Elimination Houdini / Hell's Kitchen

As with all competitive Reality TV shows, there are always contestants whom audiences believe long outstay their welcome, whether it be due to their skills or their attitude. Hell's Kitchen is no exception.

In General

• It is believed that Executive Meddling keeps many of them in the running, hopes of raising the drama and therefore ratings. Or that Gordon is contractually obligated to do a certain number of episodes, and can't eliminate every useless individual, lest he gets the final four by Episode 6. Or a streak of good work on one team helps to insulate a shoddy player, especially in a target-rich environment (so if the person who was this was eliminated early on, there'd be a different one to take their place). One of the Season 6 contestants, Jim McGloin, confirmed that Ramsay is not the person who decides eliminations, it's the producers. So contestants who were elimination targets like Sabrina and Elise were only kept around because their Hate Sink status made them a good ratings ploy.
  • Of course, since Ramsay is the primary presenter and the owner of the restaurants that employment within is offered as a prize, he probably has the final word on the winner specifically. Note how the talented hate sink (or the mediocre but passionate and kind person) gets eliminated either just before the Black Jackets or as soon as possible within the Black Jackets (that is, unless someone fucks up spectacularly, then it is borrowed time).
• Also, watch out for chefs with great palates. Chef Ramsay has stated that a great palate is one of the most important things a chef can possess, noting that while he can teach nearly anyone to be a great cook, a good palate is something you're born with and an indicator of a chef's true potential. Chefs who have been noted to have great palates and who do well in the inevitable Blind Taste Test challenge, which usually takes place just before or just after the teams merge, have almost always done far better than they would've been expected otherwise.
  • Cases in point: Virginia from Season 2 and Bonnie from Season 3. There's also Nona from Season 8, who made it into the final six and eventually won the season even after messing up several dinner services in a row (though Gail and Vinny's collapses just before the merge may have also helped Nona along). However, this was subverted in Season 10 with Brian, who got three out of four right on the Blind Taste Test while his teammates Robyn and Clemenza earned none, yet Brian was eliminated before either of them, in 7th place.
• There's a pretty consistent pattern in how Ramsay eliminates contestants. Chefs who are outright incompetent are the first to go; they might last a bit longer if they show some passion and enthusiasm, but not beyond the first few episodes. The next contestants to be eliminated are the ones who consistently fly under the radar, and never put in a truly good performance nor show any real leadership qualities. After that, we get to the traditional Elimination Houdinis — chefs who put in a lot of unremarkable or outright bad performances, but at least one or two good performances along the way, which gives Ramsay more of a reason to keep them in than the ones who are okay but never excel. Once they're gone, we're finally left with the genuinely good contestants. Ultimately, there are usually two major Elimination Houdinis per season, the awful chef who somehow stumbles through the first few episodes (either because they have very high enthusiasm or someone else who is normally more consistent fucks up spectacularly) before being eliminated somewhere between episodes 3-5, and the chef who either has a bad attitude throughout the season and/or dramatically improves throughout the season (they might also have a good palate). This chef usually gets to at least the final six, and sometimes (as was the case with Virginia, Bonnie, and Mary) even the final two.
  • One important thing to keep in mind that this is a filmed TV show. This means that a lot of what happens gets edited out, so viewers often miss out on the full story behind Chef Ramsay's choices for elimination.
  • Older contestants are also very likely to be eliminated early, if not in the very first episode. This is likely because Ramsay sees more potential for growth in younger contestants since they ostensibly have more life ahead of them. Older chefs also likely have more experience, so Ramsay expects more from them. If an older and younger chef make the same mistake, you can bet the older chef will be the one eliminated for it.
    • The majority of contestants at the age of 40 or older fail to make it into Black Jackets or even halfway into their seasons. The chefs that have averted this are: Season 1's Elsie, Season 4's Petrozza, Season 6's Andy, Season 7's Fran, Season 10's Clemenza, Season 11's Ray, Season 12's Richard, Season 13's Sterling, Season 14's Randy, Season 19's Declan, and Season 21’s Alex, who actually won his season, being the only chef who was 40 or older to win. And even then, some of these chefs are considered Elimination Houdinis in their own right and undeserving of making it as far as they did (namely Andy, Fran, and Clemenza; see their respective profiles below).

