Pressure Cooker (2023) s01e04 Episode Script
Traitors
1
[dramatic music playing]
"The results from the Rise and Shine
challenge are in." [exhales]
"The winning dish that five out of seven
blind tasters preferred was
Chef Ed's French toast,
which means, Chef Brian,
you are eliminated."
Adios, amigos.
For me, that was really hard to choose.
I had to think about it,
like, three times before I chose one.
- It was really, really close.
- [Mike] Yeah, yeah.
- Good job, Brian.
- [Sergei] Good job.
Brian's eliminated, and honestly,
I feel a little bit indifferent, you know.
He had an opportunity, multiple
opportunities to show us what he's got.
You know,
he's in a house with a bunch of chefs
who clearly have proven themselves
in a space to get here.
Plates look fantastic and beautiful,
and I feel like he dragged his feet.
- [Caroline] Nice work.
- [Brian] Appreciate it, man.
Appreciate it. Appreciate it, brother.
[sighs]
[ethereal music playing]
[Brian] I wanted to win on so many levels.
Of course it's sad, but at least like,
I can go home knowing that
I put out the best dish that I could,
and you can't be mad at what you did.
I wonder who, uh,
who the two for Brian were.
- Uh, one of them was mine.
- Oh, one of them was yours. Okay.
It was hard to decide.
End of the day, I thought,
"What would I wanna eat again?"
Yep.
- Like, what would I wanna eat again?
- Yeah.
And that's between us.
Yeah, I'm not gonna [chuckles]
- Yeah, that's what I wanted to eat again.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[Brian] This is the coolest thing
I ever did.
Besides getting married
and having a little boy,
this is by far
the dopest shit I've ever done.
It's pushed me to the next level.
I've already ripped my menu up
for my restaurant.
I have a lot of cool ideas.
I learned different techniques,
and, you know, little tricks
and it's really, really cool.
You're not gonna learn this nowhere else,
and I'm grateful for that.
[heartfelt music playing]
[Robbie chuckles]
Brother, I'm chasing you.
[tense music playing]
I'm chasing you, man.
'Cause I know you feel it.
I know you feel it.
You did what you had to do.
And he went out on a plate, dude.
[exhales]
But I know you feel it.
[sobbing]
It's a tough thing.
But he's gonna be all right. [exhales]
[Ed] I'm not really
a outwardly emotional person.
It's not my, you know
It's not how we were raised
in the Bronx, to be honest.
And so the fact that
I would have this rush of emotions
is new to me and unexpected.
You know, Brian was on my team
not once but twice.
Um, the fact that, you know,
we're eating, cleaning, battling
and judging one another,
the marination process
for our bonds is a lot shorter
than it would be with X factors
from the outside world.
All we got is us. This is it.
I wanna give you another hug.
With that being said, I wanna win.
Period. That's without a doubt.
Having to knock off one of your boys
in order to get there,
that's a tough nut to crack.
[alarm blaring]
- Okay, guys, come on.
- Oh!
Come on. Come on, team.
[Robbie] You got it?
- [Lana] Seafood. Oysters!
- [Ed] Hamachi.
- [chattering]
- [Lana] Oysters, clams and cockles.
- [Mike] Oh, fava beans!
- [Caroline] Serg, labneh.
[Mike] Mike loves a good fava bean.
So we get a delivery today.
It's all these beautiful,
gorgeous spring vegetables and fruits.
There's, like, veal. There's rib eye.
There's rhubarb.
There's fava beans and stinging nettles.
And it's all this extra fish too.
There's oysters and mussels.
Kind of see
how everyone's getting all excited.
What's the next challenge
gonna be with all this food?
- [Mike] Mushroom city.
- Oh, guys.
- [Renee] What?
- [Caroline] Got aprons.
- [Renee groans]
- Oh, two teams. I'm gonna go get 'em.
You know what? I just wanna take one
of these and, like, a Frisbee. [chuckles]
[Caroline] Hey,
you wanna go look out there?
[mysterious music playing]
- [Renee] It's blue aprons and green ones.
- [Ed] And green ones.
[Mike] Oh, shoot.
Me, Robbie, Lana and Jeana.
We were all on the red team
for the last team challenge.
We did pretty good, and we won.
Why try to fix something
that's not broken?
We're allowed to choose teams?
We should keep it, as we said,
but I don't know
if that's gonna be the case.
- [bell chimes]
- [computer] Ticket printing.
[whirring]
Aw, thank you.
Thank you so much, ticket machine. Huh.
- This one's you.
- [gasps]
All right, guys.
"Chefs, tonight you'll be
hosting a dinner party."
- Hey!
- [Sergei] Hey!
"Each team must present a five-course menu
inspired by the four seasons."
Instantly I kind of get, like,
a little knot in my stomach.
"Eleven guests
will be your blind tasters."
- [Mike] Whoo!
- Eleven guests?
I'm literally excited about this
because this is what I do
on a regular day-to-day basis.
"Five courses, four seasons, two teams."
"It's up to all of you to decide
who you wanna cook with."
I have that nervousness in me
about how the teams get picked.
So far, in this challenge,
I've done very well with single and duos.
But my team was the losing team
the last time
we did a big challenge like this,
So there's a certain amount
of, uh, anxiousness about it,
and I'm a little worried as
to what's gonna happen.
I wanna walk away from the machine,
but I feel like as soon as I walk away,
it's gonna [imitates ticket machine]
- Walk away. Walk away.
- [Renee] Okay.
- Um, I'm gonna go drink about this.
- [Ed laughs]
[tense music playing]
Lana and I have kind of been paired up
or matched up for every single event.
Team challenge, whatnot,
from the beginning till now.
I work well on a team.
I work well leading a team, plus just
being a support player on the team.
So whatever role I'm meant to play,
I'm good with it.
I also like the team dynamic
between Lana and Jeana and Mike.
I don't know. You guys wanna do this?
- [laughs] Then it's done.
- [Renee] Done.
[Sergei] I wanna work with you.
- I'm down.
- I wanna work with Caroline.
- Talk to her.
- [Lana] How you guys feeling?
[Sergei] We were just talking
about how you are the swing vote.
[Jeana] 'Cause I feel like Sergei
and Caroline actually just really meld.
I really wanna work with you. I feel like
we have a really strong communication.
Initially, Mike and Jeana and Robbie,
we thought maybe that we should all try
and stay as El Diablos.
But as I start to mull it over
a little bit more,
I'm realizing Sergei and Caroline
are two very talented chefs,
and this is a competition.
I feel like maybe I should try
to branch out and work with someone new.
To be quite honest, this is,
I think, my most comfortable
I hate the anxiety
of trying to make a choice.
So this actually was a hard one.
I didn't come here
to be the most popular girl.
I came here to cook food.
I think we just need to decide sooner
than later so we can just start talking.
It's just about somebody saying,
"Hey, this is the decision" and doing it.
- [Lana] Let's do it.
- [Caroline] Okay, I'm down.
- [Jeana] Hey, so, guys.
- Sí.
For me, personally, um,
I think that the best team
that I would like is
to work with Sergei and Caroline,
and I would love, Lana,
if you joined our team.
Team Sergeline won the last challenge.
Maybe Jeana's the smartest person
in the house.
Jeana's a survivor,
but everyone here is talented.
If you weren't talented,
you wouldn't be in the Pressure Cooker.
I know we chatted earlier.
I know that there's ideas,
and I think just
[sighs] Yeah,
this is actually kind of hard.
- Like, honestly, like yeah.
- If you're going on that team, go on, man.
Sorry. I gotta go
where the Mexican heart wants.
Yeah, yeah.
The second I saw the challenge,
it changed everything for me.
- Okay.
- Go play, boo boo.
- Go play.
- True that. [chuckles]
- Let's start talking.
- Let's do it.
- [Renee] Mike.
- You know what that means. Let's do it.
You know, when you have this many
intense personalities in one setting,
it's only a matter of time before someone
does something to piss someone off.
Not that I'm,
like, team leader or anything,
but I'll just start the conversation
once the two traitors go away.
The what? The two what?
While I am happy with my team,
I am feeling some sort of way
that my girl Lana
just kind of, like,
threw me off to the side.
Uh, she did it rather quickly
to go work with Caroline and Sergei.
I'm a little bit hurt that she just
kind of, like, threw it by the wayside
for an unproven formula.
[Mike] Saying you're gonna
do something and not doing it,
that's called lying, okay?
- I'm just saying. I'm just saying.
- Mike, that's not fair.
[Mike] So last time I was on a team
with Robbie, Lana and Jeana,
and it worked really well.
So I'm little confused. I'm like, what?
Like, I thought we had the team settled.
You know?
So I'm a little confused about this.
That, uh, that doesn't feel too great.
Listen, we're not trying to lie.
We're just trying to be honest, actually.
Hey, look, listen.
Strategy is strategy, whatever.
You know,
when you hear through the grapevine,
through all the talks
that everybody's been having,
Team Lana's still, you know,
or El Diablo, whatever, is still intact,
I just thought it was really weird
that they just kind of, like,
jumped ship like that.
But I think what they did was try
to put the weakest links in a group,
not really realizing that they put two
of the strongest people,
myself and Mike, together,
because we do multiple dinner parties
per week as a living.
So yeah, thanks, uh, Lana, Jeana.
Let's go sit somewhere
- [Robbie] You wanna go sit at the table?
- Sit at the table? Yeah.
- Wanna go in our bedroom?
- Let's go.
We have two empty beds,
so it's just me and Jeana in our bedroom.
- No one's coming in.
- Yeah, yeah.
What Lana and Jeana did
definitely divided the house.
I definitely am starting to choose sides
at this point.
And now I wanna beat them even more
just to show them
that they made the wrong choice.
- [bell chimes]
- [whirring]
[computer] Ticket printing.
[Caroline] Ticket?
[Sergei] Ticket.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed exhales] All right.
"Time for
the Seasonal Specials challenge."
"Both teams must serve one dish per season
and a fifth dish that represents
all four seasons."
"You have 90 minutes
to start prepping all your dishes
and drop your first course."
"A team of servers will deliver the dishes
to your blind tasters."
"Your dinner guests are on their way."
"The challenge starts now."
[clock beeping]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed] In a restaurant setting,
you have prep cook, a line cook,
a sous-chef and a chef.
To be all of those things at once
in a team of four is a great challenge.
[Robbie] Were we talking
about these caviars?
- [Mike] These guys.
- [Robbie] Okay.
Now typically in real life,
there's one person in charge,
and everybody just listens to them.
Because I do tasting menus for a living,
I figure I kind of try to take as much
of the reins on this as I can,
you know, obviously taking everyone's
thoughts into consideration.
And I think we've come
to a pretty good menu.
- There more side towels down here?
