offhand, but I’d still love to dine at Louis Petrozza’s place

, and I still think he’d be cool to meet, much like Rock Harper.

Not much time, as I am about to make supper here myself. As predicted, it’s Petrozza versus Christina, with Corey gone at three. Respectable, and apparently she was better than my impression of her had been. I do think it was an easier decision that he made it appear, because as always, it came down to the pass, and Corey was easily the worst.

Christina was smart to realize what the challenge was going to be and think about and discuss the ingredients of the dish while dining with her parents.

It was amusing Ramsay called Christina a cheerleader, because Deb has been doing that all season, as a type, at least, perhaps worse if she never actually was one.

It’s a tough call, and there are a variety of skills being tested. Christina would be Heather the second, only less obviously competent up front, more of a talented newbie who lucked out. Petrozza would be the “hey, they let an old guy win for once” winner. Christina would keep the alternating male/female pattern. Petrozza would set them free from it.

Petrozza would seem to be perfect and would definitely be my choice, except the lackadaisical, forgetful tendency. That can be sharpened off and balanced by supporting staff.

Christina is more capable of leadership than I might have expected, but would need some polishing of her own. For her, though, it’s the start of a career, with a bang, and she’d have incentive that Petrozza, being established in his own right, might not.

I’m perhaps rooting slightly for Petrozza, but it’s not going to bother me either way. Presumably we’ll see a lot more of how each of them really are during the finale.

In the course of this, I was looking at the Hell’s Kitchen Wikipedia article and associated season articles. It’s interesting to note that Heather is done with her spiffy contract and is working as “a chef” at nowhere significant. It’s interesting to note that Michael, who famously accepted and then withdrew from an offer to work with Ramsay, and eventually got a plum restaurant gig as executive chef on the strength of his win, is no longer in that position. You just never know.

I have been remiss about posting on this season of Hell’s Kitchen regularly, so now we’re about to see the top three be pared to two finalists.

I just have a few things to say about the last couple episodes.

Bobby I had pegged for a finalist, despite their making fun of him in the very first episode, and his apparently poor leadership skills the first time those were tested (perhaps enhanced through editing). The catch was whether Hell’s Kitchen would break the alternating sexes and/or races mold. Did you really think a woman would win American Idol this year? Least of all a black woman? If they follow the pattern, the script, the storyline, this year’s winner will be female, or at least white. Bobby winning would have broken the pattern and shown they ry not to follow one (or are doing the opposite). Jen winning, well, that would almost overplay the pattern thing.

Petrozza I had pegged for cannon fodder at the outset, shades of Dominic, but he has been steady, if not always clearly outstanding, more similar to Rock Harper than I’d noticed until just lately. And why does he go by his surname, Petrozza, rather than his first name, Louis?

I fear I’ve always liked Christina because she’s cute, but she also seems competent and not as obnoxious as Corey. The two of them have both had their moments of pure bitch, but I perceive Corey more so. I like to like the winner. It still bothers me that Michael won the first season, because I found him too annoying, however competent.

Hell’s Kitchen really played it close to the vest this year, disguising the fact that anyone had sufficient ability to be worthy of winning. I’m still skeptical, but the past couple episodes, particularly the final four, really showed there’s more there than we’d seen. I figure they didn’t want a repeat of Heather and Rock being obvious finalists from near the beginning of the season. Entirely aside from the issue of the winner being leaked, as happened last year.

At this point, I see it being Petrozza versus Christina, with a slight edge to Petrozza. However, if it’s Corey versus Christina, I think Christina takes it, and if it’s Corey versus Petrozza, I think Petrozza takes it. If Jen had somehow made it that far, I don’t think she had a chance. I am so glad she’s gone. They famously edit people to be more annoying than they really are

, but I got the impression Jen didn’t need much help.

Hell of a way to conduct a job interview.

The top three is a very telling episode, when each one calls and runs things for a while. Christina could fall apart on that, but Corey strikes me as weaker.

As for the challenge, lunch for 80 pregnant women, what about the issue of soft cheeses and shellfish and whatever? It struck me as odd for the contestants to go into that not aware there might be restrictions. Not that the risk is high, but hey.

I haven’t been posting about it regularly, as I might normally. That’s in part because it was on adjacent to American Idol, in part because of the kids going crazy when we dared try to watch 2 hours of TV, in part because I just haven’t been posting as zealously, and in part because this season… Yawn.

We are now down to six contestants.

There is no clear indication who will be the finalists or who we should start rooting for. I don’t know if that’s poor contestants, or great editing, perhaps influenced by the leak last year that Rock had won, and the fact that most of us reacted to that with “duh, it’s obvious nobody could beat him.”

It seems clear they cast the show with a small number of likely winners rounded out with people who have no chance, or who even fit specific roles, even if editing is required to mold that.

It seems clear that Bobby is a prospective winner, but they did shoot him down right at the beginning, if only to mislead us, he appeared incapable of being a team leader early on, and he would violate the unofficial rule of alternating specs of winners. He’s male. He’s black. So was Rock, just last season. Not right, and maybe they’re going off script because we expect it, but we expect him not to win based on Rock winning last year. In fact, we expect a woman to win.

I had a positive impression of the woman who left after being burned too severely to continue, and wondered if they were losing one of their prime prospects with her.

I was about to type “the last two women,” which tells you what I think of Jen, because I was thinkin g of the two other than her. I thought Jen might be one of the qualified contestants, but she seems just to be designated bitch and not as capable as she imagines herself. The other two women are coming to impress me enough to think it could be one of them in the final. Even both of them. And who knew, you can dislike each other but work well as a team! It should be interesting to see what happens after the switch back of Jen and Matt to their original teams.

I thought there might be something unexpected to Matt, and he’s shown sense a couple times, but I believe he’s there mainly for character. The previews made it appear his week to go will be the next one

, but they’re so misleading with previews, it could be Jen, or someone less expected.

Petrozza is really off the radar. He seemed to be in a class with Matt, yet now appears quietly competent and thoughtful. Could it really end up Petrozza versus one of the girls? Probably not, but he seems almost a wildcard.

At any rate, the show doesn’t seem so great this year, but apart from giving us contestants who are more seriously qualified and less cast to expected parts, I’m not quite sure what I’d do to help it.