Season 1

• Andrew. He failed consistently to cook dishes correctly, caused infighting in his team, and would never admit to doing anything wrong. Part of Andrew's survival was probably down to the contestants he was put up for elimination against (Wendy, who was utterly hopeless, and Mary-Ellen, who wasn't quite as bad as Andrew but wasn't a great cook herself), but he still lasted several weeks longer than he deserved to. He ended up getting eliminated right before the black jackets.
• Jimmy. He screwed up nearly every service but kept avoiding being nominated firstly because Dewberry and Jeff somehow managed to be worse in the early services, and Elsie decided to nominate Carolann instead of him. The second reason is that Michael carried the red team for the rest of the season after the team switch and deliberately avoided nominating Jimmy after their sole remaining loss so that he could get rid of Chris (since Ramsay couldn't overrule nominations during the first season). He lasted until the first black jacket service where he was eliminated.
  • It's possible that this led to the later changes, of Gordon having veto power over the more 'game-like' elements in it, to avoid strategic play.

Season 2

• Virginia. She was a decent chef for the most part (she won most of the challenges), but constantly fell apart during service. Near the end, she won an immunity challenge that would let her into the final 3 but screwed up so badly that Gordon revoked it... only to return it to her in the middle of elimination to the anger of Heather and Keith. She ended up the runner-up.
• Tom. He only lasted until the fourth week, but he managed to screw his team on virtually every service, yet somehow kept surviving being put up for elimination until the utter train wreck that was the fourth service.
• Sara. She had a few decent early performances, but she started making more and more screw-ups, along with showing a terrible attitude and constantly screwing over her teammates and letting them take the fall for it, though she managed to end up fourth mostly just because others managed to be even worse.

Season 3

• Josh. He placed fifth (he even got a Black Jacket) despite constantly screwing up and then did so terribly that Ramsay eliminated him mid-service. It's even more shocking that he was nominated almost every time the blue team lost a service (except for the final team-based service where Rock decided to put Brad up instead) and was passed over by other stronger chefs.
• Bonnie did horribly for the first half of the season and was nominated three times, but - most likely because she was one of the most tolerable of that season's "Hell's Bitches" - she was able to stay long enough to improve herself and deservedly finish second.
• Melissa was the best cook on the red team for the first two services of that season, but disintegrated spectacularly afterward, and kept on surviving through virtue of her early good performances until Ramsay finally had enough and threw her out after a failed chance with the blue team.

Season 4

• Jen. She was a capable chef, but completely unable to recognize her faults when she did make mistakes. Eventually, everybody got sick of her attitude that she was nominated twice in the black jackets before being eliminated in 4th place.
• Matt could cook at times, but was emotionally unstable, which often caused his abilities to drop like a brick. He placed 6th.
• Rosann was a consistently terrible performer, but the cliquey nature of that season's red team meant that she kept avoiding being nominated for elimination simply because the other girls liked her. However, she was eliminated 8th after Corey could not handle her mistakes any longer.
• Christina was the first ever Elimination Houdini to actually win. Despite being a pretty good chef, she was constantly targeted by the red team due to their belief that she was "snooty". While two of her nominations were legit, two of them were based on those pre-mentioned beliefs.

Season 5

• Colleen and Seth were both consistently useless on the line and yet avoided being eliminated for several weeks in succession. Colleen would've likely had been eliminated on Episode 2 had Ji not withdrawn from the competition due to a broken ankle. Seth, meanwhile, was helped by Ramsay inexplicably eliminating Wil and Charlie, two much better cooks, in favour of him. They were eventually eliminated in Episodes 4 (Seth) and 5 (Colleen, without being nominated). Seth is a bigger one than Colleen because while Seth was seen by his team as lacking enthusiasm Colleen at least showed more passion than him and was trying to get better, and Ramsay acknowledged her tenacity even while eliminating her without nomination.
• Lacey spent a lot of her time on the show whining and acting like a petulant teenager, though when she did bother to put the effort in she was one of the best performers from that season. The occasional good performances that she did show probably kept her in until relatively late in that season, when she fell apart spectacularly on the meat station and got kicked out in mid-service.
• Andrea barely hung on after her first nomination in Episode 5, being nominated every single time her team lost afterwards (with the exception of Episode 6 where she was ranked Best of the Worst). Despite repeatedly screwing up during service, she received a black jacket... and then proceeded to get nominated after every single black jacket service, and would have been booted if not for Giovanni’s “Dickface” incident, Robert’s medical exit, and receiving immunity. Ramsay even outright said that Andrea would have been eliminated in fourth if not for her immunity, between this and Robert's unfortunate health problems he spared Ben, who got eliminated on the next service as Andrea did better than him. In the end, she placed 3rd.