- There's more on the back line.
So our menu, obviously we have to
go by the different seasons.
So I figured the easiest way
to tie everything in together
with different flavors, etc.,
is just to do a vegetable-forward menu.
We're highlighting vegetables.
That makes sense
because it's different seasons.
I'm gonna work that gnocchi dough first.
My team, the Green Team, we are doing
a menu based on California seasonal,
inspired by Latin flavors.
And this dinner with all these people
definitely feels representative
of, you know, of a busy night's service
in a restaurant or in a kitchen.
- Ed, did you put water on or no?
- Yes.
- All right, thank you. For pasta?
- [Ed] Yep.
Okay
My dish was actually the third course,
but I need to make sure
I have extra time to do it.
This is what a kitchen feels like,
and the reason is the timing.
That first 90 minutes,
we have to do all the prep
for the rest of these courses. Imperative.
- How's everyone looking?
- [Caroline] Getting there.
Getting there slowly,
but quickly at the same time.
I am responsible for the first course,
which is winter.
[blender whirring]
- Get a taste right now. Yeah.
- Oh, perfect. Yeah, I'm in. I'm ready.
For the last team challenge, I did a very,
like, Asian-style hamachi with a ponzu.
This is more of, like, a Mexican crudo
aguachile negro
and a blood orange citrus gel.
Very different technique.
My aguachile's got
12 different ingredients in it,
so a much different flavor profile
as well.
[Robbie] Raw fish on the first course!
I already know what's up.
- How you feeling?
- Good.
[Robbie] Is it smooth?
- [blender whirring]
- Super smooth.
For the first dish,
um, I am in charge of winter.
It will be a soup duet.
It's going to be a sweet parsnip soup
as well as a spicy winter squash soup
served together.
So sort of like a yin and a yang
and have two flavors
that play well together,
but, uh, also complement.
It's a party in one bowl,
but clear differences of which is which.
[clock beeping]
[suspenseful music playing]
- It's good.
- Will you help me frond?
- [Caroline] Yes.
- [Sergei] Will you help me frond?
No, not you, you got next course.
Just stay over there.
What I'm gonna do is fill them up
and then just pour at the same time.
- Okay. We gotta go.
- [Ed] Make sense?
[Sergei] I couldn't have imagined
a more sexy plate.
[Caroline] Beautiful.
- We gotta get it in the oven soon.
- Yeah, I know.
Okay, sorry. I love you.
- I gotta plate.
- I know. I know. I'm about to help you
- [woman] Oh, my God.
- [man] Y'all have fun.
- [woman gasps]
- [Jeana] Oh, my God!
[screams]
Okay.
It's our families.
Ugh! I didn't think
it was gonna happen like that.
[kisses]
- [laughs]
- [Caroline] Beyond excited Matt is here.
It feels great to see his smiling face.
Strange seeing him in this environment,
but it feels really nice to see him.
Okay, stay together.
[Caroline] Yes, yes, yes.
Who walks through the door
but my fiancée and my mother?
I've missed them so much. It just means
the world to me that they're here.
- We might as well hug it out and go.
- No, no, no, no, no, we're good.
[Renee] So we are in battle, okay?
Me and my battle buddies.
Who do I see?
Bree Bree. My boo thing.
My everything. My person.
She just put a smile on my face.
I knew that you couldn't probably
even see my eyeballs.
All right. Cool, cool, cool.
But I gotta focus. This is not about that.
I will see you when I see you. But I am
here for the 100K, for the schmoney.
And I need to stay focused.
[Mike] Oh, my gosh.
[Jeana] Taste this.
If you need me to adjust the salt level,
I can add more stuff to it.
Perfect. Oh, my God. Yum.
Guys, we're gonna need some help.
Time check. Time check.
[Lana] Nine seconds.
[man] Who are you here for?
Eddie. Ed. The cute one over there.
- Oh, I see him. Yeah. [laughs]
- They look busy.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Sergei] Uh, service!
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Nice and gentle.
- Know what all this stuff is? You do.
- Yeah.
- [laughing]
- It looks really good.
All right, guys.
- [Jason] Starting already?
- [Bree] Thank you.
[Jennifer] Thank you so much.
[Bree] Oh, wow.
[Jennifer] Oh, my goodness.
[Sergei] It feels
like it's a real restaurant
'cause they are outside diners,
and some people are not foodies,
and some people
don't really go out to eat that often.
[Jason] What do we got here?
- [Joey] "Seasons to remember." Ooh.
- [Bree] Do we just, uh, dig in?
hamachi first.
I love the hamachi
with, um, the blood orange.
Oh, my goodness.
- [Katelyn] Mm-hmm.
- [Matt] I really like the citrus gel too.
It's really good.
I like the sauce.
[Sergei] My girlfriend Joey,
she means the world to me.
She ended up becoming the pastry chef
at the restaurant I worked at,
and she just understands
what it takes to be in this industry.
- Nice, good acid.
- Tastes better than it looks.
- Yes.
- It looked a little scary.
But I think she's probably
gonna be a tough critic, you know.
I ate some big pieces too, actually.
[Sergei] She's gonna find those details,
and this is a blind tasting, you know.
She doesn't know which dish is mine.
[Katelyn] Should we try the next one?
I'm excited to try it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed] I'm feeling confident
because I know for a fact
that visually and flavor profile-wise,
this is not an average soup.
This is no Campbell's pop-the-top,
microwave soup whatsoever.
This is the highest of the high,
very succulent,
velvety smooth food fit for royalty.
This is really good.
[Ed] It's super emotional
to see my fiancée Jennifer.
Not having her by my side daily
has been hard.
Nobody sees the pounds of potatoes
that you have to peel,
you know, working the doubles.
But it's who I am.
So the fact that she doesn't try
to change that part of me
is why we're so good for each other.
That's delicious.
It's like the right amount of kick.
- I liked both of them.
- [Bree] Yeah.
- [Jennifer] Yeah.
- [Jeff] This is gonna be really hard.
[Robbie] For the second course,
I'm making a chilled asparagus salad
with poached lobster, caviar,
fines herbes vinaigrette,
some frozen horseradish.
But for all 11 plates of salad,
I have to peel a ton of asparagus. Whew!
I'm turning green. I'm turning green!
Need to get water going?
Oh, yeah, can we get water on?
Heard that.
I'm responsible
for the second course, which is spring.
And I'll be making the green garlic mole
with ricotta gnocchi, peas,
asparagus, morels
and pickled beets.
[Lana] It's different
than a classic gnocchi.
It's a little more unique, a little
more fun, a little more flavorful.
I preferred to do the gnocchi myself,
but Lana wanted
to make the ricotta gnocchi,
even though I said that I could make it,
that I've made them many times.
But she said that she loved making them,
and she knew she could make them
exactly how she wanted.
So we all said, "Great.
You sound certain of it. Let's do it."
Uh, gnocchi dough is ready to party.
Caroline, you want me
to start rolling gnocs?
[Caroline] I'm coming here now,
but if you can give me a hand.
- [Lana] I'm gonna do 'em with my fingers.
- [Caroline] Yeah.
One of the biggest challenges
of a team challenge
is wanting to get your point across,
but also wanting to collaborate.
Wanting to say no
to things that you don't agree with,
but not wanting to say no all the time.
So it really is a fine line.
[Lana] All right, Caroline.
Renee, Mike, we're gonna need you guys.
All right.
Our team,
we're all laser-focused on the goal.
You win as a team, or you fail as a team.
Is that cranking, Ed?
So Mike has this idea
to accompany the lobster dish
with horseradish and cream frozen pearls
utilizing liquid nitrogen.
Guys, coming around insanely cold.
[Ed] It's this savory ice cream.
[Mike] Right behind you.
The moment we've all been waiting for.
I essentially make,
like, a horseradish ice cream base
and then I drip that into liquid nitrogen.
So surface tension makes a ball,
but then it freezes
before it hits the NO2.
These frozen little pearls
that I think are gonna go great
on the cold lobster salad.
- Looks like Halloween.
- Bill Nye the Science Guy over here.
[Mike] Hot, hot, hot.
Just kidding, it's cold.
- Sergei, pass me the arugula, arugula.
- [Sergei] Arugula.
[Ed] All right, we gotta plate.
[tense music playing]
Okay, so what's next?
[Caroline] Start with the little noodies.
[Ed] Sexy slices, Robbie.
Sexy slices.
- [Caroline] Oh, Sergy.
- Oh, God, what would I do without you?
Ed, we gotta wipe
this little part right here.
[Ed] Service, service, service, please.
They're going.
[Robbie] Please.
Just like this please, thank you.
Just like this, please.
Thank you, thank you.
[Jennifer] Thank you.
- Oh. Ooh.
- [Bree] Oh, wow. Beautiful presentation.
- Thank you.
- [Jennifer] That's a big deal right here.
[Jeff] Start with the bowl?
[woman] A taste of lime.
- [Jennifer] What's your impression?
- It's not bad. Got a little spice on it.
There's a lot of sauce.
I think it could be less sauce.
I don't know.
I feel like the sauce is overpowering.
Nice green color though.
I'm happy that my husband Matt is here.
He is my super talented
chef business partner,
so I know he's gonna be harsh.
We go out to eat together all the time,
and we cook together all the time,
and we are each other's harshest critics.
Like, for me, the gnocchi is
maybe not as pillowy as it should be.
I know that he is going to be
a very honest,
but, um, critical blind taster.
It's not very soft. Like, light.
- Yeah.
- Seems overcooked to me a little bit.
- I like garlic, but it's overpowering.
- [Matt] Mm.
[Bree] Could have used,
like, some acidity. Something.
I I agree.
I think it's missing something.
I don't think it lives up
to the first two dishes.
Yeah. All right, let's try the lobster.
[Bree] Here we go.
[Jeff] Good luck.
[Robbie] Family walking through the door
definitely raises the stakes.
I know now
that they're gonna be tasting my food.
It's a little unnerving 'cause
my fiancée doesn't really like lobster.
Wow.
In all reality, I just want to be great
for them while they're here.
Yeah, this is really good.
- Oh, my God, yeah.
- [Jennifer] What are you feeling?
- [Joey] I like the lobster.
- I do too.
[Joey] It's just not drowned with sauce,
and it has the two sauces,
like horseradish sauce,
and it's kind of nicely placed
that it's not overpowering.
- [Jennifer] Right.
- Not one flavor one-noting it.
Complements each other.
You just want 'em toasted, yeah?
- [Renee] Got the citrus?
- [Ed] I'll get some.
[Renee] All right.
- [Lana] How you looking?
- A lot to be done.
If you guys want, I can start this
brown butter and help you with something.
I decided to go with branzino today
for our third course.
The corn is coming together.
The tomato butter is fire,
and I make a mean chimichurri.
