Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 14)

Twenty initial contestants arrive at Hell's Kitchen, only to find that the doors to the restaurant aren't open, much to their confusion. They then see chef Gordon Ramsay on top of the roof of Hell's Kitchen. He tells them through a megaphone that he wants to see how committed they are to being there by jumping off the roof before they can enter and asks for volunteers. After two contestants (Ruth and Enrique) have jumped off the roof it's revealed that both of them are in fact stuntmen, and not real contestants. Chef Ramsay says how happy he is that everyone volunteered, before the real contestants are then asked to get into Hell's Kitchen and cook their signature dish.

Team challenge/signature dish: The teams are divided into men versus women with both teams cooking in front of a live audience, similar to the Signature Dish challenge from the previous season, only this time taking place within Hell's Kitchen itself. The dishes are scored on a scale of 1–5, with 1 being a disaster, and 5 being a "truly outstanding dish". Both Josh's seared scallops with mango pineapple salsa and Sarah's seared filet mignon got 4 points. The scores stayed the same as Christine's seared scallop with braised pork belly and Brendan's tempura soft-shell crab also received 4 points. The red team took the lead in the next round as Nick's pan-seared duck breast got 3 points, but Michelle's huevos rancheros got 4 points. The blue team quickly gained the lead in the next round, as Mieka's shrimp cake with peach salsa was "all bad" receiving 1 point, but Randy's raspberry bourbon barbeque salmon got 3 points. The red team retook the lead as Milly's seafood mac and cheese got a respectable 3 points, however Meghan's pan-seared rainbow trout heavily impressed, receiving a perfect 5 points. Chrissa's ginger cookie chicken was spat out and deemed hideous so she only got 1 point, and Michael's herb-roasted statler chicken breast got 3 points, giving the blue team a 1 point lead. The blue team kept the lead as Alison's pan-seared red snapper got 3 points, but Adam's lamb chops got 4 points, though in the next round the red team went from 2 points behind to 1 point behind as T's coffee-crusted flank steak received a perfect 5 points whilst Cameron's coriander-rubbed rack of lamb still got an excellent 4 points. In the final round, with the blue team having a 1 point lead, Bret's bone in veal chop saltimbocca got 3 points, and lastly Monique's pasta was panned for using sauce from a jar instead of making it from scratch. Monique then argued with Ramsay about it in front of the audience, as she didn't see the problem with using sauce from a jar, which earned her 1 out of 5 points. Despite the red team having two dishes with 5 points, they were hugely let down by Mieka, Chrissa, and Monique, which sealed the 31–28 win for the men, marking the first time the blue team won the signature dish challenge since season 9.

Reward/punishment: The red team stayed behind to reset the dining for dinner service in addition to folding, stuffing and sealing stacks of Hell's Kitchen reservation confirmation letters. The blue team rode a hummer to Saint Rocke to meet William Shatner and Billy Sherwood, which the men loved especially Brendan. Shatner also gave them their menu books that were signed by him. T argued with Monique during the women's punishment about using tomato sauce from a jar, which she believed had ruined their chances of winning.

Service: Right before dinner service, Chrissa was making her team unsure of her as she seemed unfocused, and asked Ramsay if she could go to the bathroom. In attendance for opening night were Dean McDermott, Michael Ohoven, Joyce Giraud and Delanie Walker. Josh and T were also serving tableside. Both dinner services had their fair share of mistakes: in the red kitchen, Chrissa was wandering around, being a distraction for her team, until Ramsay told her to go out and help T on tableside. He told Meghan to help Sarah on garnish instead of Chrissa, as she actually knew what to do to help Sarah. Despite this, early appetizers got out quickly thanks to Mieka and Michelle on the fish station. In the blue kitchen, Cameron had problems with his seasoning of the risotto, until Nick came and assisted him, which helped to send out risottos. Michael also had problems on the scallops for the first table, as he boiled them instead of searing them. This angered Ramsay, as he had taken an awful long amount of time to cook them, then sending them out wrong, but Michael rebounded. On entrees, Bret and Milly on the meat station served up a raw lamb, but recovered after that, and the blue team finished the first service, leaving Ramsay fairly happy with their performance. The same could not be said for the red team as they got stalled on the meat for Dean McDermott as Christine and Monique were unable to cook an order of pork and lamb correctly, with the lamb being raw on their first attempt, and then on their second attempt, the lamb was raw yet again, due to the fact that Monique didn't know her oven wasn't on, but she believed it was. Furthermore, the pork was dry. On their last attempt they finally managed to cook the lamb correctly, however now the pork was raw, which infuriated Ramsay as there were now 6 people on the meat station at this point - Alison, Christine, Meghan, Mieka, Monique and T, yet they were still not able to push it out, forcing Ramsay to kick all the red team out. This season marked the first time since season 7 that the blue team won the opening dinner service

Elimination: The red team were called down by sous chef Andi, but were stopped by Ramsay on the stairs, where they were told they had "definitely" lost. He told them to come up with 2 nominees for elimination. During deliberation, Christine and Monique were first pointed out for their mistakes on the meat station, and the Red Team originally decided to nominate them, but Chrissa quickly joined the discussion as a potential nominee, due to her team feeling she was out of her element, and being the worst cook on the team. This was not helped by the fact that as the red team were sat down discussing possible nominees, Chrissa tried to make coffee, only to break a glass, which led the red team to believe she was not taking her place in Hell's Kitchen seriously. Alison revealed the nominations as Monique for the first nominee and Chrissa as the second. Ramsay also personally called out Christine for nomination, due to her poor performance on the meat station. After hearing each of their pleas, he started with sending Monique back in line (believing she was passionate, despite making mistakes) and then eliminating Chrissa for being out of her element on the signature dish, before dinner service, during dinner service, and even while she was being eliminated, as she wandered off towards the exit without giving Chef Ramsay her jacket.