Season 6

• During the beginning, Tennille screwed up several times and got within an inch of being thrown out mid-service after insulting Ramsay to his face.
• However, after the universally disastrous 6th service, Tennille improved and Suzanne and Sabrina took over. Suzanne repeatedly screwed her team nearly every service, while Sabrina made several critical mistakes such as serving raw pork.
• Amanda was one of the weakest members on the red team with several Epic Fail moments, such as freezing the salmon on the first day but only got eliminated in the eighth episode. The reasons for that because Melinda, Lovely, and Tek all had atrocious performances, and she wasn't the main target.
• Andy, despite probably being the worst performer out of that season's men (barring only the grossly incompetent Louie, and the in-over-his-head Tony), lasted nine services before getting kicked out. Part of that long survival's causes included the aforementioned abysmal performance of Louie getting him eliminated in the middle of the first service and Tony as aforementioned being just not skilled enough, Gordon inexplicably kicking Jim out of the blue when he wasn't up for nomination, along with Joseph getting thrown out for being a complete jerk during the second episode's nomination. Otherwise, the red team's downfall shielded Andy from being Ramsay's main target.

Season 7

• Scott, despite his claimed "fine dining experience", constantly screwed up and blamed his teammates. While he was lucky to be on the more stable blue team, he performed worse when he was on the red team and was eliminated after the Family Night service.
• Siobhan made mistake after mistake after mistake, to the point where her only decent performance was in the first service. She managed to skate by, mostly by virtue of being consistently bad but not quite the worst performer on the team, until the eighth service where she did so poorly that it resulted in a rare instance of Ramsay deciding a contestant was such a lost cause that he eliminated them without letting them say anything in their defence.
• Fran always blamed anyone and anything but herself, despite constant mistakes and six nominations. Much like Season 5's Colleen, Ramsay admired her tenacity and kept her around until the penultimate Red/Blue service; it probably helped that, unlike Colleen, Fran did well enough to be named the Best of the Worst in one service.
• Autumn was nominated for elimination more times than anybody since Season 2's Virginia, but that was as much because her teammates hated her as her performances. While she did legitimately poorly in the eighth and ninth services, other times she was put up just because her team-mates disliked her, and/or her performance wasn't terrible, but there wasn't anyone else who had fouled up enough to justify nomination.
• Benjamin, like Scott, loved to brag about his "fine dining" experience to everyone and wouldn't shut up about it; and while he started strong, his weaknesses were quickly exposed when was moved to the red team. He proved to be a poor leader, was often disrespectful towards his teammates (particularly Siobhan, Autumn, and Holli) for no reason, threw a hissy-fit whenever he lost a challenge to anyone and insisted his dish was better despite Ramsay saying otherwise, and had several poor services but managed to intimidate his other teammates to avoid nomination until he went up against Jason in the final five, and despite Ben having been much worse during service, Jason was sent home instead. Then in the next episode, he tried to get himself sent home early by claiming he had a back injury (despite clearly being shown moving around and bending over without being in any noticeable pain) but Ramsay encouraged him to stay, though he was eliminated anyway along with Autumn.