[whirring]
- Guys, does anyone have a lemon or no?
- [Renee] No.
I do. Oh. I don't need it. Okay.
- He's got it. Sorry, wrong team.
- [laughs] Forgot which team you're on?
- I just have an extra one, so
- Look at you being so kind and whatnot.
[chuckles] I'm ready at all times.
Blue Team, how we looking?
You guys feeling good?
Looking good, boo. Looking good.
The third course is actually my dish,
something I run a lot in the summer,
corn agnolotti, and that's going with
just, like, some roasted corn as a garnish
and then a harissa froth.
So we're gonna do something
a little spicy and a little bit sweet.
- Yo, Renee, you got a spoon?
- Yeah.
Taste this.
This is, uh, one half the filling.
Here. You got it?
- Good?
- Yeah. Don't forget about the sage too.
[Mike] Oh, dried sage, yeah.
- Pasta's down?
- [Ed] Pasta's down.
That needs something.
- What are you talking about?
- [Lana] My succotash. Try it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Sergei] Let's go stock.
[Lana] Let's get stock.
- [Renee] Twenty seconds.
- [Mike] Beautiful, guys.
[Lana] Do they look like summer?
[Robbie] Any finishing touches
on this before we go?
- Okay?
- Perfect. Then zest that one last boy.
- [Renee] Looks beautiful, Mike.
- [Lana] The cook on the fish is crispy.
[Robbie] Service!
- Yes, this is served.
- [chattering]
[Jennifer] Thank you.
[server] We have a special sauce
coming for this.
[Jennifer] Okay.
[Bree] Popcorn on there. Wow.
Yeah. It's really pretty.
To me, they're both, like, neck and neck
as far as, like, presentation, yeah.
- [Joey] It's definitely very summery.
- [Bree, Jennifer] Yeah.
[chattering]
[Joey] It looks good.
I think I'm gonna like the fish.
[Jason] Yeah, this looks cool.
Mm!
Like this? What do you think?
- [Matt] Wow, look at you.
- [Joey] Oh, wow.
[Lana] I decided to go with branzino today
because it's my mother's favorite fish,
and then, you know, here she is.
So the irony of the situation,
so I know that
she will have an inkling
that this dish is mine.
That tomato butter is amazing.
[Lana] Cooking for my friends
and family is probably one
of the best parts of my career.
Having the skill set to impress those
that I love the most with a plate of food,
it's why I do what I do.
It's spicier
than I thought it was gonna be.
[Joey] Okay, let's try the pasta.
[Bree] Popcorn on top.
[Joey] Oh, there's some bacon
in the corn. Ooh!
[Mike] I cannot believe my parents,
especially my mom,
are in this blind taste test
'cause my parents are
your standard American family.
They don't really know
what super fancy food is.
Sauce is good,
even though I don't know what harissa is.
- [Jeff, Laurie laughing]
- I don't either, but
Yeah, does it taste like
caramel corn or something?
[Jason] Yeah, kind of digging this one.
Yeah.
- [Jason] It's good, huh?
- It adds a little, like, nuttiness.
[Jason] Yeah.
- It's real good.
- Wow, that is really good.
[Robbie] We're gonna be able how you
feeling about cooking the rest in that?
[Mike] It's halfway rendered.
The fourth course,
we're all gonna work on together.
Uh, I really want to do a duck breast.
I've cooked a million duck breasts
in my life, so I know how to do it.
We gotta do fall flavors. We're
definitely using some root vegetables,
and then we're gonna glaze it
gastrique.
So that's kind of like
a duck l'orange, a play on it.
- Jeana.
- [Jeana] Yes.
- Your balls are done?
- No, they're not done yet.
My dish, which is fourth course,
albondigas,
which is kind of like
a Mexican-style meatball.
I thought doing something
that incorporated spices and flavors
would be a good representation of fall.
Uh, which grind do I want?
Bigger grind.
I've ground a lot of meats in the past,
and usually when I'm doing
my burger grind, I use a bigger grind
because there's a lot of fat,
and it breaks up.
I didn't take into consideration that
[chuckles] that lamb loin
is actually very lean.
So by grinding it in these big pieces,
they're not gonna break up.
So I kind of grind it a little bit
too big, and I just gotta go with it,
because, like, time is ticking
and I want to stay on time,
so that way if there's any adjustments
I need to make, I can.
- They're done. I just need to form them.
- [Lana] Shaped?
- [Jeana] Not yet.
- [Lana] We gotta get that done.
If you're making a meatball
in this competition, it better be good.
[Ed] For real.
- [Jeana] Enough or should I grind in pork?
- [Sergei] That's plenty.
It's not very ground though.
- What?
- [Sergei] Is that big chunks?
- No, no, it's ground.
- Okay. Okay, okay, okay.
Gremolata done.
- Cut it up. All right.
- Beautiful. Looks good. Looks good.
[Jeana] Come on.
[grunts] Just bake.
Hey, do we have a duck demi-glace yet?
Yep, I'm already working.
We got demi-glace?
We got carrots, gremolata?
[Ed] Demi's there.
- Carrots are in here cooking.
- You're working the gremolata?
Good job.
Okay, guys, guys, guys, don't worry.
They're going for duck.
[Caroline] I saw.
[Jeana] I see the tension between teams.
There are some people, like, dogging
on each other, which is stressing me out.
- [Renee] I tasted their fish. It's trash.
- Yeah, trash, yeah.
I just have to kind of stay in my lane
and make sure
my team's dishes are going up.
Really nice.
More turnips.
It looks nice.
- You wanna taste that purée?
- Yeah, I tasted it. It's fine.
Good? Beautiful.
[Robbie] Cutting duck, bro.
[Mike] Slicing.
[Robbie] Do we need a paintbrush?
[Lana] And what I'm looking at,
I'm enjoying what I'm seeing.
It looks fantastic, Mama.
Shaking a little bit. That's weird.
[suspenseful music builds]
Service, service, service. Let's go!
[Jennifer] Yeah. Thank you.
Ooh! [laughs]
- [chattering, laughing]
- [Joey] Oh, wow.
[all] Cheers.
To our chefs.
- Yeah.
- Cheers.
- [Jeff] Here we go.
- [Bree] Oh, my goodness, I can smell it.
This is, like,
the first course that I can smell.
I love that they're lamb meatballs.
- [laughs]
- Going in.
Ooh. Is that meatball done enough?
- No.
- It looks like there's, um
The crunchy part around the outside
is definitely good.
- [Joey] Mm-hmm.
- [Jason] Inside's kinda mushy.
Inside is kinda mushy.
I like the flavor,
but it's a lot of flavor at once.
Like, the meatball flavor,
the jus is really flavored.
- [Joey] The pickled veg, kind of intense.
- Yeah.
- It's a lot to process.
- Oh, yeah.
[Joey] All right, let's try the duck.
[Jason] Okay, it looks fantastic.
- I love a good duck.
- [Joey] Mm.
- I think it's cooked just right.
- [Laurie] Mm.
- Great.
- It is cooked really nicely.
- Yeah, I think it's cooked perfectly.
- Yeah. Mm-hmm.
And you know what?
I thought I wouldn't like
the, um, the purée, but it is very good.
- [Crystal] It is good.
- You don't like it?
- No. I love it.
- Oh, it is good.
The celeriac has, like, a weird, like,
coating on the tongue or something.
Mm. I can do without that.
[Katelyn chuckles] But I will admit
this duck is done really good.
- The duck is
- Very well-prepared.
[Bree] It's really good.
Sugar and eggs, drizzle in oil.
I need some zest.
[Renee] So I've got some, uh,
mango purée I'm about to jump into.
- [Jeana] Are you dessert?
- [Renee] Uh, yeah.
You guys should be very scared
at that point.
It's time for the fifth course.
The sweet finale.
We encompass fall, spring, summer, winter
and in one collective dish.
- My tamarind gel is setting right now.
- [Robbie] Mm-hmm.
So I could blend it
in the blender afterwards.
Cookie, done, waving it to cool down
before I make crumble out of it.
I'm fully in charge of making sure that
this dessert comes together beautifully.
We have a mango mousse cheesecake
with candied rhubarbs.
There's some macerated mango
as well as some nectarine.
It comes together really nicely
with a nice coconut cookie crumble.
You taste beautiful spices of cardamom.
I mean, literally, are you hungry yet?
Hoo-hoo!
[Jeana sighs] All right, set that there.
For dessert, we are going to be doing
a blood orange lemon olive oil cake.
A corn pastry cream to represent summer.
We're gonna do
a rose meringue to represent spring.
I'm making cranberry sorbet
to represent fall
and then blood orange to represent winter.
We gotta go. Yeah.
- [Sergei] Convection, yeah?
- [Jeana] Sure, go for it.
Speaking of cakeesh,
coming around hot. Watch your face.
[Renee exhales]
My mousse has gone awry.
I'm a little worried at this point.
It's not gonna firm up,
and this has got me concerned.
You're right. You're right.
With the history of things not setting
in dessert courses in this house,
it is a little unnerving
to see the cheesecake mousse
might not be setting up.
- [Mike] The mousse isn't?
- [Robbie] It is not set.
[Mike] How bad though? How bad, like
[Robbie] I'd say 50-50.
Oh, wait, where's this mousse
we're talking about?
Chiller. Still in the blast.
- Mine is good. Yep.
- Watch out.
Beautiful. Okay, let's
Do we wanna just gentle liquid nitrogen
on this to freeze it?
Shoot,
I'll just pour liquid nitrogen on it.
- [Robbie] I got it over here, behind me.
- [Ed] This is good.
Guys, this is gonna work, totally.
[Ed] Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
All right, but how long is it gonna set?
I mean, stay.
Oh, shoot, it's cracking.
- [Ed] So
- Well
- [Ed] Well, let it
- [Renee] Cold will take care of that.
Yeah, I'm gonna put this
in the regular freezer.
- It's probably colder.
- [Renee] All right.
After I put the liquid nitrogen
on the cheesecake,
the bottom was set 100%,
but the top was almost like
a really, really thick whipped cream.
This is almost better
to get two different textures.
I could tell you
it's set way more than the panna cotta.
- [Renee laughs] We not gonna
- [Robbie] RIP.
[Ed] We had a plan B,
but then Mike comes in with a plan C.
And it worked out better than we imagined.
Mike is he's the wizard.
The Force is strong with that one.
Of all the challenges we've done,
I wanna win this one the most.
[Jeana] Fantastic.
- [Caroline] It's perfect.
- Okay.
- Corny?
- [smacks lips] Yes.
[clock beeping]
[tense music playing]
[Robbie] There's that
bakery skill right there.
- [Sergei] Nice. Nice and clean there.
- [Ed] Good?
Winter, spring, summer, fall?
