Hell's Kitchen/Elimination Houdini

As a competition based reality show, Hell's Kitchen is bound to have that one contestant who somehow manages to escape elimination by the skin of their teeth. Each season produces at least one Elimination Houdini who often makes it further than they really have any right to, but they do for whatever reason, whether it is their lack of skill, poor attitude, or because their teammates either don't like them, or they pass their mistakes onto them. That said, here are some of the most prominent examples the show has seen.

Season 1

Andrew was the main source of drama in the first season mainly because of his incompetence, refusal to take blame for his mistakes, and causing a lot of infighting within the Blue Team, yet he managed to reach 6th place just before Black Jackets were dolled out.
Jimmy constantly made mistakes during service, yet only survived eliminations due to Dewberry and Jeff being both useless and rage-quitting, and eventual winner Michael carrying the team once he was transferred over, and the one time they did lose, the latter avoided nominating him just to get rid of Chris. Jimmy made it to Black Jackets where he was finally axed after the first service.
- It is likely that Jimmy's survival lead to Gordon changing how eliminations worked in future seasons to prevent players from using strategy to make their decisions, to encourage team play more.

Season 2

Sara was always blaming her mistakes on her teammates, manipulating everyone around her, including Chef Ramsay, and just being incredibly unlikeable in general. She survived to 4th place.
Sara doesn't quite compare to Virginia though. Virginia may have been solid in challenges, she was constantly making mistakes, got overwhelmed easily when the pressure rose. She was nominated 4 times consecutively, and 6 overall, but attained the runner-up position.

Season 3

Josh never had a good service throughout his entire stay in Hell's Kitchen, only surviving eliminations he was nominated for due to the person he stood up there with being just a tad bit worse than he was. It took a disastrous black jacket service, and the first ever mid-service elimination to finally get him sent home in 5th place.

Season 4

Season 4 winner Christina technically counts because she was nominated 4 times over the course of the competition. However, due to the cliquey nature of that season's Red Team, only two of her nominations were genuine, whilst the other two were solely down to personal bias.
Matt also counts. He only had one good service when he was transferred to the Red team, and constantly made simple mistakes, blamed everyone else for said mistakes, and always looked on the verge of tears. He somehow made it to black jackets, but the first service of that phase was his worst one, and was enough to eliminate him in 6th place.

Season 5

Seth was a short lived example; he was nominated for elimination every time he was eligible to do so, and while he was passionate, he demonstrated how inept he was at every turn despite his 15 year cooking background. He only survived opening night because Wil nominated himself without even fighting for it.
Despite making rookie mistakes (like sending desserts up to the pass before service even began), asking dumb questions, and rambling speeches, Ben was constantly nominated for elimination, surviving four, and being eliminated on his fifth.
Colleen was a disaster everywhere she went, and her lack of culinary training (despite being a culinary instructor by profession), really showed. Before she was eliminated, she was nominated the one time the women lost, and likely would have been sent home had Ji not gotten injured enough for her to withdraw.

Season 6

Sabrina's service performance declined more and more as the competition went on and became more and more oblivious to her mistakes, until she just missed out on a black jacket in 7th place.
Tennille started of as one, but after her confrontation with Chef Ramsay, she got better until she crumbled so badly that Chef Ramsay eliminated her without a nomination in 4th place.
Suzanne was far from the worst chef ever, but her inconsistency got her a total of four nominations up until her elimination in 5th place. It didn't help that she came across to some as a Smug Snake who thought a little too highly of herself despite the mistakes she made.

Season 7

Scott boasted a lot about his fine dining experience, but was never able to back up his boasting with skill. He survived his first nomination due to a team swap with Autumn, survived his second because Maria was useless as a server, but was axed on his third when Chef Ramsay just couldn't take his bullshit anymore.
Fran was named Best of the Worst in Episode 5, but other than that, her Never My Fault attitude and repeated mistakes got her 8th place and 6 nominations.
Autumn broke Virginia's record for most nominations by a single contestant, having received 7 nominations overall mainly due to frequent mistakes, blame shifting, and bad attitude that turned everyone against her despite having some talent in her.
Benjamin is this for the same reasons as Scott, but he became a total jackass once he moved to the Red team, and from there, his weaknesses and shortcomings were exposed more and more, while becoming less pleasant. He almost pulled out of the competition last minute because of back pains, until Ramsay encouraged he to stay.

Season 8

Despite having some talent and knowledge, Sabrina has the worst nomination history of any chef, tying with Autumn with 7 nominations overall, but Sabrina was nominated every single time she was eligible to do so. As Trev summed her performance up, the Red team had to carry her all the way through to black jackets. Plus, her nasty, bitchy personality got her a lot of hatred from fans, and her lack of maturity got her eliminated on her seventh nomination in 6th place.
Melissa spent the first few eliminations being shielded by the other women (except Sabrina) despite her obvious shortcomings as a chef. Even after cooking 23 filets (and overcooking them at that), she wasn't eliminated, but sent over to the Blue team. A repeat of the filet incident (only with scallops this time) got her eliminated in 10th place when the men weren't as forgiving as the women were.
Russell was rude, arrogant, and combative in the later stages of the competition, and likely would've been eliminated sooner than 2nd place of not for the fact that Season 8's roster was noticeably weaker than previous seasons.