Season 8

• Arguably Raj, who may count despite leaving in the third episode fourth last (Antonia was medically evacuated before the first service) as he is widely considered one of the worst chefs in the shows history. He was nominated twice, both of which he was the only ones he was eligible for and survived only due to Lisa abysmally failing on fish in the first service and being in over her head, and Curtis completely falling apart at the sushi station and being eliminated despite not being nominated (it should be noted that Raj and Curtis were going to be chosen, but Curtis managed to dodge his nomination by getting Boris nominated only for it to backfire). When the men (barely) won the third service, Raj's luck ran out as Ramsay spared Sabrina (the season's real big Houdini, see below, which in this particular service was arguably fair as Ramsay was confused by her nomination) and Emily. Raj was eliminated by Ramsay for terrible work in the first two services and almost ruining the third service. The reason he arguably counts as an Elimination Houdini is because despite his relatively early departure, he was so bad the only reason he lasted that long is because Lisa and Curtis completely fell apart.
• Melissa, who kept screwing up badly in the early services, kept surviving because the other red team members for some reason believed her to be the best cook on the team and kept trying to shield her from elimination. Eventually, she got moved to the blue team as a last-ditch attempt to improve her performances, but she promptly tanked again; her new teammates weren't as inclined to protect her, and she was soon gone.
• Sabrina ended up placing sixth despite her bitchy and immature personality, although like Lacey from Season 5, she had some talent that she put to good use in services, which is enough for Ramsay to let her reach black jacket to her teammates chagrin.
• Arguably, if it wasn't for this season's weak cast, Russell's insufferably arrogant personality would have made him ultimately unworthy of getting a black jacket, let alone placing 2nd.

Season 9

• Elise was not head chef material. All she was at best was a decent but not stand-out chef, and at worst an incompetent chef who has made several glaring errors. Where she does stand-out is her toxic attitude—she's arrogant, stupid, loud and argues with other contestants constantly, declaring her intent to get her Arch-Enemy Carrie eliminated, always blames others for her mistakes, and claims that any other chef who dislikes her is just threatened by her talent. Furthermore, when the team wins a challenge she makes sure to let them know it was thanks to her—if they lose, she refuses to help them with the prep work or other penalty, invoking "I'm A Chef, Not A Placeholder" to justify why she feels she doesn't have to help. It was obvious that she won't win (even if she makes it into the finals, she's alienated the other players so much that they'd all probably walk off the line rather than cook for her), so the goal is now to keep her in as many episodes as possible without looking overt. She ended up third and Chef Ramsay even let her keep her jacket. In a moment from the after-party, he tells her she'd be a fantastic chef if she'd "just stop being a bitch".
  • In fact, her status as this contributes to why she is among the most hated chefs in the entire series and why many people regard Season 9 as one of the worst Hell's Kitchen series, if not below average.
• Carrie was effectively the opposite of Elise, having a much nicer personality but turning in consistently dreadful performances. YMMV on how "nice" Carrie was though. Carrie ended up placing 8th.
• Tommy, while not terrible, had very few moments where he did a truly good job and spent the majority of the season in the background during dinner service. But unlike Elise, he was nice, funny, and all-around likable, and Ramsay admitted that he liked Tommy's spirit and enjoyed having him around, and ultimately said that he had grown to "understand and appreciate" Tommy's skills. He placed fourth.

Season 10

• Robyn was okay in a few services (including her first service on the blue team, where Ramsay said she was the only one who performed well); but more often than not, she ended up making a lot of simple mistakes. In episode 14, she served potentially lethal raw chicken twice and as a result, Ramsay kicked the ENTIRE BLUE TEAM out of the kitchen. Ultimately though, Robyn survived, and Kimmie was eliminated despite it being her first time on the elimination block (though to be fair, Kimmie was ALMOST as bad). Then, in the next episode, she received a black jacket while Brian was eliminated. Like Kimmie, Brian was pretty bad in his final service (so bad that Barbie had to take over his station) and he displayed a very immature attitude, but he had been consistent overall apart from one other bad service and Robyn had attempted to throw her teammates under the bus during that service by saying that they made her do something that Ramsay yelled at her for. She placed 6th.
• Tiffany was not only a weak chef, she was incredibly lazy (going so far as to try cooking in a dirty pan despite there being several clean pans in front of her) kept screwing up during service, and didn't even seem to have some motivation and passion (when Ramsay asked her on a scale of one to ten how much she cared, she hesitated before saying nine). She placed ninth.
• Clemenza was incredibly inconsistent, sometimes doing good during challenges but usually making silly mistakes during service and refusing to admit to them. He was nominated more times than anyone else on the blue team and avoided all of them due to him shifting the blame over to whoever else was up for nomination along with him. Though in all fairness, whoever he was up against managed to be even worse than him; in other words, he was a master of being NEAR the bottom of the pack without being AT the bottom until getting booted in 5th place.
• Royce was a textbook example of Small Name, Big Ego. For example, he bragged about how good he was then served a lobster dish with a very long piece of hair and a "shit sack" in it. Despite this, he placed 10th.