- Yep.
- It's all there, baby.
Service, please!
[mysterious music playing]
[Jennifer] You guys
will hear me all night saying wow.
[diners laughing]
[Jennifer] Oh, that looks cute!
Ooh! Thank you.
- Wow.
- [Matt] Ooh!
[Jennifer] Oh, interesting.
The presentation on this one is beautiful.
[Matt] My plates are a little chilled,
so that's good.
[Jeff] All right,
let's see what we got here.
[Joey] The olive oil cake.
- [Jennifer] Oh, my God.
- Mm!
It's very good.
I like the cake alone.
It's very good alone.
This cranberry is just a little too much.
- Yes. Don't tempt me with a good time.
- [laughing]
[Bree] You don't have to tell me twice.
- There's some bitterness in it.
- Mm-hmm.
Maybe like the blood orange?
- It's good though.
- I like it though.
- After everything we've eaten
- [Jennifer] It's kind of light. Simple.
- Yeah.
- [Jeff] I like it. It's not super sweet.
- That thing's a flavor blast right there.
- [Joey] Yeah.
Ooh, I'm excited
for this cheesecake mousse.
[Matt] Hey.
- Mm! Oh, my God.
- [laughing]
Oh! This is doing the good things.
- [Katelyn] That is my yes.
- This is doing the good things. [laughs]
- I never had an affinity to rhubarb.
- Really? Oh.
But let me see.
I could change my mind.
It's all mousse.
I want more cheesecake, right?
The tamarind brings out a good fall.
- Like, flavors.
- There's a lot going on on this plate.
- There is a lot going on.
- [laughs] A lot of different things.
This is good
because you can't even taste the coconut.
[Jason laughs] There's coconut in it too?
Everything's in this.
It's well-executed.
[Jennifer] Such an intense experience
over there.
[Jeff] In the Pressure Cooker
for three weeks
[Matt] Pressure forms diamonds.
- [mutters]
- [Jennifer] Oh!
Okay! [laughing]
- Cheers. Cheers to that.
- Cheers to that. [laughing]
Dinner has been served. We crushed it.
We murdered it.
We murdered the other team.
They're obsolete.
They're done. Someone's going home.
I know it,
and it's not anyone from our side.
- [Katelyn] All right, time to vote.
- [Jason] I'll get this.
[Bree] You looked first so you pay.
- You pay. [laughs]
- I'll take care of it, don't worry.
[Joey] So this,
we just put comments on each one?
Oh, my goodness. How do we choose?
[Mike] What are you thinking?
So honestly, I think presentation-wise,
we got 'em beat.
Yeah.
[Mike] You see any flaws?
Anything like that? I noticed their cake.
It's not a nice shape. It's falling apart.
You know what that means? It's dry.
Hey, nice work. Nice work.
Uh, Serg, get in here.
- [all groan, laugh]
- Nice job.
- Pleasure doing battle with you guys.
- Pleasure. Pleasure.
- Pleasure.
- Beautiful.
[Caroline] In the house,
there's obviously now two teams,
and the two teams are fully separated.
Everyone just wants to win.
Of course, then that means
then maybe some tensions might arise,
and in a pressure moment
when you have a million things going on
and you see your competitors right there,
emotions come up.
But right now,
we need to focus on our family members.
- [Jason] The doors!
- [all cheering]
- Hey!
- Yeah!
- Hey!
- [Robbie] Hey!
- [chefs] Aww!
- [Robbie cries]
[chefs laugh]
- Hi.
- [laughing]
[all chattering]
[Caroline] Aw.
[woman] Hello.
- You wanna see the house?
- Yeah, yeah, let's go. Let's go.
- Aw, somebody's
- It's fine.
It's fine. They've seen me cry a lot.
[Lana] That's her husband. Caroline!
- These are my parents.
- [Caroline] Hey!
- Hi, I'm Lana.
- Hi, Lana, nice to meet you.
- [Lana] Nice to meet you too.
- Do you do hugs?
- [Caroline] It's so nice to meet you.
- Heard a lot about you.
- You know Matt. [chuckles]
- Yes, yes, we met Matt.
[Lana] My parents
are very important to me.
I love them both so, so, so much.
I am a true mixed child.
I'm a mutt of New York City.
My father is German, Italian
and Puerto Rican, and my mother is Black.
I've been exposed to so many
different cultures and types of food.
I think having an interesting and eclectic
background has only made me a better chef.
- Cute.
- Right?
- You know, made my bed and all that stuff.
- Purse.
- Made sure the sneakers is yes.
- Very proud.
- Oh, you have [laughs]
- I got you guys on the wall.
- [Bree] Oh, I love this.
- [Renee] You know?
Seeing Bree definitely puts
a light on my face.
I needed that.
I felt like I was back home again.
I wanna go as far as I possibly can
in this competition.
So we can put a little bling, bling, bling
on that finger,
so I could claim her for life
and annoy her forever.
- Hey, yeah, hi!
- This is Caroline.
- Hi. I'm Joey.
- This is Joey.
- Hi. How are you? Serge.
- [Matt] Matthew.
- Nice to meet you.
- [Matt] Nice to meet you.
- Sitting next to each other.
- [Sergei] I saw that.
[Joey laughs] Nice.
[Sergei] Nice.
You know,
Caroline's got a very tall husband.
I'm over here, looking up like, "Hey."
- [Caroline] Sitting next to each other?
- [Joey] Yeah.
It was nice 'cause we both
could, like, chat about food and like
- [Caroline] Because you're pastry? Nice.
- Yeah.
But you're a chef too, right?
Private chef. Okay.
You're together. Right.
Both in the private chef game.
- Love that. Very cool.
- [Caroline] Yeah.
- [Sergei] Very cool.
- Yeah.
Uh, Matt and Sergei met.
It was like
my real husband meeting my work husband,
and you know, seeing them together,
you know, it was nice to see,
like, the two worlds colliding.
Sergei and Caroline,
they do a lot of giggling
and a lot of whispering
and a lot of, like, "hee hee."
And I've seen them, you know,
go behind closed doors a few times.
I'm sure nothing's happening.
They're both happily in "relationships."
[chuckles]
- We're going in the confessional.
- Okay, have fun. Not too much fun.
- Yeah, not too much fun.
- I'll show you all the stuff down here.
They're peanut butter and jelly
at this point.
Seemed like it was going pretty smooth.
- No one was yelling at anybody.
- Oh, you obviously weren't listening.
- [laughing]
- Oh. I [laughs]
Not on our team, but against the teams,
there was some
because there is a little bit of drama.
As soon as we got to eight people,
and we're getting a little bit serious,
everybody is just like
[imitates fighting]
- Everybody's bringing it out, huh?
- Yeah.
My father and I kind of had
a rocky relationship when I was younger,
uh, because I was put in foster care
and that was really hurtful,
and it took me a long time
to fully mentally recover from that.
But then flash forward to now,
him and I are about to open a restaurant
together, and he's my biggest support.
Now we have
this really awesome relationship.
So I'm proud to share that,
and I'm proud that he could be here
and, you know,
see such an intimate part of my life.
[chattering]
What you're doing out here is the best
that you can do for the business, okay?
Okay.
Right before coming out here,
my businesses were on shaky footing.
This is you working for the business.
[Robbie] To run three businesses, uh,
it has been the struggle of my lifetime.
'Cause you're responsible for everyone.
There's a lot of pressure.
We're getting married.
There's the pressure to, you know,
to afford getting married
and all of those things.
It's a really hard time for me to be here,
and it's just nice
to see my person walk through the door.
Yay to all of us that got to come.
- I know!
- This has been a huge, huge thing for us.
- Clink-clink! Clink-clink! Clink-clink!
- [cheering]
Great to see all you beautiful people.
Having a piece of home here
in the Pressure Cooker
has relit my fire to make sure
that I do everything
I possibly can to stay here.
You're gonna push through.
You're gonna finish.
And you're gonna finish strong.
I'm glad you guys came.
- Thanks for coming out here for me.
- [Wolfgang] Yeah.
You're doing wonderful. I'm proud of you.
[Caroline] I'm nervous
for the challenge, both.
You have a great chance
of winning this thing. I'm confident.
[Caroline] Mm. I'm gonna cry.
- [Mike] See ya.
- [Laurie] I had fun.
- [Jeana] Wolfgang is the best!
- [chattering, laughing]
[upbeat music playing]
It's exactly what I needed right now.
[Jeana] All right, goodbye!
[chefs] Bye!
- Shots of bourbon?
- [both laughing]
- Shots of bourbon.
- Shots of bourbon, bro.
- [Sergei] Chefs, clean up your mess.
- [Ed scoffs] Yeah, exactly.
Are we done with all these glasses
on the outside here, guys?
- Yes.
- [Ed] Yeah.
- [Sergei] Let me get that Swiffer.
- [Jeana] Oh, my God. Wait a second!
[Mike hums fanfare] Oh, shoot.
- [Robbie] Guys, guys, the book!
- You guys!
- [Robbie] The book is back.
- Guys, the book!
- The book!
- [Ed] Hey, hey, hey!
The book to me is the Bible.
Whoever had the most infractions,
that's the person
that should be voted off.
"Could be much better ways to be
to prepare lamb."
- And that probably goes down to texture.
- [Caroline] Mm-hmm.
As I'm reading all the comments,
I'm getting a little bit worried [sighs]
just because it seems to me
that there's a huge chance
that they don't like our menu,
and the comments are kind of showing that.
Like, a lot of people
didn't like the sorbet,
which everybody on our team loved.
My dad said my sorbet was tart.
I'm just hoping we aren't in the bottom.
- "Didn't care for branzino."
- And didn't care for the sorbet.
[Jeana] Damn.
I'm instantly very nervous about
what this is gonna mean for our team.
"Not a fan of lobster."
There's a lot of negative feedback
on my lobster at this point,
so I'm super nervous.
"Little too much garlic."
[Lana] Caroline's dish
had way too much mole.
Now I'm getting a little scared,
um, thinking that like,
"Oh, maybe this might not be a layup,
like I thought it would be."
- Where's your husband's?
- [Caroline] Oh, over here.
He didn't like the gnocchi.
- He didn't like the gnocchi?
- "Had bad shapes." Sorry, we were busy.
Nobody likes the gnocchi. So obviously,
I'm freaking out a little bit.
I don't wanna go home.
- "More ricotta would"
- "have been helpful."
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
"More bacon in chili sauce."
Okay, understand.
[Ed] I'm so nervous.
It could go either way. We did our job.
But you still never know.
Just a little bit of doubt.
[Caroline] Lana did not do
a good job on the gnocchi.
It's a tough pill to swallow because
you don't wanna lose in this competition,
because then you're probably
gonna be making a tough decision,
and I don't wanna have to do that.
