Commings received the prize job retained from the previous season and became head chef at Gordon Ramsay Pub and Grill at Caesars Palace.

However, Ramsay overruled and eliminated Nicole, feeling her negative attitude and lack of passion, cooking ability, fight back and leadership outweighed the mistakes made by the four nominees.

After the nominees were named, Ramsay called Simone, Mike and DeMarco step forward, had them remove their jackets and gave them ten seconds to plead their cases.

After Richard and Ralph served cold crab cakes and watery ravioli, Ramsay forced them to eat their mistakes, while Chris undercooked fillets.

Mike pleaded to be transferred to the women, but Ramsay eliminated him for his lack of passion and effort, terrible attitude, refusal to be a team player, and for consistently being a poor performer.

Team challenge: The chefs played a variant of Concentration where they had to match side dishes with four different types of protein (pork chop, swordfish, ahi tuna and chicken breast) in pairs.

Sandra forgot a capellini on appetizers and Joy argued with her for not communicating, while Beth served raw and overcooked lobster and was non-communicative, leading Melanie to take over most of her responsibilities.

However, Melanie, whose leadership was largely ineffectual, ruined the VIP table's order with raw halibut, and Kashia served perfect wellingtons but was slow to say when they would be ready.

Anton accidentally caused a small fire on the fish station when the bottom of a bottle of oil came out when he picked it up, and Ralph served raw rib-eye then undercooked and poorly cut lamb.

After a heated argument between the two women during their pleas, Ramsay sent Jessica back in line and eliminated Bev for her lack of intensity and letting Rochelle take over her station during service.

Reward/punishment: The women were rewarded with lunch at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes and a private volleyball lesson with Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings on the beach.

During prep back at Hell's Kitchen, Ralph began to feel sick, caused by bad sleep (courtesy of Gabriel's snoring the night before), but returned before service.

This led Ramsay to express frustration over the men's lack of teamwork, and although he accepted Gabriel and Scott as the nominees he also nominated Ralph (sarcastically stating "why not").

Lastly, Scott surprised Ramsay by presenting a completed ravioli dish and scored over Kashia on pork cheek, giving the men a 3–2 win.

On entrées, Anton overcooked halibut and blamed Scott for it due to the latter confusing him, causing Ramsay to march all the men into the store room and tell them to sort out their differences.

In the women's kitchen, Rochelle did well on appetizers but was hampered by Sandra struggling to provide the lobster tail for the risotto (due to it falling apart) and Kashia forgetting to turn her gas on when cooking capellini.

Ramsay felt both menus were decent, but insisted on tweaks, and expressed similar concern over Joy's fried chicken dish and reprimanded Rochelle when she burnt a sampler crab cake and giggled nervously.

Anton then overcooked the wellingtons, blamed the oven for his problems, and argued with Sous Chef Andi (who in turn berated him intensely), causing Ramsay to send him to the storeroom and tell him to bounce back.

In a shocking twist, Ramsay eliminated frontrunner Anton for his arrogance, downward spiral, disintegrating performances, refusal to be a team player, and constantly blaming others for his mistakes.

The guest judges were editor of LAist Krista Simmons, Master Yelper Anita Lau and IDG Director of Development Brent Berkowitz.

Reward/punishment: Joy earned a black jacket and immunity from elimination after service, a December spot on the calendar, and was also treated to lunch with Rock, Paul, and Dana in the Hell's Kitchen dining room.

Dinner service featured a special VIP table for members of Oxfam, an anti-poverty charity, including ambassador and actress Minnie Driver, and founder Raymond Offenheiser.

Automatic elimination / Ejected: After Scott and Gabriel both served overcooked and raw salmon respectively for the Oxfam table, Ramsay pulled them into the storage room.

On entrées, Rochelle had trouble slicing chicken, forcing Ramsay to help her, while Kashia failed to communicate with the rest of the kitchen and then proceeded to serve raw salmon.

She then lashed out at Jason and Rochelle when they asked her for times on the refire and maintained a morose attitude towards the rest of her team, causing Ramsay to send Scott to help her.

[note 2] Despite his continued frustration with Scott, Ramsay eliminated Kashia for her volatile attitude during service and poor performance on fish, feeling she was not yet ready to be a head chef.

The chefs were then given 30 minutes to make a dish using leftovers from the refrigerators, which would be judged on taste and presentation by Ramsay and magazine food editor Laurie Buckle.

Scott had a strong performance on appetizers despite being forced to clean burning rice on the stove, while Melanie failed twice to cook an acceptable capellini for the chef's table, but recovered.

Rochelle was nervous in leadership as she read out tickets too fast and kept giggling, but after a pep talk by Ramsay, she recovered, rejecting poorly presented salads by Scott and catching shrimp in a risotto instead of lobster.

Many of the women (particularly Melanie) were annoyed by the order of the selection, feeling it was blatantly sexist and that Scott and Jason were choosing based on who they were friends with on the blue team, rather than considering people's abilities in the kitchen.