Season 11

• Zach was not a standout chef throughout the season (with his one truly awesome moment coming in the first episode); he's another case of Small Name, Big Ego, and most of the cast disliked him. His incompetence is notable for two specific scenarios, during one service he tried to sabotage Ray with cold sauce and was caught by Ramsay who warned Ray to watch him, showing he was aware Zach did it on purpose, and in a later service Zach fumbled an order trying to call it back, so Ramsay took over his station to prepare Zach's part of the order himself, controversially managing to survive over the far more consistent and well-liked Anthony. He placed 6th.
• Mary was nominated 3 times in a span of 5 episodes due to being one of the weaker chefs in this season, though some of it due to the other picked on her Nice Girl attitude to save themselves. Then she improved tremendously and achieved 2nd.
• Susan, she took 15 episodes to properly cook lamb, frequently made mistakes due to her inexperience. And even with her 2 good performances in services (one of them being in the meat station) before getting the black jacket, it's obvious that she's extremely overshadowed in both skill and growth compared to the remaining finalists, ending her journey in 5th.
• Nedra did well at times, but all too often she'd tank services and showcase an extremely poor attitude about it. She survived by a) causing other people (e. g. Amanda) to screw up and place the blame on them and b) using her bitchiness to manipulate her team into nominating people who didn't deserve to be nominated. This strategy got her far on the red team, but when she joined the blue team and tanked service, the blue team didn't give in to her manipulation. She was eliminated that night, in eighth place.

Season 12

• Demarco was an early example. He didn't perform well enough for the blue team, and he was nominated five times in a row whenever they had the chance. While he survived the first four due to multiple chefs doing worse than him (Gaurav, Nicole, and Mike were poor performers, while Simone surprisingly quit in the middle of the third elimination), he didn't last in his fifth nomination as Ramsay said he ran out of chances.
• Gabriel survived five nominations (for, in order, raw chicken, slowing the blue team to a loss, inaccurate timing, not being able to count, and raw steaks, while not being nominated for frozen garnish) and seemed to be just generally in over his head. He admittedly survived over several far worse people, but more than a few fans were annoyed to see him survive over Richard in episode 13. He finally got the chop in the last red/blue team episode after doing so badly that he was kicked out mid-service.
• While Christina from Season 4 was the first ever Elimination Houdini to win, Scott is perhaps the more famous one, as he tied the show's record for the most nominations. However, at least three of those were purely the result of Joy refusing to ever nominate Kashia and putting him up instead and another one was a result of Anton blaming Scott for his own mistakes. Despite this, he got to the finale after a huge improvement in the final weeks and eventually won.
• In a weird way, Kaisha is more of Nomination Houdini, but can still be counted as this. While she was nominated twice in her Hell's Kitchen run, Kaisha did have services where she struggled more than her teammates and deserved to be nominated. But thanks to Joy manipulating the votes, Kaisha got off scot-free more than ever. It wouldn't be until the final six that her luck ran out and she was eliminated after a poor performance on fish.

Season 13

• Roe was the most experienced chef out of anyone that season ^note  She's a head chef. There are a couple of executive chefs in the blue team, while in the red team her teammates are line chefs or sous chefs at most., but she screwed up in several services and cost her team several challenges (for example, getting a 4 out of 15 while the next lowest scoring dish was a nine). She somehow avoided being nominated until episode 6... and survives over Katie (though to be fair, Katie was just as bad). She ended up 5th, after completely falling apart on the garnish station.
• Kalen was a minor example. She only lasted five episodes, but she completely screwed her team over in at least the last three.
• Sterling was an interesting example. He was a good cook, but his peppy attitude rubbed a lot of the chefs the wrong way. While he managed to make it to the Top 7, he was eliminated right after service when he failed on fish.

Season 14

• Monique was a short-lived example, only lasting five episodes, but tanking in virtually every service and challenge, and having a generally horrible attitude toward her teammates and the competition as a whole.
• Christine, while generally doing well in challenges, screwed up in almost every service but kept on surviving because someone else managed to do just that little bit worse. Ironically she started showing signs of improvement near the end of her time on the show but was eliminated after losing the "Cook for your Life" challenge.
• Josh did well in a lot of the early services, but after about the halfway point his performances and attitude both nosedived. After a handful of lucky breaks — Ramsay deciding to reshuffle the teams rather than eliminating anyone, then Randy being eliminated despite being on the winning team, followed by Alison suddenly tanking and getting kicked out over Josh — he finally got the boot in the first Black Team service.