[exhales]
[dramatic music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
"The results from the Rise and Shine
challenge are in." [exhales]
"The winning dish that five out of seven
blind tasters preferred was
Chef Ed's French toast,
which means, Chef Brian,
you are eliminated."
Adios, amigos.
For me, that was really hard to choose.
I had to think about it,
like, three times before I chose one.
- It was really, really close.
- [Mike] Yeah, yeah.
- Good job, Brian.
- [Sergei] Good job.
Brian's eliminated, and honestly,
I feel a little bit indifferent, you know.
He had an opportunity, multiple
opportunities to show us what he's got.
You know,
he's in a house with a bunch of chefs
who clearly have proven themselves
in a space to get here.
Plates look fantastic and beautiful,
and I feel like he dragged his feet.
- [Caroline] Nice work.
- [Brian] Appreciate it, man.
Appreciate it. Appreciate it, brother.
[sighs]
[ethereal music playing]
[Brian] I wanted to win on so many levels.
Of course it's sad, but at least like,
I can go home knowing that
I put out the best dish that I could,
and you can't be mad at what you did.
I wonder who, uh,
who the two for Brian were.
- Uh, one of them was mine.
- Oh, one of them was yours. Okay.
It was hard to decide.
End of the day, I thought,
"What would I wanna eat again?"
Yep.
- Like, what would I wanna eat again?
- Yeah.
And that's between us.
Yeah, I'm not gonna [chuckles]
- Yeah, that's what I wanted to eat again.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[Brian] This is the coolest thing
I ever did.
Besides getting married
and having a little boy,
this is by far
the dopest shit I've ever done.
It's pushed me to the next level.
I've already ripped my menu up
for my restaurant.
I have a lot of cool ideas.
I learned different techniques,
and, you know, little tricks
and it's really, really cool.
You're not gonna learn this nowhere else,
and I'm grateful for that.
[heartfelt music playing]
[Robbie chuckles]
Brother, I'm chasing you.
[tense music playing]
I'm chasing you, man.
'Cause I know you feel it.
I know you feel it.
You did what you had to do.
And he went out on a plate, dude.
[exhales]
But I know you feel it.
[sobbing]
It's a tough thing.
But he's gonna be all right. [exhales]
[Ed] I'm not really
a outwardly emotional person.
It's not my, you know
It's not how we were raised
in the Bronx, to be honest.
And so the fact that
I would have this rush of emotions
is new to me and unexpected.
You know, Brian was on my team
not once but twice.
Um, the fact that, you know,
we're eating, cleaning, battling
and judging one another,
the marination process
for our bonds is a lot shorter
than it would be with X factors
from the outside world.
All we got is us. This is it.
I wanna give you another hug.
With that being said, I wanna win.
Period. That's without a doubt.
Having to knock off one of your boys
in order to get there,
that's a tough nut to crack.
[alarm blaring]
- Okay, guys, come on.
- Oh!
Come on. Come on, team.
[Robbie] You got it?
- [Lana] Seafood. Oysters!
- [Ed] Hamachi.
- [chattering]
- [Lana] Oysters, clams and cockles.
- [Mike] Oh, fava beans!
- [Caroline] Serg, labneh.
[Mike] Mike loves a good fava bean.
So we get a delivery today.
It's all these beautiful,
gorgeous spring vegetables and fruits.
There's, like, veal. There's rib eye.
There's rhubarb.
There's fava beans and stinging nettles.
And it's all this extra fish too.
There's oysters and mussels.
Kind of see
how everyone's getting all excited.
What's the next challenge
gonna be with all this food?
- [Mike] Mushroom city.
- Oh, guys.
- [Renee] What?
- [Caroline] Got aprons.
- [Renee groans]
- Oh, two teams. I'm gonna go get 'em.
You know what? I just wanna take one
of these and, like, a Frisbee. [chuckles]
[Caroline] Hey,
you wanna go look out there?
[mysterious music playing]
- [Renee] It's blue aprons and green ones.
- [Ed] And green ones.
[Mike] Oh, shoot.
Me, Robbie, Lana and Jeana.
We were all on the red team
for the last team challenge.
We did pretty good, and we won.
Why try to fix something
that's not broken?
We're allowed to choose teams?
We should keep it, as we said,
but I don't know
if that's gonna be the case.
- [bell chimes]
- [computer] Ticket printing.
[whirring]
Aw, thank you.
Thank you so much, ticket machine. Huh.
- This one's you.
- [gasps]
All right, guys.
"Chefs, tonight you'll be
hosting a dinner party."
- Hey!
- [Sergei] Hey!
"Each team must present a five-course menu
inspired by the four seasons."
Instantly I kind of get, like,
a little knot in my stomach.
"Eleven guests
will be your blind tasters."
- [Mike] Whoo!
- Eleven guests?
I'm literally excited about this
because this is what I do
on a regular day-to-day basis.
"Five courses, four seasons, two teams."
"It's up to all of you to decide
who you wanna cook with."
I have that nervousness in me
about how the teams get picked.
So far, in this challenge,
I've done very well with single and duos.
But my team was the losing team
the last time
we did a big challenge like this,
So there's a certain amount
of, uh, anxiousness about it,
and I'm a little worried as
to what's gonna happen.
I wanna walk away from the machine,
but I feel like as soon as I walk away,
it's gonna [imitates ticket machine]
- Walk away. Walk away.
- [Renee] Okay.
- Um, I'm gonna go drink about this.
- [Ed laughs]
[tense music playing]
Lana and I have kind of been paired up
or matched up for every single event.
Team challenge, whatnot,
from the beginning till now.
I work well on a team.
I work well leading a team, plus just
being a support player on the team.
So whatever role I'm meant to play,
I'm good with it.
I also like the team dynamic
between Lana and Jeana and Mike.
I don't know. You guys wanna do this?
- [laughs] Then it's done.
- [Renee] Done.
[Sergei] I wanna work with you.
- I'm down.
- I wanna work with Caroline.
- Talk to her.
- [Lana] How you guys feeling?
[Sergei] We were just talking
about how you are the swing vote.
[Jeana] 'Cause I feel like Sergei
and Caroline actually just really meld.
I really wanna work with you. I feel like
we have a really strong communication.
Initially, Mike and Jeana and Robbie,
we thought maybe that we should all try
and stay as El Diablos.
But as I start to mull it over
a little bit more,
I'm realizing Sergei and Caroline
are two very talented chefs,
and this is a competition.
I feel like maybe I should try
to branch out and work with someone new.
To be quite honest, this is,
I think, my most comfortable
I hate the anxiety
of trying to make a choice.
So this actually was a hard one.
I didn't come here
to be the most popular girl.
I came here to cook food.
I think we just need to decide sooner
than later so we can just start talking.
It's just about somebody saying,
"Hey, this is the decision" and doing it.
- [Lana] Let's do it.
- [Caroline] Okay, I'm down.
- [Jeana] Hey, so, guys.
- Sí.
For me, personally, um,
I think that the best team
that I would like is
to work with Sergei and Caroline,
and I would love, Lana,
if you joined our team.
Team Sergeline won the last challenge.
Maybe Jeana's the smartest person
in the house.
Jeana's a survivor,
but everyone here is talented.
If you weren't talented,
you wouldn't be in the Pressure Cooker.
I know we chatted earlier.
I know that there's ideas,
and I think just
[sighs] Yeah,
this is actually kind of hard.
- Like, honestly, like yeah.
- If you're going on that team, go on, man.
Sorry. I gotta go
where the Mexican heart wants.
Yeah, yeah.
The second I saw the challenge,
it changed everything for me.
- Okay.
- Go play, boo boo.
- Go play.
- True that. [chuckles]
- Let's start talking.
- Let's do it.
- [Renee] Mike.
- You know what that means. Let's do it.
You know, when you have this many
intense personalities in one setting,
it's only a matter of time before someone
does something to piss someone off.
Not that I'm,
like, team leader or anything,
but I'll just start the conversation
once the two traitors go away.
The what? The two what?
While I am happy with my team,
I am feeling some sort of way
that my girl Lana
just kind of, like,
threw me off to the side.
Uh, she did it rather quickly
to go work with Caroline and Sergei.
I'm a little bit hurt that she just
kind of, like, threw it by the wayside
for an unproven formula.
[Mike] Saying you're gonna
do something and not doing it,
that's called lying, okay?
- I'm just saying. I'm just saying.
- Mike, that's not fair.
[Mike] So last time I was on a team
with Robbie, Lana and Jeana,
and it worked really well.
So I'm little confused. I'm like, what?
Like, I thought we had the team settled.
You know?
So I'm a little confused about this.
That, uh, that doesn't feel too great.
Listen, we're not trying to lie.
We're just trying to be honest, actually.
Hey, look, listen.
Strategy is strategy, whatever.
You know,
when you hear through the grapevine,
through all the talks
that everybody's been having,
Team Lana's still, you know,
or El Diablo, whatever, is still intact,
I just thought it was really weird
that they just kind of, like,
jumped ship like that.
But I think what they did was try
to put the weakest links in a group,
not really realizing that they put two
of the strongest people,
myself and Mike, together,
because we do multiple dinner parties
per week as a living.
So yeah, thanks, uh, Lana, Jeana.
Let's go sit somewhere
- [Robbie] You wanna go sit at the table?
- Sit at the table? Yeah.
- Wanna go in our bedroom?
- Let's go.
We have two empty beds,
so it's just me and Jeana in our bedroom.
- No one's coming in.
- Yeah, yeah.
What Lana and Jeana did
definitely divided the house.
I definitely am starting to choose sides
at this point.
And now I wanna beat them even more
just to show them
that they made the wrong choice.
- [bell chimes]
- [whirring]
[computer] Ticket printing.
[Caroline] Ticket?
[Sergei] Ticket.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed exhales] All right.
"Time for
the Seasonal Specials challenge."
"Both teams must serve one dish per season
and a fifth dish that represents
all four seasons."
"You have 90 minutes
to start prepping all your dishes
and drop your first course."
"A team of servers will deliver the dishes
to your blind tasters."
"Your dinner guests are on their way."
"The challenge starts now."
[clock beeping]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed] In a restaurant setting,
you have prep cook, a line cook,
a sous-chef and a chef.
To be all of those things at once
in a team of four is a great challenge.
[Robbie] Were we talking
about these caviars?
- [Mike] These guys.
- [Robbie] Okay.
Now typically in real life,
there's one person in charge,
and everybody just listens to them.
Because I do tasting menus for a living,
I figure I kind of try to take as much
of the reins on this as I can,
you know, obviously taking everyone's
thoughts into consideration.
And I think we've come
to a pretty good menu.
- There more side towels down here?
- There's more on the back line.
So our menu, obviously we have to
go by the different seasons.