Team challenge: Both teams each have to retrieve 25 crabs from the ocean. This also meant that most of them had to in fact learn how to navigate a rowboat; the blue team coped with this better, getting back first and earning themselves a 30-second head-start for the next part of the challenge, where the teams were split into pairs (the blue team having one team of three since they had an extra member) then had to present ten perfect crab cake dishes after they shucked, sautéed, and plated them. Despite the men's head-start, the red team ultimately defeated them by presenting 10 dishes, while the blue team had only managed 7, partially due to Michael being a poor performer. T and Michelle were the stand-out performers, single-handedly making four out of the women's ten dishes, the last of which was considered to be "perfectly cooked" by Ramsay.

Reward/punishment: The red team head to Scottsdale, Arizona to go horseback riding at Cave Creek Outfitter and have dinner at Talavera. In addition, Marino accompanied them on their reward. The blue team were left in the kitchen peeling shrimp and prepping the clams and lobsters for a special that'll be served at the next dinner service. Tempers ran high when Cameron attempted to dictate to the others, feeling that he was the best chef there and it was his place to tell the others what to do. Josh told him, in a very blunt manner, to back off. Just before service started, Ramsay caught Michael looking over the recipe for risotto, and berated him for not having already learned the recipe by heart.

Service: Guests in attendance were Jai Rodriguez, and Workaholics actors Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine and Anders Holm. Milly did well on hot appetizers, whilst Michael, on cold appetizers, sent out a beet salad when it wasn't on the ticket. However, later during dinner service, the blue team's scallops were continuously getting sent back for being too raw due to Cameron, which eventually made Ramsay come over to the station and showed Cameron how to cook scallops to perfection. However, Cameron said having Ramsay in the kitchen only made him more nervous and intimidated; Brendan, his partner on the station, eventually helped him complete his first dish. As the blue team finally started to pick up the pace, Brendan and Cameron went on to make more mistakes on the entrees, forcing Ramsay to make them eat their incorrectly-cooked dishes, whilst Josh did well on the meat station. Michael took over the station in the meantime, but further confusion occurred when Brendan and Cameron took control again, leading to all three of them being thrown out. Minutes later, an infuriated Chef Ramsay threw the entire team out after it turned out that not one of the blue team knew what was actually on order. Things ran much smoother to begin with in the red kitchen, thanks to T's vocal leadership on the appetizer section, though this irritated Monique, who felt T was being overbearing. They started having trouble on the entrees however; Alison and Michelle were supposed to be working together but their constant bickering meant they weren’t communicating well and were giving conflicting reports to Chef Ramsay, meaning that T ended up having to step in and supervise that station as well. Mieka also had problems with communication on the garnish station, so Meghan was relied on to help her teammate out. Eventually, the team rallied and were able to complete their dinner service. The red team were clear winners, and the blue team had to come up with two people for elimination.

Elimination: Cameron was immediately voted as the first nominee, but the blue team had problems deciding between Brendan and Michael as the second nominee. In the end, they picked Michael, who was considered the slowest and the weaker chef. After deliberation, Ramsay ultimately eliminated Cameron for his poor performance on the fish station, and for being easily intimidated by Ramsay during service.

Team challenge: After an early morning wake-up call from sous chef James, the teams were brought outside Hell's Kitchen, where two lakes of icy water had been set up; one containing fish heads, and one containing fish bodies. The teams were split into pairs and each had to match up the heads and bodies of a particular fish; the blue team accomplished this first, and so got five extra minutes in which to cook dishes using one of the four varieties of fish. Each member of the pair cooked their own dish, then faced off against their counterparts on the other team, with Ramsay and guest judge Michael Cimarusti awarding the best dishes a point. Bret took the first point for the blue team with his trout dish, before Mieka took a point for her salmon dish, and Sarah earned a 2–1 lead for the red team with her cod dish. On the final round it initially looked as the challenge would end in a tie, as Michelle's and Alison's halibut dishes were deemed mediocre, and both Milly's and Adam's were well-liked. However, Chef Cimarusti noticed that both of the men's dishes used the exact same side of rice, and the two blue team admitted that due to Adam being unable to cook his intended risotto side in time, Milly allowed him to borrow some spare rice. Chef Ramsay deemed this to be in violation of the challenge rules, however, and instantly disqualified Milly and Adam. Michelle's dish was chosen to receive the final point, as it was slightly better than Alison's, meaning that the red team won 3–1.

Reward/punishment: The red team headed to Manhattan Beach where they receive surfing lessons from Anastasia Ashley and had lunch. The blue team on the other hand prepped fish for dinner service in addition to eating peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches. When James announced the blue team's lunch, Michael sheepishly rushed up to the dorms and made himself something to eat. Randy accidentally cut his finger to the bone and went to the hospital to get stitches, though he returned in time for dinner service.

Service: Guests in attendance were Jay Williams, Anastasia Ashley and Samm Levine. Both teams had very rocky services. The red team were backed up from the start by a weak performance from Christine and Mieka on the appetizer station, while T also struggled somewhat with the flatbread pizzas, and Alison and Monique had trouble getting the scallops out, with both blaming each other for their problems. After Christine and Mieka brought up a dry risotto and overcooked pasta on the final table of appetizers, and Sarah only further enraged Ramsay by asking (under her breath) if they could try again, the entire team was ejected. Things ran a little better in the blue kitchen, although one plate of scallops were returned with a piece of plastic in the salad with had been made by Adam. Michael also made an extremely dangerous mistake by heating up a pan to the point where it was smoking hot, then leaving it on top of the cold pans under the fish station; Ramsay angrily told Michael that had Bret or Josh unknowingly grabbed the pan, they could have sustained a third-degree burn. Things quickly went wrong on the entrees however, as Nick twice sent up raw pork, and then argued with Chef Ramsay when he rejected it. The team managed to get a few more tables of entrees out, but then Michael brought up the garnishes for a rack of lamb far too early. Nick, not wanting to further anger Chef Ramsay, brought up the lamb, but as the lamb turned out to be almost totally raw, he only succeeded in getting the entire team thrown out.

