Team Pitch To Plate

After an episode last week that started slow and got better the further along we got, it was time for the first Team Challenge of the season!

Guys, I’m going to be honest with you all right now. I was not looking forward to this episode. At all. And there is a very big reason for that. 

In the early seasons, Team Challenges would take up the first half of the episode, and the second half would be a Pressure Test for the losing team that would see one contestant going home. 

By the time we got into the 2020s, that basic format had changed. Now instead of taking up half of the episode, Team Challenges took up the entire episode. This made the episodes feel so much longer and boring. And last season was even worse with the team challenges, as due to the format of the season being contestants competing as duos, nobody would go home by the end of the episode, instead forcing us to wait until the following week for another challenge entirely, which would see someone from the losing team finally go home, making the Team Challenge episode almost feel pointless. I had no idea how I would be able to address each individual moment, or decide what was important to share.

This got to be so draining to me, that I actually found myself having an existential crisis about whether or not I even liked the show, and if writing about it was worth it. Thankfully, I got some motivation from my amazing friends Emily, Emma, Jamie, Wylie, and Char, and decided to give this episode a chance. So, what did I think of it? Well, let’s find out!

The basic setup for the challenge in this episode was that all eighteen remaining contestants showed up at an indoor soccer facility, where a bunch of kids were already playing, and they were running drills with our special guest for the episode. Quick tangent: Last week, I said that there would be a guest judge in this episode, but I didn’t share with you who I thought it was going to be, because I wanted to see if I was right. Well, now I have my answer. My initial guess was wrong. I initially guessed that it would be Alexi Lalas, who has shown up on so many other Fox shows already to promote The World Cup, three of which were Gordon Ramsay shows, but instead, it was Mauricio Pochettino, Head Coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team.

From there, the contestants were told that their challenge would be to serve lunch to all 101 kids. Heidi, who had won the Immunity Pin in the previous episode, now had a big advantage. She was now going to decide who was going to be on both teams, which was certainly a big choice, as if she chose to team Africa up with Europe or Asia-Pacific, there would be two teams of nine contestants each, but if she chose team up with The Americas, their team would have eight contestants, while the other team would have ten contestants. The winning team would be safe from elimination, while one person from the losing team would go home. Obviously. But what wasn’t obvious was that the captain of the winning team would be winning the Immunity Pin at the end of the episode, as they have not done that in previous seasons. 

After a quick discussion with the other home cooks representing Africa, Heidi decided to team up with the home cooks representing The Americas, which surprised me, as she was already putting herself at a considerable disadvantage with two less contestants than the other team. This meant that the home cooks representing Africa and The Americas were the Red Team, while the home cooks representing Europe and Asia-Pacific were the Blue Team. 

From there, both teams had to decide on who their team captain was, and the Red Team decided on Dave, while the Blue Team decided on Ted. 

Both teams had to make a dish of One Protein and Two Sides, and a sample plate had to be ready for the judges during the cook time. I want you all to remember the fact that I just said that each dish needed Two Sides. That will become very important in a little while. 

Once cook time had started, the teams began menu planning. The Red Team did not have much trouble with this at all, as they disagreed on the idea of cooking Fish for kids very quickly, and then came to the idea of cooking Chicken immediately afterwards, and then decided on a Chicken Sandwich a few seconds later, and also decided to grill it, and serve Macaroni & Cheese and Apples in Caramel Sauce as Sides.

The Blue Team also did not have much trouble coming up with a dish at first, but you might notice something wrong with their concept when I tell it to you right now. They quickly agreed on making a Smash Burger, and when it came to Sides, they quickly agreed on Chips, and then they also chose to go with Orzo Macaroni & Cheese, and Vegetables. 

Did you notice anything wrong with what I just said about the Blue Team’s dish? Yeah, I just told you THREE Sides that they were going to have on the dish instead of two like the judges said. And in case you were wondering, yes, other teammates called this out, to which Team Captain Ted said that they could do it because of the two person advantage they had over the Red Team. Things only got worse for the Blue Team in case you were wondering. 