So I figured the easiest way
to tie everything in together
with different flavors, etc.,
is just to do a vegetable-forward menu.
We're highlighting vegetables.
That makes sense
because it's different seasons.
I'm gonna work that gnocchi dough first.
My team, the Green Team, we are doing
a menu based on California seasonal,
inspired by Latin flavors.
And this dinner with all these people
definitely feels representative
of, you know, of a busy night's service
in a restaurant or in a kitchen.
- Ed, did you put water on or no?
- Yes.
- All right, thank you. For pasta?
- [Ed] Yep.
Okay
My dish was actually the third course,
but I need to make sure
I have extra time to do it.
This is what a kitchen feels like,
and the reason is the timing.
That first 90 minutes,
we have to do all the prep
for the rest of these courses. Imperative.
- How's everyone looking?
- [Caroline] Getting there.
Getting there slowly,
but quickly at the same time.
I am responsible for the first course,
which is winter.
[blender whirring]
- Get a taste right now. Yeah.
- Oh, perfect. Yeah, I'm in. I'm ready.
For the last team challenge, I did a very,
like, Asian-style hamachi with a ponzu.
This is more of, like, a Mexican crudo
aguachile negro
and a blood orange citrus gel.
Very different technique.
My aguachile's got
12 different ingredients in it,
so a much different flavor profile
as well.
[Robbie] Raw fish on the first course!
I already know what's up.
- How you feeling?
- Good.
[Robbie] Is it smooth?
- [blender whirring]
- Super smooth.
For the first dish,
um, I am in charge of winter.
It will be a soup duet.
It's going to be a sweet parsnip soup
as well as a spicy winter squash soup
served together.
So sort of like a yin and a yang
and have two flavors
that play well together,
but, uh, also complement.
It's a party in one bowl,
but clear differences of which is which.
[clock beeping]
[suspenseful music playing]
- It's good.
- Will you help me frond?
- [Caroline] Yes.
- [Sergei] Will you help me frond?
No, not you, you got next course.
Just stay over there.
What I'm gonna do is fill them up
and then just pour at the same time.
- Okay. We gotta go.
- [Ed] Make sense?
[Sergei] I couldn't have imagined
a more sexy plate.
[Caroline] Beautiful.
- We gotta get it in the oven soon.
- Yeah, I know.
Okay, sorry. I love you.
- I gotta plate.
- I know. I know. I'm about to help you
- [woman] Oh, my God.
- [man] Y'all have fun.
- [woman gasps]
- [Jeana] Oh, my God!
[screams]
Okay.
It's our families.
Ugh! I didn't think
it was gonna happen like that.
[kisses]
- [laughs]
- [Caroline] Beyond excited Matt is here.
It feels great to see his smiling face.
Strange seeing him in this environment,
but it feels really nice to see him.
Okay, stay together.
[Caroline] Yes, yes, yes.
Who walks through the door
but my fiancée and my mother?
I've missed them so much. It just means
the world to me that they're here.
- We might as well hug it out and go.
- No, no, no, no, no, we're good.
[Renee] So we are in battle, okay?
Me and my battle buddies.
Who do I see?
Bree Bree. My boo thing.
My everything. My person.
She just put a smile on my face.
I knew that you couldn't probably
even see my eyeballs.
All right. Cool, cool, cool.
But I gotta focus. This is not about that.
I will see you when I see you. But I am
here for the 100K, for the schmoney.
And I need to stay focused.
[Mike] Oh, my gosh.
[Jeana] Taste this.
If you need me to adjust the salt level,
I can add more stuff to it.
Perfect. Oh, my God. Yum.
Guys, we're gonna need some help.
Time check. Time check.
[Lana] Nine seconds.
[man] Who are you here for?
Eddie. Ed. The cute one over there.
- Oh, I see him. Yeah. [laughs]
- They look busy.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Sergei] Uh, service!
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Nice and gentle.
- Know what all this stuff is? You do.
- Yeah.
- [laughing]
- It looks really good.
All right, guys.
- [Jason] Starting already?
- [Bree] Thank you.
[Jennifer] Thank you so much.
[Bree] Oh, wow.
[Jennifer] Oh, my goodness.
[Sergei] It feels
like it's a real restaurant
'cause they are outside diners,
and some people are not foodies,
and some people
don't really go out to eat that often.
[Jason] What do we got here?
- [Joey] "Seasons to remember." Ooh.
- [Bree] Do we just, uh, dig in?
hamachi first.
I love the hamachi
with, um, the blood orange.
Oh, my goodness.
- [Katelyn] Mm-hmm.
- [Matt] I really like the citrus gel too.
It's really good.
I like the sauce.
[Sergei] My girlfriend Joey,
she means the world to me.
She ended up becoming the pastry chef
at the restaurant I worked at,
and she just understands
what it takes to be in this industry.
- Nice, good acid.
- Tastes better than it looks.
- Yes.
- It looked a little scary.
But I think she's probably
gonna be a tough critic, you know.
I ate some big pieces too, actually.
[Sergei] She's gonna find those details,
and this is a blind tasting, you know.
She doesn't know which dish is mine.
[Katelyn] Should we try the next one?
I'm excited to try it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed] I'm feeling confident
because I know for a fact
that visually and flavor profile-wise,
this is not an average soup.
This is no Campbell's pop-the-top,
microwave soup whatsoever.
This is the highest of the high,
very succulent,
velvety smooth food fit for royalty.
This is really good.
[Ed] It's super emotional
to see my fiancée Jennifer.
Not having her by my side daily
has been hard.
Nobody sees the pounds of potatoes
that you have to peel,
you know, working the doubles.
But it's who I am.
So the fact that she doesn't try
to change that part of me
is why we're so good for each other.
That's delicious.
It's like the right amount of kick.
- I liked both of them.
- [Bree] Yeah.
- [Jennifer] Yeah.
- [Jeff] This is gonna be really hard.
[Robbie] For the second course,
I'm making a chilled asparagus salad
with poached lobster, caviar,
fines herbes vinaigrette,
some frozen horseradish.
But for all 11 plates of salad,
I have to peel a ton of asparagus. Whew!
I'm turning green. I'm turning green!
Need to get water going?
Oh, yeah, can we get water on?
Heard that.
I'm responsible
for the second course, which is spring.
And I'll be making the green garlic mole
with ricotta gnocchi, peas,
asparagus, morels
and pickled beets.
[Lana] It's different
than a classic gnocchi.
It's a little more unique, a little
more fun, a little more flavorful.
I preferred to do the gnocchi myself,
but Lana wanted
to make the ricotta gnocchi,
even though I said that I could make it,
that I've made them many times.
But she said that she loved making them,
and she knew she could make them
exactly how she wanted.
So we all said, "Great.
You sound certain of it. Let's do it."
Uh, gnocchi dough is ready to party.
Caroline, you want me
to start rolling gnocs?
[Caroline] I'm coming here now,
but if you can give me a hand.
- [Lana] I'm gonna do 'em with my fingers.
- [Caroline] Yeah.
One of the biggest challenges
of a team challenge
is wanting to get your point across,
but also wanting to collaborate.
Wanting to say no
to things that you don't agree with,
but not wanting to say no all the time.
So it really is a fine line.
[Lana] All right, Caroline.
Renee, Mike, we're gonna need you guys.
All right.
Our team,
we're all laser-focused on the goal.
You win as a team, or you fail as a team.
Is that cranking, Ed?
So Mike has this idea
to accompany the lobster dish
with horseradish and cream frozen pearls
utilizing liquid nitrogen.
Guys, coming around insanely cold.
[Ed] It's this savory ice cream.
[Mike] Right behind you.
The moment we've all been waiting for.
I essentially make,
like, a horseradish ice cream base
and then I drip that into liquid nitrogen.
So surface tension makes a ball,
but then it freezes
before it hits the NO2.
These frozen little pearls
that I think are gonna go great
on the cold lobster salad.
- Looks like Halloween.
- Bill Nye the Science Guy over here.
[Mike] Hot, hot, hot.
Just kidding, it's cold.
- Sergei, pass me the arugula, arugula.
- [Sergei] Arugula.
[Ed] All right, we gotta plate.
[tense music playing]
Okay, so what's next?
[Caroline] Start with the little noodies.
[Ed] Sexy slices, Robbie.
Sexy slices.
- [Caroline] Oh, Sergy.
- Oh, God, what would I do without you?
Ed, we gotta wipe
this little part right here.
[Ed] Service, service, service, please.
They're going.
[Robbie] Please.
Just like this please, thank you.
Just like this, please.
Thank you, thank you.
[Jennifer] Thank you.
- Oh. Ooh.
- [Bree] Oh, wow. Beautiful presentation.
- Thank you.
- [Jennifer] That's a big deal right here.
[Jeff] Start with the bowl?
[woman] A taste of lime.
- [Jennifer] What's your impression?
- It's not bad. Got a little spice on it.
There's a lot of sauce.
I think it could be less sauce.
I don't know.
I feel like the sauce is overpowering.
Nice green color though.
I'm happy that my husband Matt is here.
He is my super talented
chef business partner,
so I know he's gonna be harsh.
We go out to eat together all the time,
and we cook together all the time,
and we are each other's harshest critics.
Like, for me, the gnocchi is
maybe not as pillowy as it should be.
I know that he is going to be
a very honest,
but, um, critical blind taster.
It's not very soft. Like, light.
- Yeah.
- Seems overcooked to me a little bit.
- I like garlic, but it's overpowering.
- [Matt] Mm.
[Bree] Could have used,
like, some acidity. Something.
I I agree.
I think it's missing something.
I don't think it lives up
to the first two dishes.
Yeah. All right, let's try the lobster.
[Bree] Here we go.
[Jeff] Good luck.
[Robbie] Family walking through the door
definitely raises the stakes.
I know now
that they're gonna be tasting my food.
It's a little unnerving 'cause
my fiancée doesn't really like lobster.
Wow.
In all reality, I just want to be great
for them while they're here.
Yeah, this is really good.
- Oh, my God, yeah.
- [Jennifer] What are you feeling?
- [Joey] I like the lobster.
- I do too.
[Joey] It's just not drowned with sauce,
and it has the two sauces,
like horseradish sauce,
and it's kind of nicely placed
that it's not overpowering.
- [Jennifer] Right.
- Not one flavor one-noting it.
Complements each other.
You just want 'em toasted, yeah?
- [Renee] Got the citrus?
- [Ed] I'll get some.
[Renee] All right.
- [Lana] How you looking?
- A lot to be done.
If you guys want, I can start this
brown butter and help you with something.
I decided to go with branzino today
for our third course.
The corn is coming together.
The tomato butter is fire,
and I make a mean chimichurri.
[whirring]
- Guys, does anyone have a lemon or no?