Elimination: For the first time ever in the history of Hell's Kitchen, Chef Ramsay went up to the dorms, where he informed them that both teams had lost and he wanted two people for elimination from each team. The red team nominated Christine and Mieka as a result of their struggles on appetizers, while the blue team nominated Michael and Nick for their troubles on their respective stations. For a moment, they considered nominating Adam for his plastic in the scallop salad, but stuck to their original consensus. After hearing each of the contestants explain why they should stay, Chef Ramsay chose to eliminate Michael for being a consistently poor performer, and especially because of his mistake with the hot pan, which he considered proof that Michael was dangerously incompetent and not fit to work in Hell's Kitchen, or become his next head chef. He then warned the remaining chefs, that the next time he had a dinner service as bad as that, more than one person could possibly be eliminated.

Team challenge: After the chefs spent the night playing drinking games, which Bret refused to take part in, considering them pointless and immature, they were brought to a football field, where they were told that they would be preparing classic American comfort foods (spaghetti, burgers, pizzas and mac and cheese) for their next challenge. Two chefs from each team would prepare each dish, but Randy would go solo, as the blue team had 7 chefs. Each chef caught footballs, which would determine the ingredients they got to use for their dishes, before returning to Hell's Kitchen to prepare their dishes, which would be judged by guest chefs Suzanne Goin and David Burke. The pizzas were first up, and Bret earned the first two points for his pizza, narrowly defeating Michelle's more simplistic pizza. In the burgers, Meghan's burger easily defeated Randy's dry, over-cooked and over-spicy burger, tying the scores, before the blue team retook the lead as Josh's traditional mac and cheese beat out Alison's bizarre, and undercooked, mac and cheese in a bun. In the final round, Brendan's spaghetti carbonara got praise from the judges, but Sarah's seemingly complicated spaghetti, lobster and prosciutto dish was deemed outstanding, not only winning the points, but being used as a tie-breaker and resulting in the red team winning their third successive challenge. The blue team were visibly distraught at this, but Chef Ramsay was unsympathetic and openly ridiculed them, especially Bret, who angrily yelled out a stream of profanities after the decision was announced.

Reward/punishment: The red team got cocktails aboard the American Pride in Long Beach where they were joined by Ramsay. The blue team had to peel a huge shipment of onions, in addition to preparing both kitchens for the night's service. Bret remained visibly angry throughout the punishment, and nearly provoked a major argument with the other blue team after he openly accused them of being content to lose the challenges.

Service: For this service it was family night, meaning that many of the comfort foods cooked in the previous challenge were on the menu. The blue team got off to a poor start firstly when Brendan cooked a risotto that was far too small, and then Bret attempted to recycle that risotto into a new one, causing Ramsay to angrily threaten to throw them out if they attempted anything like that again. The rest of the appetizers went without any major hiccups, and entrees initially went well, despite Ramsay accusing Milly of working too slowly. A major speed bump then occurred when Ramsay was presented with steaks and salmon that were both overcooked, resulting in him forcing the entire team to eat them. After that, the blue team were able to complete service, and while Ramsay made it clear that he was not happy with their performance, he decided to spare them from nominating anyone for elimination. The red team also had some initial problems on appetizers, including Sarah burning the scallops and Michelle needlessly adding extra salt to Alison's mac and cheese, rendering it inedible, but otherwise got through the appetizer stage without trouble. Their service rapidly fell apart on the entrees however thanks to a dismal performance from Mieka and Monique on the meat station, who repeatedly served up raw wellingtons and steaks. This eventually resulted in Mieka constantly asking the others their opinions on the temperature of a New York strip, which allowed it to cook so long that it became overcooked. Worse still, it was the last New York strip they had, making it impossible for them to finish service. Ramsay angrily ejected the team, and to add insult to injury, Andi then informed him that Sarah had served up a raw burger, which an irate Ramsay brought out to the team in the corridor, before telling the red team to decide on two nominees for elimination.

Elimination: While all the red team agreed that Mieka and Monique had been the two worst performers in the kitchen that night, T pushed the team into nominating Monique and Sarah to try to manipulate Ramsay into eliminating Monique, who they believed was a disruptive influence and kept the team from succeeding. When Ramsay was given the nominations, Monique interjected and revealed the team's plan to rig the elimination, but Ramsay called her and Sarah out anyway. After hearing the pleas from both Monique and Sarah he decided to overrule the nominations and eliminated Mieka for struggling on three straight services as well as he felt that she had no confidence in herself and she had given up.

Team challenge: The teams were called down to the dining room, where they were presented with a huge array of cheeses. Each member will pick one member from the opposite team they want to go up against. The chosen chef will then spin the wheel to determine what cheese dish they'll be making. Then, they'll have to make it with one of the international cheeses that suit their dish the most. Monique and Nick faced off first with grilled cheese sandwiches, and Nick's sandwich easily beat out Monique's bland and overly simplistic sandwich. Milly was worried about his enchiladas, but Ramsay liked them; however, Meghan's enchiladas were judged to be truly outstanding and won the point. Adam and Christine both earned a point for their cordon bleu dishes, as did Josh and Michelle with their manicottis. Alison's potato croquette won the point by default, as Brendan didn't even know what a croquette was and instead presented a gnocchi, though Alison's dish was noted to be very good all the same. Randy then earned a point for his traditional lasagne, with Ramsay not particularly appreciating Sarah's unusual pistachio-filled lasagne. On the final round, T clinched the winning point for her calzone; both her dish and Bret's were deemed to be good, but Bret's calzone had noticeably raw dough, resulting in the red team winning their fourth consecutive challenge.

Reward/punishment: The red team went jet skiing in Marina Del Ray while the blue are tasked to break pieces off of the Parmesan cheese wheel where they have to prep it by grating the cheese which will then be served as part of tonight's table-side, much to the amusement of James.