Once both teams had started cooking, some of the members of the Blue Team discussed making Lemon Cookies as a Side, which Captain Ted agreed with, bringing the dish up to a total of FOUR SIDES. Believe it or not, things still got worse for them.

Chef Ramsay told his fellow judges that he didn’t agree with the strategy Heidi used when it came to picking her team, as they had two fewer cooks than the Blue Team, and he wasn’t convinced that Dave would be a good captain. 

Joe Bastianich admitted that he had confidence in Ted, as he was level headed, had a certain level of maturity, and he also had kids, which was important in a challenge where they were cooking for kids. 

When Dave told Chef Ramsay what the Red Team was making, he thought the dish sounded promising, though he also thought that frying the Chicken would be better than grilling it, which prompted Dave to ask Peter and Heidi to do a test piece to see how the Chicken would look fried, to which she said in an interview that she wasn’t comfortable using the deep fryer.

Joe Bastianich and Tiffany Derry then asked Captain Ted what the Blue Team was making, to which he revealed that the Blue Team was making Four Sides, which prompted both judges to acknowledge that this was a very risky decision, and that just because they had more people on their team, it didn’t mean that they would be able to pull it off with no trouble at all, and Chef Ramsay also voiced his concerns when Joe and Tiffany told him, saying that the Blue Team needed to edit.

After that, 30 minutes had passed, and it was time for the teams to present a sample plate to the judges. The Red Team had made a Fried Chicken, Bacon, & Ranch Sandwich with Macaroni & Cheese and Caramel Apple Slices. This is a dish that I would absolutely be willing to try. Here’s a picture of what it looked like.

Unfortunately, they did not have any Caramel Sauce at the time, so they couldn’t present that to the judges. The judges tried the Sandwich, and they commented that there was too much Bacon on it, and Joe also said that it didn’t have anything pungent or anything acidic, and just a basic lack of seasoning. Chef Ramsay then said that it had the makings of a winning dish, but it needed to be elevated. 

Dave brought this information back to the Red Team, and said that they needed to get rid of the Bacon, elevate the Macaroni & Cheese, and get the Caramel ready for the Apples.

Over on the Blue Team, the Orzo was still hard, to which one of the members of the team told Ted that they needed to do “another substitute of a Side,” as the Orzo was not working, to which Ted said in an interview that he was worried, because the Sides were getting out of control. Shompa then said that they were going to be making Fried Pickles, and several other members were saying at the same time that the Vegetable Crudite should also not be part of the dish, but the Lemon Cookie should, to which Ted admitted in interview that he did not keep it simple. 

When the judges came over to see a sample plate, what was presented to them was a Smash Burger with Cheddar and Special Sauce, and a side of Chips and a Lemon Cookie. This is another dish that I would be willing to try. Here is a picture of what it looked like.

The judges immediately asked where the Orzo and the Crudite were, to which Ted responded that they couldn’t get the Orzo to work, and that they decided to take the Crudite off the dish, because they thought it was too much. Chef Ramsay then took this time to remind him that the brief was One Protein and Two Sides, which both he and Ted admitted was way too much.

The judges then cut into the Burger, and they saw that the temperature it was cooked to was well done, and upon being asked if it was what they were going for, Ted said that they were actually going for medium. When the judges tasted it, Joe said that it tasted more like a Meatloaf Burger than a regular Burger, and that since they had overworked the Meat in such a way, it had the texture of Pate. He did admit that the seasoning on the Chips was good, but Chef Ramsay said that their Lemon Cookie was an insult as a Cookie, to which Tiffany said that she could not taste any Lemon in it, to which Ted responded that it was a very last minute shift, and that they would probably switch back to the Orzo, to which Joe said that the Cookie was not a bad idea. From there, the last thing Chef Ramsay said to Ted at this time was that the dish needed to consist of One Protein, Two Sides, and a Sauce. Yes, there is a reason why I included this part. 