- [Renee] No.
I do. Oh. I don't need it. Okay.
- He's got it. Sorry, wrong team.
- [laughs] Forgot which team you're on?
- I just have an extra one, so
- Look at you being so kind and whatnot.
[chuckles] I'm ready at all times.
Blue Team, how we looking?
You guys feeling good?
Looking good, boo. Looking good.
The third course is actually my dish,
something I run a lot in the summer,
corn agnolotti, and that's going with
just, like, some roasted corn as a garnish
and then a harissa froth.
So we're gonna do something
a little spicy and a little bit sweet.
- Yo, Renee, you got a spoon?
- Yeah.
Taste this.
This is, uh, one half the filling.
Here. You got it?
- Good?
- Yeah. Don't forget about the sage too.
[Mike] Oh, dried sage, yeah.
- Pasta's down?
- [Ed] Pasta's down.
That needs something.
- What are you talking about?
- [Lana] My succotash. Try it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Sergei] Let's go stock.
[Lana] Let's get stock.
- [Renee] Twenty seconds.
- [Mike] Beautiful, guys.
[Lana] Do they look like summer?
[Robbie] Any finishing touches
on this before we go?
- Okay?
- Perfect. Then zest that one last boy.
- [Renee] Looks beautiful, Mike.
- [Lana] The cook on the fish is crispy.
[Robbie] Service!
- Yes, this is served.
- [chattering]
[Jennifer] Thank you.
[server] We have a special sauce
coming for this.
[Jennifer] Okay.
[Bree] Popcorn on there. Wow.
Yeah. It's really pretty.
To me, they're both, like, neck and neck
as far as, like, presentation, yeah.
- [Joey] It's definitely very summery.
- [Bree, Jennifer] Yeah.
[chattering]
[Joey] It looks good.
I think I'm gonna like the fish.
[Jason] Yeah, this looks cool.
Mm!
Like this? What do you think?
- [Matt] Wow, look at you.
- [Joey] Oh, wow.
[Lana] I decided to go with branzino today
because it's my mother's favorite fish,
and then, you know, here she is.
So the irony of the situation,
so I know that
she will have an inkling
that this dish is mine.
That tomato butter is amazing.
[Lana] Cooking for my friends
and family is probably one
of the best parts of my career.
Having the skill set to impress those
that I love the most with a plate of food,
it's why I do what I do.
It's spicier
than I thought it was gonna be.
[Joey] Okay, let's try the pasta.
[Bree] Popcorn on top.
[Joey] Oh, there's some bacon
in the corn. Ooh!
[Mike] I cannot believe my parents,
especially my mom,
are in this blind taste test
'cause my parents are
your standard American family.
They don't really know
what super fancy food is.
Sauce is good,
even though I don't know what harissa is.
- [Jeff, Laurie laughing]
- I don't either, but
Yeah, does it taste like
caramel corn or something?
[Jason] Yeah, kind of digging this one.
Yeah.
- [Jason] It's good, huh?
- It adds a little, like, nuttiness.
[Jason] Yeah.
- It's real good.
- Wow, that is really good.
[Robbie] We're gonna be able how you
feeling about cooking the rest in that?
[Mike] It's halfway rendered.
The fourth course,
we're all gonna work on together.
Uh, I really want to do a duck breast.
I've cooked a million duck breasts
in my life, so I know how to do it.
We gotta do fall flavors. We're
definitely using some root vegetables,
and then we're gonna glaze it
gastrique.
So that's kind of like
a duck l'orange, a play on it.
- Jeana.
- [Jeana] Yes.
- Your balls are done?
- No, they're not done yet.
My dish, which is fourth course,
albondigas,
which is kind of like
a Mexican-style meatball.
I thought doing something
that incorporated spices and flavors
would be a good representation of fall.
Uh, which grind do I want?
Bigger grind.
I've ground a lot of meats in the past,
and usually when I'm doing
my burger grind, I use a bigger grind
because there's a lot of fat,
and it breaks up.
I didn't take into consideration that
[chuckles] that lamb loin
is actually very lean.
So by grinding it in these big pieces,
they're not gonna break up.
So I kind of grind it a little bit
too big, and I just gotta go with it,
because, like, time is ticking
and I want to stay on time,
so that way if there's any adjustments
I need to make, I can.
- They're done. I just need to form them.
- [Lana] Shaped?
- [Jeana] Not yet.
- [Lana] We gotta get that done.
If you're making a meatball
in this competition, it better be good.
[Ed] For real.
- [Jeana] Enough or should I grind in pork?
- [Sergei] That's plenty.
It's not very ground though.
- What?
- [Sergei] Is that big chunks?
- No, no, it's ground.
- Okay. Okay, okay, okay.
Gremolata done.
- Cut it up. All right.
- Beautiful. Looks good. Looks good.
[Jeana] Come on.
[grunts] Just bake.
Hey, do we have a duck demi-glace yet?
Yep, I'm already working.
We got demi-glace?
We got carrots, gremolata?
[Ed] Demi's there.
- Carrots are in here cooking.
- You're working the gremolata?
Good job.
Okay, guys, guys, guys, don't worry.
They're going for duck.
[Caroline] I saw.
[Jeana] I see the tension between teams.
There are some people, like, dogging
on each other, which is stressing me out.
- [Renee] I tasted their fish. It's trash.
- Yeah, trash, yeah.
I just have to kind of stay in my lane
and make sure
my team's dishes are going up.
Really nice.
More turnips.
It looks nice.
- You wanna taste that purée?
- Yeah, I tasted it. It's fine.
Good? Beautiful.
[Robbie] Cutting duck, bro.
[Mike] Slicing.
[Robbie] Do we need a paintbrush?
[Lana] And what I'm looking at,
I'm enjoying what I'm seeing.
It looks fantastic, Mama.
Shaking a little bit. That's weird.
[suspenseful music builds]
Service, service, service. Let's go!
[Jennifer] Yeah. Thank you.
Ooh! [laughs]
- [chattering, laughing]
- [Joey] Oh, wow.
[all] Cheers.
To our chefs.
- Yeah.
- Cheers.
- [Jeff] Here we go.
- [Bree] Oh, my goodness, I can smell it.
This is, like,
the first course that I can smell.
I love that they're lamb meatballs.
- [laughs]
- Going in.
Ooh. Is that meatball done enough?
- No.
- It looks like there's, um
The crunchy part around the outside
is definitely good.
- [Joey] Mm-hmm.
- [Jason] Inside's kinda mushy.
Inside is kinda mushy.
I like the flavor,
but it's a lot of flavor at once.
Like, the meatball flavor,
the jus is really flavored.
- [Joey] The pickled veg, kind of intense.
- Yeah.
- It's a lot to process.
- Oh, yeah.
[Joey] All right, let's try the duck.
[Jason] Okay, it looks fantastic.
- I love a good duck.
- [Joey] Mm.
- I think it's cooked just right.
- [Laurie] Mm.
- Great.
- It is cooked really nicely.
- Yeah, I think it's cooked perfectly.
- Yeah. Mm-hmm.
And you know what?
I thought I wouldn't like
the, um, the purée, but it is very good.
- [Crystal] It is good.
- You don't like it?
- No. I love it.
- Oh, it is good.
The celeriac has, like, a weird, like,
coating on the tongue or something.
Mm. I can do without that.
[Katelyn chuckles] But I will admit
this duck is done really good.
- The duck is
- Very well-prepared.
[Bree] It's really good.
Sugar and eggs, drizzle in oil.
I need some zest.
[Renee] So I've got some, uh,
mango purée I'm about to jump into.
- [Jeana] Are you dessert?
- [Renee] Uh, yeah.
You guys should be very scared
at that point.
It's time for the fifth course.
The sweet finale.
We encompass fall, spring, summer, winter
and in one collective dish.
- My tamarind gel is setting right now.
- [Robbie] Mm-hmm.
So I could blend it
in the blender afterwards.
Cookie, done, waving it to cool down
before I make crumble out of it.
I'm fully in charge of making sure that
this dessert comes together beautifully.
We have a mango mousse cheesecake
with candied rhubarbs.
There's some macerated mango
as well as some nectarine.
It comes together really nicely
with a nice coconut cookie crumble.
You taste beautiful spices of cardamom.
I mean, literally, are you hungry yet?
Hoo-hoo!
[Jeana sighs] All right, set that there.
For dessert, we are going to be doing
a blood orange lemon olive oil cake.
A corn pastry cream to represent summer.
We're gonna do
a rose meringue to represent spring.
I'm making cranberry sorbet
to represent fall
and then blood orange to represent winter.
We gotta go. Yeah.
- [Sergei] Convection, yeah?
- [Jeana] Sure, go for it.
Speaking of cakeesh,
coming around hot. Watch your face.
[Renee exhales]
My mousse has gone awry.
I'm a little worried at this point.
It's not gonna firm up,
and this has got me concerned.
You're right. You're right.
With the history of things not setting
in dessert courses in this house,
it is a little unnerving
to see the cheesecake mousse
might not be setting up.
- [Mike] The mousse isn't?
- [Robbie] It is not set.
[Mike] How bad though? How bad, like
[Robbie] I'd say 50-50.
Oh, wait, where's this mousse
we're talking about?
Chiller. Still in the blast.
- Mine is good. Yep.
- Watch out.
Beautiful. Okay, let's
Do we wanna just gentle liquid nitrogen
on this to freeze it?
Shoot,
I'll just pour liquid nitrogen on it.
- [Robbie] I got it over here, behind me.
- [Ed] This is good.
Guys, this is gonna work, totally.
[Ed] Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
All right, but how long is it gonna set?
I mean, stay.
Oh, shoot, it's cracking.
- [Ed] So
- Well
- [Ed] Well, let it
- [Renee] Cold will take care of that.
Yeah, I'm gonna put this
in the regular freezer.
- It's probably colder.
- [Renee] All right.
After I put the liquid nitrogen
on the cheesecake,
the bottom was set 100%,
but the top was almost like
a really, really thick whipped cream.
This is almost better
to get two different textures.
I could tell you
it's set way more than the panna cotta.
- [Renee laughs] We not gonna
- [Robbie] RIP.
[Ed] We had a plan B,
but then Mike comes in with a plan C.
And it worked out better than we imagined.
Mike is he's the wizard.
The Force is strong with that one.
Of all the challenges we've done,
I wanna win this one the most.
[Jeana] Fantastic.
- [Caroline] It's perfect.
- Okay.
- Corny?
- [smacks lips] Yes.
[clock beeping]
[tense music playing]
[Robbie] There's that
bakery skill right there.
- [Sergei] Nice. Nice and clean there.
- [Ed] Good?
Winter, spring, summer, fall?
- Yep.
- It's all there, baby.
Service, please!