Season 15

• Despite her early elimination, Vanessa somehow managed to avoid being nominated, even after she pretty badly struggled in every service. It was only after Ariel went against the team's original nominations of Meese and Manda that Vanessa was eliminated.
• Jackie was nominated four times but made it to the Top 8, despite only average cooking skills (including defending undercooked chicken to Ramsay, normally a major Berserk Button of his). What made her longevity perplexing, though, was her attitude, that being of a loudmouth Jerkass who gets in her team's faces, and even argued with Sous Chef Christina at one point. Her team wanted her gone and they would have been better off without her, but she endured to 8th place. In the finale, she both Took a Level in Badass and Took a Level in Kindness, being the best member of Ariel's team. She even jumped onto the station Dannie left behind after she left the service.
• Frank, despite having competence and skill during service, had an unreasonably foul, sexist attitude, constantly berating Manda when she was moved to the blue team, on top of rubbing every one of his teammates the wrong way. He placed seventh overall, being eliminated after Jackie.
• Dannie had very strong showcases during service, but her attitude was lackadaisical at best, and downright unbearable at worst. Placing sixth in the competition, she was brought back for the final service, being placed on Ariel's team, where the tipping point was reached, as she abandoned the service after being chewed out by Chef Ramsay for her attitude.

Season 16

• Gia, by the third episode, showed herself to be a massive Jerkass and The Load who refused to pitch in and help, and when lying about an injury was a Houdini for not being sent home on the spot, saved at the end of the episode only because Jessica nominated herself, having given up and already packed. Gia would not be so lucky next episode as she would not change her negative traits and was sent home despite not being nominated and being on the winning team.
• Wendy managed to survive over contestants such as Aziza and Shaina, despite her mistakes during services being more frequent and ostensibly worse (such as serving raw meat or completely forgetting to cook portions), and having the most nominations, tied with Paulie at five when she was eliminated. In all fairness, she likely survived as long as she did due to being a strong performer in challenges, and being the third chef in Hell's Kitchen history to score a 4/4 in the blind taste test. (As any longtime viewer knows, Ramsay really values strong palates, and even acknowledged Wendy's in her elimination).
• Paulie, like Wendy, tended to perform decently in challenges, but regularly fell apart during dinner service. It didn't help that some of his mistakes (such as trying to fire five risottos at once) were things that even a rookie chef would notice. He also had an ego the size of a planet, regularly refused to take responsibility for his failures, and often condescended to his teammates. Despite this, he made it to the final five, before being eliminated along with Kimberly. He might have been eliminated sooner had Koop not lost his temper and thrown a chair in the dorms.

Season 17 (All Stars)

• Manda would have been eliminated first if it wasn't for Ben's health problems, especially when her team found her to be the weakest chef of the season. She becomes the 6th eliminated contestant after ruining her team's momentum with a missing pork order.
• For Elise, it's a new season, same story. If anything her attitude is even worse than in Season 9, with her seeming to pick a new Arch-Enemy from her teammates every week to yell at, blame for mistakes, and trash in the Confession Cam segments. Meanwhile, her cooking has only marginally improved, but only so far as challenges, in services she's hit-or-miss (and once again manages to blame other chefs for her mistakes), and on punishments, she's still a Lazy Bum. Everyone on both teams hates her, yet she made it to the Final Seven over far more talented chefs who only made marginal mistakes. It does at this point confirm that Elise was only brought back because of her toxic attitude creating a good rating ploy, and she was only kept on the show for so long to keep the views coming. Fortunately for everyone, a terrible day on the black jackets challenge finally got her eliminated. Even better, her final confessional was crying about not winning, which likely put a smile on most viewer's faces.
• Robyn drastically reduced her potential of drama after being transferred to a more stable Blue Team, resulting in an inconsistent chef who survived over stronger contestants. While not without talent as her challenge performances showed, Robyn consistently made more mistakes than the chefs around her, but survived elimination over Ashley, Jared, Giovanni, and Van, and even made it into the Black Jackets at a time when she had more nominations than every other Black Jacket chef combined. Her luck eventually ran out and she was eliminated after the first black jacket service.