When Ted was sharing this information with the Blue Team, and he got to the Lemon Cookie, and he talked about how the judges hated it, he suggested that they go back to the Orzo, and if that didn’t work, go with the Vegetable Crudite. Yes, he went back to the Side that wasn’t coming together in the first place, and was planning to go with the other side he didn’t present to the judges as a backup, even though Joe said that the Cookie was not a bad idea.

Chef Ramsay noticed this very quickly, and immediately asked Ted what had been dropped and replaced by the Orzo, to which Ted admitted that he didn’t know. Chef Ramsay called this out, as Ted was the Captain, to which Ted then said that they were replacing the Cookies with the Orzo, which clearly exasperated Chef Ramsay.

Unfortunately, Nico was still having trouble cooking the Orzo, so much so to the point that he literally had to ask Chef Ramsay if it was cooked properly, which clearly annoyed him, as he assumed that Nico would know what it was like when Orzo was cooked.

As it was almost time to start serving, the judges went back over to the Red Team, and cut into a piece of Chicken to see if it was cooked, and they quickly found that it was raw. Spoiler alert: This is not the last time I will be saying this. 

By now, there were five minutes left in the cook time, and Ted thought that the Orzo tasted good, so he told the Blue Team that they were going with the Orzo and the Vegetable Crudite Cups, and when one of his teammates asked him about the Chips, he said that they were going to be part of the dish too. Yes, even after literally being told by the judges why it was a bad idea, he was still going forward with THREE SIDES. Chef Ramsay happened to be there at the same time, and he had a look at the revised dish, and immediately saw that there were Three Sides, prompting him to call over the other two judges, and criticize the fact that they were still not following the rules they were given, and the fact that the Lemon Cookie was not one of the sides, as he said that it was a good idea. 

At this point, Ted finally decided that the Sides were going to be Chips and Lemon Cookies, the latter of which needed to be made in five minutes, and the judges were now confident that the Red Team was going to win by default, simply because of how much more organized they were with their dish. 

Eventually, it was finally time to serve the kids, and unfortunately, things were not very good for the Red Team, as even more Fried Chicken was coming out raw, prompting Chef Ramsay to start swearing and telling the kids to cover their ears, and also literally kick one piece of raw chicken into the soccer goal, and it also resulted in many kids walking past them without getting any food. 

The Blue Team actually started off pretty good at this point, which I find surprising, considering they had officially finalized their dish with five minutes to go. 

At a certain point, the Red Team was able to get it together, which meant that it was now time for the Blue Team to struggle again, as they ended up serving raw Burgers. 

Things did not get much better for the Blue Team, as Daniel and Nico were pressing so hard on the Burgers that the fat was running through the grill and causing fires, and it eventually got to the point that it literally caught fire, which had to be stopped by someone with a fire extinguisher, and also put that grill out of commission. 

Eventually, everyone was served, and the judges announced the winning team, which was revealed to be the Red Team, meaning that by being captain of the winning team, Dave now had the Immunity Pin for the next episode. Although, I have to say, it would have been very awkward if the Red Team had lost, as the person responsible for the raw Chicken was Heidi, who had the Immunity Pin from last week. 

This meant that the Blue Team had lost, and someone from that team would be going home. The judges then called out the Bottom Three contestants from the team, who were Ted, Nico, and Daniel. Me, my uncle, and his partner were confident that Nico was going to be eliminated, as this was the second week in a row where he landed in the bottom. 

But to our surprise, they actually eliminated Ted, and I feel the logic behind that decision was that his overconfidence in making more Sides than necessary set his team up for failure right from the beginning. 

Overall, I actually really enjoyed this episode way more than I thought I would! I would again like to thank my friends for helping me find my motivation again, and I’ll see you all next week, as the contestants try to make elevated watch party foods!