[mysterious music playing]
[Jennifer] You guys
will hear me all night saying wow.
[diners laughing]
[Jennifer] Oh, that looks cute!
Ooh! Thank you.
- Wow.
- [Matt] Ooh!
[Jennifer] Oh, interesting.
The presentation on this one is beautiful.
[Matt] My plates are a little chilled,
so that's good.
[Jeff] All right,
let's see what we got here.
[Joey] The olive oil cake.
- [Jennifer] Oh, my God.
- Mm!
It's very good.
I like the cake alone.
It's very good alone.
This cranberry is just a little too much.
- Yes. Don't tempt me with a good time.
- [laughing]
[Bree] You don't have to tell me twice.
- There's some bitterness in it.
- Mm-hmm.
Maybe like the blood orange?
- It's good though.
- I like it though.
- After everything we've eaten
- [Jennifer] It's kind of light. Simple.
- Yeah.
- [Jeff] I like it. It's not super sweet.
- That thing's a flavor blast right there.
- [Joey] Yeah.
Ooh, I'm excited
for this cheesecake mousse.
[Matt] Hey.
- Mm! Oh, my God.
- [laughing]
Oh! This is doing the good things.
- [Katelyn] That is my yes.
- This is doing the good things. [laughs]
- I never had an affinity to rhubarb.
- Really? Oh.
But let me see.
I could change my mind.
It's all mousse.
I want more cheesecake, right?
The tamarind brings out a good fall.
- Like, flavors.
- There's a lot going on on this plate.
- There is a lot going on.
- [laughs] A lot of different things.
This is good
because you can't even taste the coconut.
[Jason laughs] There's coconut in it too?
Everything's in this.
It's well-executed.
[Jennifer] Such an intense experience
over there.
[Jeff] In the Pressure Cooker
for three weeks
[Matt] Pressure forms diamonds.
- [mutters]
- [Jennifer] Oh!
Okay! [laughing]
- Cheers. Cheers to that.
- Cheers to that. [laughing]
Dinner has been served. We crushed it.
We murdered it.
We murdered the other team.
They're obsolete.
They're done. Someone's going home.
I know it,
and it's not anyone from our side.
- [Katelyn] All right, time to vote.
- [Jason] I'll get this.
[Bree] You looked first so you pay.
- You pay. [laughs]
- I'll take care of it, don't worry.
[Joey] So this,
we just put comments on each one?
Oh, my goodness. How do we choose?
[Mike] What are you thinking?
So honestly, I think presentation-wise,
we got 'em beat.
Yeah.
[Mike] You see any flaws?
Anything like that? I noticed their cake.
It's not a nice shape. It's falling apart.
You know what that means? It's dry.
Hey, nice work. Nice work.
Uh, Serg, get in here.
- [all groan, laugh]
- Nice job.
- Pleasure doing battle with you guys.
- Pleasure. Pleasure.
- Pleasure.
- Beautiful.
[Caroline] In the house,
there's obviously now two teams,
and the two teams are fully separated.
Everyone just wants to win.
Of course, then that means
then maybe some tensions might arise,
and in a pressure moment
when you have a million things going on
and you see your competitors right there,
emotions come up.
But right now,
we need to focus on our family members.
- [Jason] The doors!
- [all cheering]
- Hey!
- Yeah!
- Hey!
- [Robbie] Hey!
- [chefs] Aww!
- [Robbie cries]
[chefs laugh]
- Hi.
- [laughing]
[all chattering]
[Caroline] Aw.
[woman] Hello.
- You wanna see the house?
- Yeah, yeah, let's go. Let's go.
- Aw, somebody's
- It's fine.
It's fine. They've seen me cry a lot.
[Lana] That's her husband. Caroline!
- These are my parents.
- [Caroline] Hey!
- Hi, I'm Lana.
- Hi, Lana, nice to meet you.
- [Lana] Nice to meet you too.
- Do you do hugs?
- [Caroline] It's so nice to meet you.
- Heard a lot about you.
- You know Matt. [chuckles]
- Yes, yes, we met Matt.
[Lana] My parents
are very important to me.
I love them both so, so, so much.
I am a true mixed child.
I'm a mutt of New York City.
My father is German, Italian
and Puerto Rican, and my mother is Black.
I've been exposed to so many
different cultures and types of food.
I think having an interesting and eclectic
background has only made me a better chef.
- Cute.
- Right?
- You know, made my bed and all that stuff.
- Purse.
- Made sure the sneakers is yes.
- Very proud.
- Oh, you have [laughs]
- I got you guys on the wall.
- [Bree] Oh, I love this.
- [Renee] You know?
Seeing Bree definitely puts
a light on my face.
I needed that.
I felt like I was back home again.
I wanna go as far as I possibly can
in this competition.
So we can put a little bling, bling, bling
on that finger,
so I could claim her for life
and annoy her forever.
- Hey, yeah, hi!
- This is Caroline.
- Hi. I'm Joey.
- This is Joey.
- Hi. How are you? Serge.
- [Matt] Matthew.
- Nice to meet you.
- [Matt] Nice to meet you.
- Sitting next to each other.
- [Sergei] I saw that.
[Joey laughs] Nice.
[Sergei] Nice.
You know,
Caroline's got a very tall husband.
I'm over here, looking up like, "Hey."
- [Caroline] Sitting next to each other?
- [Joey] Yeah.
It was nice 'cause we both
could, like, chat about food and like
- [Caroline] Because you're pastry? Nice.
- Yeah.
But you're a chef too, right?
Private chef. Okay.
You're together. Right.
Both in the private chef game.
- Love that. Very cool.
- [Caroline] Yeah.
- [Sergei] Very cool.
- Yeah.
Uh, Matt and Sergei met.
It was like
my real husband meeting my work husband,
and you know, seeing them together,
you know, it was nice to see,
like, the two worlds colliding.
Sergei and Caroline,
they do a lot of giggling
and a lot of whispering
and a lot of, like, "hee hee."
And I've seen them, you know,
go behind closed doors a few times.
I'm sure nothing's happening.
They're both happily in "relationships."
[chuckles]
- We're going in the confessional.
- Okay, have fun. Not too much fun.
- Yeah, not too much fun.
- I'll show you all the stuff down here.
They're peanut butter and jelly
at this point.
Seemed like it was going pretty smooth.
- No one was yelling at anybody.
- Oh, you obviously weren't listening.
- [laughing]
- Oh. I [laughs]
Not on our team, but against the teams,
there was some
because there is a little bit of drama.
As soon as we got to eight people,
and we're getting a little bit serious,
everybody is just like
[imitates fighting]
- Everybody's bringing it out, huh?
- Yeah.
My father and I kind of had
a rocky relationship when I was younger,
uh, because I was put in foster care
and that was really hurtful,
and it took me a long time
to fully mentally recover from that.
But then flash forward to now,
him and I are about to open a restaurant
together, and he's my biggest support.
Now we have
this really awesome relationship.
So I'm proud to share that,
and I'm proud that he could be here
and, you know,
see such an intimate part of my life.
[chattering]
What you're doing out here is the best
that you can do for the business, okay?
Okay.
Right before coming out here,
my businesses were on shaky footing.
This is you working for the business.
[Robbie] To run three businesses, uh,
it has been the struggle of my lifetime.
'Cause you're responsible for everyone.
There's a lot of pressure.
We're getting married.
There's the pressure to, you know,
to afford getting married
and all of those things.
It's a really hard time for me to be here,
and it's just nice
to see my person walk through the door.
Yay to all of us that got to come.
- I know!
- This has been a huge, huge thing for us.
- Clink-clink! Clink-clink! Clink-clink!
- [cheering]
Great to see all you beautiful people.
Having a piece of home here
in the Pressure Cooker
has relit my fire to make sure
that I do everything
I possibly can to stay here.
You're gonna push through.
You're gonna finish.
And you're gonna finish strong.
I'm glad you guys came.
- Thanks for coming out here for me.
- [Wolfgang] Yeah.
You're doing wonderful. I'm proud of you.
[Caroline] I'm nervous
for the challenge, both.
You have a great chance
of winning this thing. I'm confident.
[Caroline] Mm. I'm gonna cry.
- [Mike] See ya.
- [Laurie] I had fun.
- [Jeana] Wolfgang is the best!
- [chattering, laughing]
[upbeat music playing]
It's exactly what I needed right now.
[Jeana] All right, goodbye!
[chefs] Bye!
- Shots of bourbon?
- [both laughing]
- Shots of bourbon.
- Shots of bourbon, bro.
- [Sergei] Chefs, clean up your mess.
- [Ed scoffs] Yeah, exactly.
Are we done with all these glasses
on the outside here, guys?
- Yes.
- [Ed] Yeah.
- [Sergei] Let me get that Swiffer.
- [Jeana] Oh, my God. Wait a second!
[Mike hums fanfare] Oh, shoot.
- [Robbie] Guys, guys, the book!
- You guys!
- [Robbie] The book is back.
- Guys, the book!
- The book!
- [Ed] Hey, hey, hey!
The book to me is the Bible.
Whoever had the most infractions,
that's the person
that should be voted off.
"Could be much better ways to be
to prepare lamb."
- And that probably goes down to texture.
- [Caroline] Mm-hmm.
As I'm reading all the comments,
I'm getting a little bit worried [sighs]
just because it seems to me
that there's a huge chance
that they don't like our menu,
and the comments are kind of showing that.
Like, a lot of people
didn't like the sorbet,
which everybody on our team loved.
My dad said my sorbet was tart.
I'm just hoping we aren't in the bottom.
- "Didn't care for branzino."
- And didn't care for the sorbet.
[Jeana] Damn.
I'm instantly very nervous about
what this is gonna mean for our team.
"Not a fan of lobster."
There's a lot of negative feedback
on my lobster at this point,
so I'm super nervous.
"Little too much garlic."
[Lana] Caroline's dish
had way too much mole.
Now I'm getting a little scared,
um, thinking that like,
"Oh, maybe this might not be a layup,
like I thought it would be."
- Where's your husband's?
- [Caroline] Oh, over here.
He didn't like the gnocchi.
- He didn't like the gnocchi?
- "Had bad shapes." Sorry, we were busy.
Nobody likes the gnocchi. So obviously,
I'm freaking out a little bit.
I don't wanna go home.
- "More ricotta would"
- "have been helpful."
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
"More bacon in chili sauce."
Okay, understand.
[Ed] I'm so nervous.
It could go either way. We did our job.
But you still never know.
Just a little bit of doubt.
[Caroline] Lana did not do
a good job on the gnocchi.
It's a tough pill to swallow because
you don't wanna lose in this competition,
because then you're probably
gonna be making a tough decision,
and I don't wanna have to do that.
[exhales]
[dramatic music playing]