Service: This service's table-side appetizer was Parmesan frica, served by Alison and Nick for their respective teams. Daddy Yankee and Dave Mustaine both appeared as guests for this service. The red team started off well thanks to Meghan's strong leadership on the appetizer section, but were soon backed up by Monique constantly serving bland, under-cooked garnishes. Meghan jumped on the garnish section, but in her absence Sarah quickly fell apart handling the remaining appetizers, and Christine also had to be repeatedly told how to cook the salmon, and yet still sent it up raw. Ramsay brought the team into the pantry to give them a final warning, only for Christine's next order of salmon to turn out to be burnt, leading to the whole team being ejected. The blue team got off to a slower start due to Adam having initial problems with the risotto, but he soon got it together and got the remaining appetizers out without trouble. Bret also overcooked their first order of salmon, but likewise got his remaining orders out correctly. The main problem faced by the team was Brendan's weak performance on the meat station, as he struggled to give the other chefs correct times, and ended up holding up the kitchen for fifteen minutes while waiting for a rack of lamb to cook. Despite this, the team was eventually able to complete service, and were named the winners for the second week in a row. Ramsay was so disgusted by the red team's performance that he sent sous chef Andi up to the dorms to tell them to nominate two people for elimination.

Elimination: The red team quickly decided on Monique as the first nominee, but were divided between Sarah and Christine as the second. Despite Christine being considered more directly at fault for the service's failure, the red team decided to nominate Sarah along with Monique, feeling that she would have done even worse than Christine without Meghan's close supervision. While Ramsay felt that Sarah was falling apart and did not have the strength of character needed to compete in Hell's Kitchen, he eliminated Monique for refusing to admit to having made any mistakes, being totally shunned by her team, along with having performed badly in every service so far and showing no signs of improvement.

Team challenge: The teams must cook lunch for current and retired firefighters who are in the middle of their charity ride to commemorate their friends. Both teams started reasonably well, though the red team were held up slightly by Sarah's slowness at preparing the salads, before both Milly and T held up their respective teams by serving up raw chicken (which luckily Sarah noticed for the women). While Milly was quickly able to regroup and get the chicken out correctly, T and Sarah continued to struggle, before Meghan helped them get the orders cooked perfectly. The red team soon found their rhythm and began catching up to the men, but their early troubles ultimately proved costly as, resulting in the blue team winning just their second challenge of the season.

Reward/punishment: The blue team broke their 4 challenge losing streak as they headed to Malibu for a private safari tour with lunch at the vineyard and enjoyed wine with Ramsay. Nick had a little reunion with his ex-girlfriend who was serving the blue team (much to the surprise of the other men, as Nick is openly gay). Although Ramsay was embarrassed by their loss, he tasked the red team to detail and clean the firetruck in addition to prepping 400 chicken wings for the next dinner service. During the punishment Meghan dragged the other red team into the pantry and angrily accused them of not putting as much effort into service as she did, and while the other members of the red team (especially Alison) felt somewhat insulted by the insinuation that they were less talented and unworthy of working with Meghan, Chef Ramsay felt that she was showing the passion needed to lead the team, and told her to step up in service.

Service: T and Bret were assigned tableside service, with Marino emphasizing the importance of talking to and entertaining the customers, something that Bret found himself having to do a lot, due to his team's struggles, when he entertained guest Bree Turner. The blue team were stalled out of the gate by Nick's constantly serving up undercooked scallops, and things got worse on the entrees, as he and Brendan couldn't get any orders of salmon out correctly. This in turn caused Josh to struggle to time his meat entrees correctly, and caused him to serve up raw wellingtons and racks of lamb. Further mistakes from the trio caused them to all be thrown out of service, with Bret and Milly taking over the fish, and Randy taking over the meat; after this, they rallied and successfully finished service, with Randy doing well on meat earning praise from Ramsay. On the red side, Christine got the team off to a bad start by serving a bland, undercooked risotto, while Sarah also struggled to get the garnishes out; as a result, Meghan took it on herself to supervise both stations, as well as handling the fish. While her abrasive leadership continued to annoy the other women, the team got through the rest of the service without a single dish being rejected, and with Meghan and Alison doing especially well on the fish and the meat stations. As a result, Chef Ramsay deemed the red team to be the clear winners, and told the blue team to nominate two blue team for elimination.

Elimination: The team very quickly decided on the two fish station chefs, Brendan and Nick, and Brendan's arguing of the decision resulted in a huge argument between him and Milly. When Chef Ramsay asked the two nominees to justify why they should stay, Nick admitted fault on not taking control of the station from Brendan sooner, but Brendan refused to admit being directly at fault and instead attempted to blame Adam (on garnish) and Nick for not helping him when he started falling apart on the fish station. This, along with his consistently mediocre performances during his time up to this point in Hell's Kitchen resulted in Ramsay eliminating him.

After dismissing the teams, Chef Ramsay called out Josh and warned him that he was not stepping up as a leader, and that he needed to be more assertive. Josh subsequently went into the dorms and gave himself a lengthy motivational speech, much to the bemusement of the other chefs.

Team challenge: The chefs assembled in the dining room and were given a display of Greek dancing, setting the theme for the next challenge. The chefs each chose a protein to cook a Greek dish with, and broke plates to determine their other ingredients. Chef Ramsay and guest judge Michael Psilakis would both award each chef between 1 and 5 points, with whichever team gets the most points winning. Alison and Josh faced off first with lamb dishes, and Alison earned 6 points for an otherwise decent dish that was a little overcooked; conversely, Josh's dish was so severely undercooked that Chefs Ramsay and Psilakis refused to taste it, earning him the lowest possible score of 2 points by default. Bret's prawn dish then took the lead, scoring 8 points, while Michelle's unusual choice of prawns and kiwi fruit sauce earned her just 3 points. The lead swung back to the red team on the next round, as Meghan earned 9 points for her squid dish, beating Milly (who only got 6 points) for the third time in a challenge. Randy's chicken dish reclaimed the lead again, earning a perfect 10 points(despite having no Greek cuisine experience), and outshining T, who still got a respectable 7 points. Adam retained the lead with his pork dish, getting another 10 points, though the 8 points earned by Christine kept the red team in contention. In the final round, Sarah's swordfish dish got 7 points, with Chefs Ramsay and Psilakis noting that it would likely have been a 10 with only a little more seasoning; this left Nick needing 5 points to win, and despite overcooking his swordfish quite badly, he still managed to earn the required number of points to win.

