Sara Bates recaps episode 4 for season 9!

It’s already week four and we are down to 9 finalists.  At the beginning of the show Giada and Alton walk out, but there is no Bobby to be found.  Alton announces that this week’s challenge will be dinner and a movie at a deluxe cinema.  The finalists will be serving meals to moviegoers who are also their focus group.

The finalists are divided into 3 teams of 3 and each team is assigned a movie genre.  They have to plan a menu using that genre.  Each team member is responsible for one course (appetizer, entrée, or dessert).

The finalists take turns pulling cards to see which genre they are assigned.  Rodney, Chris and Lovely are the Musical Team.  Viet, Damaris and Chad are the Romance Team.  Stacey, Nikki and Russell are the Western Team.

On top of preparing meals, each team will film a 60 second movie trailer.  This trailer will be shown to a theater full of patrons (the focus group) who will decide which meal to eat based on the trailers.  The team that receives the most dinner orders will win and be safe until next week.

The teams have 30 minutes to develop their menus and then film their trailers.  Rodney, Chris and Lovely do a music video to describe their musical theme and meal.  Chris and Lovely are comfortable in front of the camera and do well, but Rodney fumbles several times and it is difficult to understand what he is saying.  Viet, Damaris and Chad create a trailer like the Dating Game to exemplify their romance theme.  It is a little uncomfortable as they describe their food in a sensual manner.  Stacey, Nikki and Russell create a cute Western trailer where they are all cowboys. During practice Russell really struggles to get through his lines.

After filming the finalists are brought out in front of the focus group and the mentors to present their trailers.  Bobby is back for the judging.  The focus group receives the dials again so they can rate how much they like each finalist’s presentation.

For the most part the trailers were received well, although a few of the finalists had issues.  The mentors couldn’t understand Rodney.  They thought the Romance trailer was sleazy and as Alton put it, it was “50 shades of hot sauce.”  They loved the western trailer and thought it was funny.

After reviewing the trailers, the teams return to the kitchen to wait for their food orders to start.  At first the western and romance teams are pumping out food while the musical team just stands aside and watches.  They don’t receive tickets for quite a while.  Finally, tickets start rolling in for the musical team and everyone is working hard.  Once all the meals are served to the focus group, the mentors are ready to test out all the plates.

For the Romance Team, Chad creates a spicy chicken wing for the appetizer.  Giada really likes it and Bobby praises it for its heat.  Damaris makes shrimp and grits for the entrée and the mentors say the grits are creamy but don’t have enough seasoning.  Viet finishes up the meal with a dessert of wild berries and yogurt cream.  Bobby feels it is plain and not very creative.

For the Western Team, Nikki makes a shoot out chili.  The mentors describe it as full bodied and say the veggies add a lot of depth.  Russell prepares a spaghetti dish for the entrée that is disappointing.  Giada remarkes that he should know how to make pasta.  Stacey rounds out the team with campfire smores for dessert.  The combination of popcorn, chocolate, coffee and graham cracker is great and the judges really like it.

Lastly, we have the Musical Team.  Chris takes the appetizer course and makes a lobster mac and cheese.  The combination of spicy chorizo with lobster and goat cheese doesn’t work and the judges are not impressed.  Rodney makes a steak and gruyere pie for the entrée and again the judges are not impressed. Overall, the pie is not good and neither is the crust, a huge disappointment since Rodney is the pie man.  Lastly, Lovely makes a warm doughnut with caramel sauce.  The doughnut is dry and dense and Bobby can’t even bite into it.

After the challenge, the finalists make their way back to Food Network headquarters to learn their fate.  The Western Team ultimately wins the challenge.  They served more people and all three judges really like their trailer.  Nikki, Stacey and Russell are all safe.  The judges all agree that Chad, Damaris and Chris didn’t have the best week, but it also isn’t their worst week.  They are all safe too.  This leaves Rodney, Viet and Lovely as the bottom three.  After the mentors deliberate, they bring the three finalists back in.  They all see passion in Viet and would like to see more of him – he is safe.

It comes down to Rodney and Lovely.  Then, the mentors announce that Lovely will be leaving them this week.  They agree it was a very hard decision but it was the best decision.  Do you agree?  Or do you feel someone else deserves to go home?

We see the preview for next week which shows the 8 finalists cooking during a live show.  I can’t wait to see that!  Until then, have a great week!