Hell's Kitchen season 23 episode 3 recap: Seafood struggles and three chefs go home

The third episode of Hell’s Kitchen: Head Chef’s Only premiered, and here is a simple recap of everything that happened.

After the first elimination, Magali was relieved she wasn’t the first to go home. After returning to the dorms, she couldn’t hold back her emotions while talking to Britany, stating that she should know how to cook fish. She then showed a picture of her husband on their wedding day. Magali’s husband is her most prominent supporter of getting to Hell’s Kitchen.

Early the following day, both teams received a very early morning wake-up call from Chef Michelle and James with pots and pans at 5:26 a.m. After running outside, Marino greeted them with a big truck full of fresh seafood. Marino explained that he had obtained the seafood for tonight’s service and now needed the chefs to carry the boxes inside the kitchen. After both teams moved all the seafood, they began to prepare for the day. However, due to heavy seafood, Uri and Shant started having back problems. However, Uri says he has suffered through back issues before, so this is nothing new to him.

Afterward, the teams lined up for today’s seafood tower challenge. Each chef was tasked with making one hot seafood dish, and each team member would compete against another member of the other team. Due to the red team having fewer members than the blue, Brandon and Egypt have had to cook against Hannah, with Egypt’s dish being the one that goes up against Hannah. Egypt and Hannah used oysters for their dish, and Ramsay liked both, so they both got a point. When Brittany and Shant presented their lobster dishes, Shant put too much frisée over the sauce of his dish, and while Brittany added a lot of caviar to her dish, Britany still ended up with the point. In the battle of the squid, Whit, with her squid, earned the point over Uri due to Uri having a lot of bok choy in his dish and not marinating it.

In the battle of the crab, due to Magali’s crab dish looking like a mess, Kyle and his dish earned the point. In both the battle of the prawns and the battle of the muscles, Amanda, Meghan, Anthony, and Michael get points for their teams.  When it was Lulu and Joe’s turn to present their crab dishes, Joe would earn the end, tying the score up for the men. In the deciding battle of the scallops between Ann Marie and Brandon, Brandon made the biggest mistake by overcooking the scallops, winning the challenge for the women.

The women’s reward was a day kayaking in the Mystic River, while the men’s punishment was preparing the rest of the seafood and cleaning 100 pounds of oysters. After both teams went back to the dorms, Shant, who was still feeling his back pain from carrying the seafood, went to the medic and told him he needed to go to the hospital. Shant would leave Hell’s Kitchen in a car with his unknown fate in the competition. While the women enjoyed the reward, the men started their punishment. However, Uri was still struggling with his back pain as well, and after talking to Chef James, he was allowed to try and rest in the hope that he would fix his pain.

Both teams prepared for the night’s dinner service when the woman returned from the challenge. Before Hell’s Kitchen opened, Ramsay announced that, due to being hospitalized, Shant would have to leave the competition, which shocked everyone. But it would get even worse when Uri asked to speak to Ramsay about his pain as well, as the nerve he pulled is getting worse. Uri also said he didn’t want to be in his team's way. So, when asked if he would also leave the competition, Uri said yes and gave a heartful goodbye to everyone.

With the dinner service fully underway, it would be a good night for the red team, as they would only make two mistakes the whole night. Those mistakes included a burnt pizza by Brittany on the first appetizer and Hannah and Meghan’s miscommunication on not getting a garnish ready for a salmon order. Aside from those two mistakes, the women could complete the dinner service.

In the blue kitchen, the men struggled a lot that night, with Egypt's ego clashing with his team again being the main issue. Egypt and Corbin would struggle at the fish station, as Egypt overcooked the scallops on the appetizer while the rest of the order looked ready to be served. Egypt would also struggle by sending up his salmon before Brandon’s strip steak was prepared to be sent up, which ended up with an overcooked salmon and undercooked strip steak.

On the VIP table order for New England Patriots (currently Atlanta Falcons) outside linebacker Matthew Judon, Corbin, when asked to help Brandon with the meats for the order, just stood there throwing his towel back between his hands. Ramsay called him out for it, calling him the Statue of Liberty. When the order was sent up, despite asking for 10 minutes to cook his meats, the lamb that Brandon cooked for the order was raw. Ramsay then asked them to apologize to Judon’s table, which they did. Despite that, the blue team would end up finishing service.

The blue team was declared the loser for making many more mistakes. When asked for two eliminations in the nominated ceremony, the men selected Egypt due to his struggles on the fish, his ego clashing with everyone, and Corbin for having an awful night on the fish station, standing around, and not helping Brandon with his meat. When asked what happened, Corbin stated that Egypt shut him out, while Egypt rebutted that Corbin stood there and shrank down and whispered to him, asking him what he needed. Corbin then stated that he thinks Egypt can handle everything without anyone’s help due to the ego issue, while Corbin responded by saying that a loud voice doesn’t mean an ego.

When asked for their pleas, Corbin says he is an incredibly hard worker and resilient, while Egypt proclaims that he’s here to win and the bad fish station performance doesn’t define him. Ramsay would end up eliminating Corbin for the lousy performance on the fish and just standing there when the team needed help, making that the third blue team chef to go home in this episode.