Reward/punishment: 2013 Miss California Mabelynn Capeluj hosted the blue team 's reward where they got to go go-kart racing. The red team are assigned to pick up all the pieces from the broken plates and clean both kitchens for tonight's service. Sarah spent most of the punishment wandering around trying to find a place to plug in a vacuum cleaner, much to the annoyance of her team-mates. Before service, Chef Ramsay pulled Milly, who was having a crisis of confidence about his level of experience, into the pantry for a pep-talk.

Service: In addition to Mabelynn Capeluj, Erik Palladino was also a guest for this service. Josh and Michelle were assigned tableside service, preparing an octopus appetizer. The blue team had a generally trouble-free service, getting through the appetizers without any major problems thanks to Nick on appetizers, but having a few minor problems on the entrees such as Randy making a very thin order of mashed potatoes and then trying to deny being responsible for it (causing a lengthy argument among the team), Milly serving poorly-sliced wellingtons, and Adam using far too much oil to fry the fish. Meghan and T got the red team off to a good start with a flawless performance on the appetizers, but the team was stalled early on when Alison repeatedly made mistakes on the fish station, including serving raw lobster and burning her poaching butter, forcing her to make a new batch and further holding up the team. She eventually rebounded and the team completed appetizers without too many more problems, but they soon fell apart on the entrees as a result of terrible performances by Sarah on the meat station and Christine on the garnishes; Christine had major problems getting the garnishes out (serving raw and then burnt eggplant, and severely over-seasoning the lentils), even after Meghan jumped in to help her, while Sarah served raw wellingtons and overcooked lamb, then another overcooked order of lamb along with burnt chicken. With the blue team having finished service and the red team still having eight tables left to go, Chef Ramsay ejected the women, telling them to nominate two people for elimination, before calling in the blue team to finish the red team's service. Leaving this seasons Red Team tied with the Blue Team from Season 10 as the team got that got kicked out as a whole from service happening 5 times as of now.

Elimination: The red team quickly agreed on nominating Sarah and Christine, though briefly gave consideration to nominating Alison for her early problems on the fish station and not doing enough to help out Christine. While pleading the case for her survival, Sarah claimed that no-one on the team had bothered to help her (even though T actually did try to assist her), and when Ramsay asked her would she do better on the blue team, she said yes. Chef Ramsay refused Sarah's request and eliminated her, however, saying that while he had seen much potential in her earlier in the season, he could not overlook her succession of terrible performances in service.

Team challenge: Each team member must create a dish out of an alcoholic beverage, either beer, wine or liquor. Then, their dish will be judged by Ramsay and guest bartenders John Ratzenberger and Marino. When the chefs were done with cooking it was announced the judges were only tasting 3 dishes from each team (one beer, one wine, one liquor). On the beer dish Michelle impressed with her Chocolate beer soufflé scoring 11 points out of 15 while Nick still earned a respectable 10 out of 15 points for his team with his sweet potato donut in a candy bacon crumble with a beer and caramel sauce. For the wine dish Alison's ribeye with port wine sauce earned 10 points while Adam's lamb with wine and poached pear reduction also earned the same score. In the final round Meghan's pan seared duck breast got praise for the presentation but lacked acidity with meant she earned 9 points, with opened up for Josh to take the victory with his grilled pork dish that got 11 points, which made the final result end with 31 to the blue team and 30 for the women.

Reward/punishment: The blue team head to Moonlight Rollerway for some rollerblading. They also have lunch and beer with James at the Golden Road Brewery. The red team had to steam, starch and iron tablecoths in addition to washing the silverware.

Bret's exit: The next morning when both teams were prepping for dinner service, Bret took a bathroom break, during which he aggravated an existing slipped disc (though this could have happened in the reward as he fell on his back.) He was escorted to the dorm by his teammates to rest, but when Ramsay found out about the injury he went up and told him he could not continue in the competition as it could lead to permanent back injuries and therefore eliminated a teary-eyed Bret from Hell's Kitchen, but he told him to stay strong and get better. While not explicitly mentioned, Ramsay did not take Bret's jacket.

Service: Chef's tables were featured during gastro-pub night. The blue team will have Fred Willard in their kitchen while Jaleel White sat in the red kitchen. In addition, Meghan and Milly handled beer steamed razor calm table-side appetizers. Far East Movement were also in attendance. The red team had an almost flawless service with the only two minor speedbumps being Christine getting overwhelmed on the appetizer station and Alison serving a raw order of lamb and then blaming it on Michelle, but both of them recovered quickly. The same thing could not be said for the blue team who suffered from a major communication breakdown between Adam on the meat station and Randy on the fish station as they had problems with timing serving raw and overcooked fish and meat all night until Ramsay sent the red kitchen in to finish their service and asked the blue team to go up in the dorms and nominate two people from nomination.

Elimination: The blue team quickly decided on Adam and Randy due to their problems on their respective stations although both Adam and Nick tried to get Josh nominated for not helping the meat station when it started going down in flames, however when they were at the elimination ceremony and had nominated Adam and Randy. Ramsay then nominates Josh based on the same thing, that he didn't take any initiative to try to save the meat station. In the end, Ramsay eliminated Adam as he felt he was the biggest reason the blue team lost the dinner service and was also disappointed by the fact that he didn't bounce back.

Team challenge: Ramsay will reveal an exotic protein from each dome. The first person from each team who grabs the meat first will cook with it and present their dish for Chef Ramsay and his two guest judges Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, owners of the restaurant "Animal". They will score each dish on a scale of 1 to 5. Since Michelle didn't pick her meat, she chose alligator. Alison and Nick are up first with their Elk dishes. While Nick gets complimented on his presentation, he only earns 6 points out of 15, as his dish is way under-seasoned. Alison got panned for her presentation, but still managed to earn 8 points for her team. Next up was the wild boar dishes made by Meghan and Josh. Meghan's dish was deemed to be to safe, earning 8 points for her team while Josh's dish was undercooked, and the cauliflower over-powered the rest of the dish earning him 7 points for his team. T and Milly presented their alligator dishes. Milly's dish earned a decent 9 points, despite being a little under-seasoned, and T earned 11 points. In the last round Christine and Randy were up for their team with their take on ostrich. Christine only earned 6 points as her meat was very bland and deemed kind of safe, opening up for Randy to win it for his team with his ostrich burger scoring a 12 points ending the final score at 34–33 to the men. Ramsay asked Michelle to bring the judges her alligator dish that was dropped in favor of T's. The judges concluded that it was the best dish of the day, and it was a shame it didn't count.