Season 9

Tommy technically counts despite being well liked by the fandom. However, he was never great in any of his services, and never really stood out much for his skills as a chef, but rather his sense of humour. It also doesn't help that he was greatly overshadowed by his two comrades, Will and Paul.
Carrie was consistent...consistently dreadful in service, yet she stayed until 8th place, most likely when her feud with Elise had worn out its appeal. Speaking of...
...Elise. Hoo boy, Elise. Elise is widely considered to be the ultimate embodiment of this trope. Like Autumn and Sabrina before her, Elise received 7 nominations for elimination, but more for her insufferable personality, constant blame shifting, lying, inconsistent performances, unending hypocrisy at every turn, ego that could rival Kanye West, and refusal to knowledge her mistakes or flaws. She is also controversial for surviving eliminations over far more likeable chefs like Jamie, Jennifer, Tommy, and especially Natalie.
- That last one is egregious because Elise tried to lie to Chef Ramsay's face about her badly cooked wellingtons by blaming Tommy of all people for it, claiming he had scored them too deep, even though Tommy is shown refusing to score them for her. Chef Ramsay hates it when chefs lie, which is something he actually kicked Brendan out for in Episode 2, yet here, Elise gets to fight on (until 3rd place), and Natalie is sent home in 7th. And unfortunately for the viewers, this season wasn't the last time we'd see Elise in competition!

Season 10

In what many consider to be one of the worst Blue Teams in the show's history, we have three notable examples:
- First, we have Royce who was a consistently poor performer and likely would've been booted in Episode 1 had it not been for Tavon, who managed to be ten times worse. Royce made it to 10th place despite his poor record.
- Next, we have Robyn. She was transferred to the Blue team after spending much of her time on the Red team fighting with/complaining about her teammates, but even after this, she still continued to disappoint and got axed after the first black jacket service after 5 nominations.
- The biggest Houdini of Season 10 however is Clemenza, who was put up for elimination a whopping 7 times. While he had his fans and was extremely passionate, he was also very inconsistent and had his fair share of awful services (like in Episode 7), that would've got him booted if not for his passionate pleas to stay in the game.
On the Red side, Tiffany was a weak performer, lazy when it came to basic kitchen practises, and often looked like she didn't give a shit, yet made it to 9th place.
Barbie is a strange example because while she was far from terrible, she received 4 nominations mainly because her teammates didn't like her.
Anytime her team lost, Roshni was nominated three times consecutively before she was axed in 12th place despite completing the Blue team's service alone with Brian that night.

Season 11

Nedra managed to avoid being nominated a lot of the time by palming her mistakes off on her teammates, and successfully talking them out of putting her up for elimination. She survived to 8th place after a crap service with the blue team where the guys weren't so forgiving, nor willing to let her push them around.
Susan made mistake after mistake and was frequently seen as the weakest member of the red team. In the eyes of many fans, the fact that she couldn't cook lamb properly until the 16th episode was a clear sign that she had long outstayed her welcome and singled out as the weakest black jacket chef that season.

Season 12

DeMarco may have been a short-lived example, but what lands him here is the fact he was nominated in every single episode he was in until he was punted in the fifth episode.
Gabriel was a consistently weak performer with 5 nominations to his name and was eliminated in 7th place having performed poorly enough to not only receive a mid-service elimination, but also get ordered out through the front door.
Scott to date has the most nominations of any Hell's Kitchen winner, with a grand total of 7. Thing is, however, is that half were a result of his teammate Joy refusing to nominate Kaisha over him, even if she performed worse than he did. That said, surviving each elimination only made his eventual win that much better.

Season 14

Monique was not only dreadful in services and challenges, but her dreadful attitude and victim mentality quickly earned her the ire of her teammates before she got canned five episodes in.
Despite a strong start, Josh's performance gradually dropped off a cliff when he started getting put up for elimination consistently before settling for a 6th place finish with 5 nominations.

Season 15

Dannie had her highs and lows, but she didn't have a good attitude even at the best of times. This became particularly glaring in the finale where she straight up abandoned her station because Gordon called her out twice for undercooked meat.
Manda was far from the worst chef this season, but she was put up for elimination 4 times across the whole season.
Jackie made it to 8th place despite 4 nominations and having a wretched attitude and personality that managed to piss off everyone in the process, including Christina Wilson, the red team's sous chef that season. And that's even going into pressing some of Gordon Ramsay's biggest berserk buttons.

Season 16

Paulie started off well, but as his attitude worsened, so did his performance. He faced 4 nominations in the latter half of the season until he was eliminated in 4th place right after Kimberely was given the chop.

Season 17

Robyn may have spent her time in a less drama-filled blue team this time, but she still lacked the consistency of her teammates and still managed to rack up 5 nominations before once again being booted after the first black jacket service, bringing her total nomination count up to 10.
It became evident early on the Manda wasn't as good as she was in Season 15, as she was once again put up 4 times in 6 episodes before settling for 11th place, bringing her nomination count to 8.
Elise once again proved to be just as disruptive as she was in Season 9, only with an even worse attitude. With 5 nominations this season, she has the most nominations to her name than any other contestant in the show's history with 12, and she survived all of them, only taking a horrible day on the Black Jacket Challenge to eliminate her. Just like last time, her survivals were often at the expense of far better chefs like Van and Dana (in a season that was criticised for screwing over half the men's team with unfair eliminations). Many fans agree that her Season 17 elimination was even more satisfying than her Season 9 one.

Season 18

Trev got no respect from his teammates throughout the competition and constantly blamed other for his mistakes. He received 3 nominations before being eliminated on his fourth in 7th place.
Despite being the Season 16 runner-up, Heather showed that she wasn't as good as she was before, often doing poorly in service, playing it safe during challenges, and trying to fly solo without communicating, which her team saw as a detriment. Due to being part of a very strong blue team that rarely lost a dinner service, she was eventually eliminated in 5th place when Gordon Ramsay got tired of her excuses.

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