Reward/punishment: The blue team spent a day at the spa. Ramsay assigned the red team to deep clean both kitchens. They then drank a milkshake that is filled with leftover exotic proteins from the challenge except for one that Michelle ended up with.

Meetings: Chef Ramsay met with each chef individually, giving them feedback on their performance, as well as advice for the rest of the competition. He asked each chef to rank the rest of their team. At the end of the meetings, he announced that the bottom ranked chef from each team would compete in a "Cook for Your Life" challenge with the loser being eliminated. The bottom chefs were Randy for the blue team, and Christine for the red team.

Cook for your life challenge: Randy and Christine made a few small errors, but overall prepared acceptable dishes. However, Christine's leaving out an ingredient in the risotto dish, as well as attempting to make her own base for the bread pudding instead of using the base Chef Ramsay had prepared, led to her elimination.

Team challenge: The teams were cooking for Calabasas High School's homecoming dinner where the theme for the homecoming party was Mardi Gras. Both teams had 35 minutes to create three meals for the homecoming committee one seafood appetizer, one chicken entrée and beef entrée. for the appetizer Milly's deep-fried stuffed shrimp with lobster and crab meat won over Alison and T's jalapeños grits with cheese & lobster, for the chicken entree Meghan won with her fresh-chived fettuccine with cream sauce and sausage over Randy's blacked chicken pasta, mostly due to the fact that she made fresh pasta for the dish. With a tie it all came down to the beef entree where Nick and Josh clinched the victory for the blue team with their deep fried fillet with chicken over Michelle more traditional take on fillet marking the men's fifth challenge victory in a row.

Reward/punishment: With another victory, the blue team spent the afternoon attending a pirate show, while the red team were tasked to help the homecoming committee with decorating the dining room to match the theme of the homecoming, along with making necklaces for every of the 200 guests from scratch. During the punishment, Michelle and T butted heads as T felt that Michelle was trying to fit in with the homecoming committee and also worried too much about what she was doing instead of focusing on herself.

Service: Both teams had a few speed bumps during the appetizer stage, in the red kitchen T accidentally started a fire on the fish station at the start of the service and Michelle was slow at serving the sliders to Ramsay at an otherwise complete order, however both of them recovered quickly and the rest of the appetizers went without incident. The blue team also had their fair share of problems at appetizers as Josh started off with serving an alcoholic risotto to the pass and then served an undercooked pasta appetizer, but after that the appetizers went without incident. When it came time to entrees Milly forgot to turn the stoves on and then served up an order of raw snappers after that Randy forgot to add the lobster to his sauce for the entree, but after that the service went smoothly. In the red kitchen Meghan and Michelle butted heads at the meat station as Meghan threw Michelle off the station even though Michelle originally was on there, but Meghan decided that she would take over for her and Michelle was forced to switch to garnish, then T overcooked the red snapper for a table but quickly recovered. Lastly Alison tried to lead the team, but only achieved annoying her team by saying the worlds "all day" repeatedly, but they finished regardless without anymore incidents. At liberation Ramsay said that both the teams did well but announced that the red team did a little better which made them the winner of the service.

Team change: Ramsay asked the blue team to nominate the two people they felt were the weakest on the team. After much deliberation they decided to nominate Josh due to his poor performance on the appetizer station and Randy due to his mediocre performance in service. When Ramsay asked Josh who he thought was the weakest he openly said that he felt that Nick was the weakest cook on the team and was hiding behind the other people on the team. After thinking about who to send home Ramsay decided to send Randy back in line and told Josh to give him his jacket , only to tell him that he would join the red team while Meghan would switch over to the men's team as he felt they were lacking a leader and he also felt that she could whip them into shape.

Team challenge: The teams participated in the annual blind taste test, where each chef should try to identify ingredients only by taste and nothing else, the dunk-tanks were also back from season thirteen. Despite an impressive performance from Milly with getting a perfect score of 4 out of an possible 4 on the blind taste test (only done once before by Justin in season 10), the teams ended up tying due to lackluster performances by both Nick and Randy who only identified 1 out of 4. With the score tied 9–9, Josh and Milly (who had scored the highest for their respective teams) were brought forward to break the tie in a sudden death match. Josh won for the red team by identifying avocado.

Reward/punishment: The red team was rewarded with a trip to Petrossian where they got to taste caviar. In addition, they were sent on a shopping spree with $500 each. The blue team was assigned to make sangria (including preparing all of the fruit) and to bring in tabletops to the dining room for tonight's service that will host two charities.

Service: This service was a special charity service for two different charities, including "Cancer Schmancer" from actress Fran Drescher, where each chef was assigned to a course where they should lead their team through it to see who had leadership abilities. The first course was the risotto, by Alison and Randy. Alison got her course out without any problems, but Randy had trouble getting his risottos out, at first due to the fact that he made 4 different kinds that were seasoned differently and then didn't notice that Milly accidentally took 16 plates instead of the 12 required. On the tuna course, Milly led his team without any major problems, with the exception of Nick being caught wiping a plate with a dirty rag, however the red kitchen suffered a complete meltdown due to the fact that they overcooked all of their tuna (mostly due to Josh ignoring Alison's warnings that it was going to be overcooked) and was forced to go into the blue kitchen to retrieve some of their leftover tuna. The three courses went without any major incidents, however Josh continually tried to take over the leadership role from both Michelle and T on their courses with earned him the ire and annoyance from his teammates and Ramsay. After dinner service Ramsay deemed the blue team winners, but only by a small margin and told the red team to come up with two for elimination.

Elimination: The red team nominated Josh for his troubles with the tuna (much to his disagreement, as he felt it was the smoothest course, even though it hadn't been) and Michelle for lack of leadership on her course. However, Ramsay told both of them to get back in line and called Randy forward for elimination and eliminated him due to his lack of experience and that he felt that he didn't bounce back after his sub-par leader performance on his course, despite him being on the winning team. However, Ramsay did praise and commend Randy's performance up to that point.

Team challenge: The chefs had to go through a big pile of keys to find ones that would open lockers containing various cuts of steak. After having time to cook, they presented their dishes to Ramsay in a "King of the Hill" challenge. T initially got to sit on the throne with her ribcap steak, but after failures from Milly with his New York strip steak and Josh with his porterhouse steak, Meghan managed to dethrone T with her own porterhouse steak. More failures ensued from Alison with her rib eye steak and Nick with his New York strip steak. But ultimately, Michelle dethroned Meghan and won the challenge for the red team even though she had selected the cheapest cut of steak (flank steak).

Reward/punishment: The red team head to Catalina Island where they enjoyed a submarine ride and a three course dinner at a member's only beach club. Ramsay also rewarded them a key which revealed four Vitamix blenders inside the chest. The blue team broke down a 250-pound side of beef that'll be part of steak night in the next service.

Service: This was a special steak night, and it was the final service performed as two teams, with black jackets on the line for the merger into one team. Jake Steinfeld and Jerry Hairston, Jr. were in attendance. Michelle's winning challenge dish was among the dishes served at this service. The blue team got off to a strong start on their appetizers, while Michelle made a slight error in consistency while cooking the red team's capellini. Nick nearly sent out scorched, dried salmon for the blue team's entrees. Alison made her own mistakes by undercooking the red team's filet and the salmon due to her inexperience on the fish station, and Josh slowed the team down by struggling with the garnish station. All this resulted in Ramsay sending out half of one table's order before the other half was finished. Meghan made a rare mistake for her when she sent out a raw New York strip steak for the blue team (mainly due to the fact she had many orders) but recovered quickly. Alison continued making her mistakes with the salmon on the red team, while Josh continued making his own mistakes on the garnish. The blue team finally managed to complete their final orders with no problems at all, and Ramsay immediately rewarded Meghan, Milly, and Nick with a "dessert" of their new black jackets. When Alison continued making mistakes with the red team's salmon, Ramsay finally removed her from the fish station and put T on it instead, which sped their service back up again. He also quickly put the former members of the blue team to work in helping the red team finish up their service. In the end, the blue team won and were told to join the red team in coming up with two people for elimination.

Elimination: The chefs decided that the choices for elimination would be from among Alison for her failures with the filet and the salmon, Michelle for her one mistake with the capellini, and Josh for his mistake with the garnish and his overall tendency to get flustered and frazzled in the kitchen. In the end, the chefs agreed on nominating Josh and Alison. Ramsay surprised the chefs by calling Michelle forward, but she herself was surprised when Ramsay gave her a black jacket. He then called up T and gave her a black jacket, as well, for being the only red team member to have a perfect service for the night. Ramsay then called Josh and Alison forward. Alison admitted to her mistakes, but asked Ramsay to consider her past weeks of consistency. Josh simply assured Ramsay that he could be a leader and wanted another chance to show him that. Ramsay ultimately chose to eliminated a teary-eyed Alison for her failures on the fish station, although acknowledging her flashes of brilliance, before giving Josh the final black jacket, much to the other chefs' (especially Nick's) chagrin.

Challenge: The chefs participated in the "taste it, now make it" challenge. The team of Nick and Michelle won by correctly identifying the protein (sea bass) and the seasoning of the broth (soy).

Reward/punishment: Nick and Michelle were rewarded with a trip in an amphibious car to the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, while the remaining chefs were forced to dig through Hell's Kitchen's trash and sort it out for recyclable materials and then Ramsay had volunteered them to make 150 lb (68 kg) of mashed potatoes from scratch to donate to the organization Midnight Mission (this especially hit Milly hard due to the fact that he had been homeless 3 times before in his life). During the punishment Josh continued to annoy his teammates due to his minimal contribution, both during recycling and doing the volunteer work for the shelter.

Service: Tatum O'Neil and her son, Sean McEnroe, are tonight's guest for the chef's table. Michelle immediately started out with a slight mistake by serving two Caesar's salads on plates rather than in bowls. Meghan did well with the risottos for the hot appetizers, but Nick derailed her progress by adding cold lobster tails to them. When it was time to serve the chef's table, Michelle was slower in cooking tuna than Meghan was in cooking risotto, and even with her slowness, she nearly served cold tuna. When the entrees started, Josh quickly grew frazzled and, in his confusion, nearly burned their first order. He also fell behind T when she quickly walked up the salmon, and he had not finished the lamb. He lied that T had not let him know that she was getting ready to walk her salmon when she actually had. Josh made things worse by undercooking chicken for the chef's table. When Tatum O'Neil decided that her Wellington steak was too raw, she asked for a halibut instead, which T cooked for her with no problems. Ultimately, service was completed with a perfectly-cooked lamb from Josh, who had to recover from a series of mistakes and stumbles.

Elimination: At deliberation after service, Ramsay praised the final six for their strong service as one team, but he still asked them to go upstairs and nominate two for elimination. While Josh tried to persuade the team to nominate Nick due to his cold lobster tail, the team decided to nominate Josh, due to him causing confusion for the rest of the team during dinner service and Michelle as the second nominee due to her minor mistakes on the appetizers, as well as her slower speed compared to the others in the kitchen. After much thought, Ramsay decided, much to the other chefs' (especially Nick's) relief and delight, to finally eliminate Josh due to his long downward spiral, but praised him for his passion as well for bouncing back on this service after a string of bad services.

Challenge: The chefs had 45 minutes to make small plate dishes for the guests at a private concert which featured a performance by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music orchestra. The chefs then presented their dishes to the guests, each of whom ranked the chef's dishes from best to worst. Milly won the competition in a blowout decision, with a whole 55% of the guests preferring his dish over the others (the closest person to him was Meghan who only earned 18% of the votes) and when asked who he wanted to join him on his reward he chose T, even though she had the dish with the least amount of votes of only 3% preferring it.

Reward/punishment: While the losing chefs separated hand-ground peppercorns and set up the station for the next service, Milly and T took a helicopter tour of Los Angeles.

Service: Regular sous chefs Andi and James were given the night off, and each of the chefs took a turn acting as Ramsay's sous chef. Robert Davi, Charo and Winter Ave Zoli were also in attendance for this service. Milly earned praise for detecting scallops that were not seared on one side, but then took over the fish station and made the same mistake, and had troubles with the scallops for the rest of the service. He blamed this on Michelle, who had been working at the fish station, being the only one not to explain her station to Milly. Michelle annoyed the others during her turn as sous chef by constantly shouting "pick it up", though received praise from Chef Ramsay. T called out an order to Nick on the meat station, which he acknowledged. However, when they switched places later, T discovered that Nick had not started the order, which created a lengthy delay. Nick himself faltered on running the pass as a result of feeling the brunt of all of his mistakes, but ultimately managed to rally and get the final orders out to the guests. Only Meghan and T had flawless performances both in the kitchen and as sous chefs.

Elimination: The chefs quickly agreed on nominating Nick, but were divided as to who else should be nominated. Milly had a rough service, but T and Meghan did not want to put him up, so Michelle was selected by process of elimination. Ramsay was shocked to hear that Michelle had been nominated, and scolded the chefs for making a choice that reflected poorly on them, as he felt Milly made far more mistakes, despite being a superior sous chef. He called Nick and Milly forward. Nick had made some serious errors during services, which led to his elimination. However, Ramsay praised his overall strong performance in the competition.

Challenge: Ramsay brings the final four to a supermarket where each chef receives a limited budget of $25 and ten minutes inside to find the ingredients to create a good vegetarian dish. After that, they have thirty minutes to use the ingredients they bought to the make their dish for Ramsay. Despite the fact that all of the chefs struggled (bar Michelle, who had been vegetarian), Meghan wins the challenge with her zucchini angel hair pasta dish - her first challenge win in nine weeks. She later chose T to join her.

Reward/punishment: Meghan and T received a private parasailing view of Newport Beach, California and a three course dinner at Studio in Laguna Beach. Milly and Michelle have to clean the leaves out of the fountains, sweep the steps, and parking lot, as well as hand polishing the wood in the grand hall. In addition, Ramsay also tasks them to vacuum, shampoo, and clean the red carpet.

Service: Just prior to dinner service, family of the chefs were invited to meet them - Michelle's boyfriend and sister, Meghan's mother, T's girlfriend and daughter, and Milly's girlfriend and son, who Milly had based his challenge dish around. In attendance were Il Volo, Tamara Taylor and Taylor Hicks. Like the previous week, all the chefs had an opportunity at being head chef, with sous chef Andi filling in for the chef running as the leader. However, she would deliberately make errors in order to expose the chefs' weaknesses. Milly ran first, and despite failing to spot that crab meat had been put into the risotto instead of lobster, he received praise for his leadership, and pointed out mistakes the other chefs had made. However, in a move similar to last week, he struggled when returning to his station, making simple mistakes. Meghan ran next. She was considered a better, if more harsh leader, than Milly, though she also failed to spot the mistake when sea bass was used instead of halibut in the meal; Meghan had also confused the two, two episodes prior. During Meghan's time as chef, T struggled to make the wellington, and was reprimanded for taking so long to do so. Michelle went next, though was deemed the weakest leader. Despite constantly ordering her team, they paid little attention to her and Chef Ramsay kept reminding her to be more authoritative. Michelle initially spotted the mistake made by sous chef Andi, though later changed her mind upon tasting it, which led Ramsay to again help her. T was last to perform as head chef. Her solid leadership and ability to spot the mistake (the only one to successfully do so) meant she was deemed a good leader. Ramsay commended the chefs for doing so well, though told them all to think about who should be in the final two. Each chef chose themselves, meaning there was no overall consensus of who should be in the final. Meghan had the most votes, with only Milly voting against her.

Pre-challenge: Continued from the last episode, Ramsay introduced Christina Wilson, a previous winner of Hell's Kitchen. All of them flew out to Vegas for the final challenge.

Challenge: For the Meghan & T's final challenge, they both got one hour to create five dishes (one cold appetizer, one hot appetizer, one fish entree, one chicken entree and one beef entree) which would be judged by an array of top chefs who would decide the winner of the challenge. T ended up winning the last challenge.

Reward: As the winner of the challenge, T got the first pick of the last eight chefs eliminated. T’s first pick was Milly followed by Nick, Adam and last Christine. Meanwhile Meghan picked Michelle, Alison, Josh and was left with Randy when T picked Christine.

Service: The chef's tables for the final service include Tiffani Thiessen in T's kitchen and Lisa Loeb in Meghan's. In addition, Robert Englund and the finalists' families were also in attendance. Both Meghan and T's team's got through the appetizer stage pretty smoothly (even though there were come consistency issues with Michelle and Christine on their respective teams appetizer stations in the start of service). However T's team started slowing down at the entree stage as Adam struggled on the meat station, serving up undercooked meat repeatedly, which forced T to switch him with Nick on garnish. However T was forced to put Nick back on garnish again as Adam also was struggling on the garnish station too (Nick was later replaced with Christine for supporting Adam on garnish). Meghan's team also had some hiccups during service, as Randy constantly struggled with the chicken entree, which caused Meghan to switch him with Michelle on desserts. Despite these setbacks, both teams finished their service. This was the first final since season 10 in which a finalist did not throw a chef out of service.

Winner: After service was done Chef Ramsay congratulated both of the contestants on their strong services, and told them that he would have a hard time determine a winner. After analyzing the service and overall performance, he called both of them into his office where he praised both of the finalist for their performance up to that point. After he asked them to go to their respective doors where Meghan's door opened making her the 14th winner of Hell's Kitchen.