Season 18 (Rookies Vs. Veterans)

• Trev was inconsistent throughout the competition and made some stupid mistakes that costed his team challenge wins (such as forgetting to plate a fish needed for a challenge), along with refusing to accept them. This caused him to lose the respect of his teammates, and while he was saved on his first three nominations ^note First time was due to Ramsay making a major team switch, while the other two were because Scotley and Jose did worse than him in services , he was finally eliminated after his fourth nomination.
• Heather constantly reminded the audience and team members that she was second in Season 16, but it was clear from the start that she was nowhere near as good. She played it very safe with most of the challenges, getting rather middling poor scores from judges a lot of the time. She also played off most of her issues on stations during dinner service as being the fault of other people and refused to communicate during these services as well. Her entire team believed she was nothing more than a detriment to the group and wanted her out as soon as possible. The only reason why she was safe most nights was due to Ramsay admitting he was giving her chances to improve and the fact that the Blue Team rarely lost services. She finally got eliminated, however, after the first black jacket service.

Season 19 (Las Vegas)

• Jordan. Despite showing some good qualities, she was known to be inconsistent throughout the competition and often second-guessed her decisions multiple times due to being in her own head. She ended up being nominated four times by Episode 8 (two being dinner services and two being elimination challenges) but always managed to slide by through the skin of her teeth. It wasn't until Episode 11 where she was eliminated on her fifth time nominated.
• Marc. Although he started off strong, he grew too inconsistent for the blue team's liking, and he often refused to take ownership of his mistakes. He also tends to argue with the blue team over being nominated and uses his pleas to say how awesome he was instead of taking accountability like the rest of the nominees before him. He has been nominated four times, but while he managed to survive over the likes of Britanni and Peter (who were bad in their own right), his survival over Adam was not liked by the fans. Thankfully, he was finally eliminated in the following episode.

Season 20 (Young Guns)

• Matthew was an extremely short-lived example, seeing as he was eliminated after the first service. However, many viewers believe he should have been eliminated even earlier after the Alcohol challenge, having served raw chicken (which can kill) compared to Ava's raw salmon (which can only cause illness). Fans also deem his signature dish mistake (leaving the shit sack on a shrimp) worse than Ava's (undercooked rice and bland broccoli).
• Josie. Being a vegan chef raised some eyebrows from both her competitors and the audience, but at the beginning, she was able to show her strengths in cooking proteins despite the handicap. But sometime after the team switch her performances dipped and she began making some mistakes that got her to be nominated more than every other chef this season (five until her elimination). But yet, she survived because the other nominees that she was with made worse mistakes by comparison. She would be eliminated in the tenth episode after having problems on garnish and running out of chances.

Season 21 (Battle of the Ages)

• Ileana was a very literal example of this. Despite being set to be the first eliminated during the Chicken Wing challenge, she would manage to talk herself out of it. From then on, her first few services would be particularly bad, as she would make mistakes and even argue with the chefs, only managing to avoid nomination due to her team winning each time. While she did briefly improve, she went back to struggling once more, with her performance in the sixth service stalling the entire red kitchen, yet managing to survive over the far more popular Mindy, which led to a massive outcry. Her time would eventually run out during the Cook For Your Life Challenge.
• Dafne is an interesting case, as she qualifies as more of a Nomination Houdini. Despite her first nomination coming at the hands of having one of the worst chicken dishes, she has managed to avoid nomination until the charity dinner service, despite some of her performances being nomination worthy, with one example resulting in the aforementioned Mindy being sent up despite her doing nothing wrong and Dafne messing up a bunch of salmon. She would make it to the finale despite having one more nomination at the final five, where she lost to Alex in the end.
• Billy. Even though the guy has boast about being a strong chef, he was one of the more inconsistent chefs on the blue team and his boisterous attitude wore thin. This resulted in three nominations (the first being from the Chicken Wing Challenge), but he ended up surviving them until his fourth time after struggling on his own scallops dish for Trenton and Macee's wedding.
• Alejandro. Initially starting off as a massive favorite of the season due to his strong performances in challenges, he would soon start to become pretty inconsistent during services, resulting in him being nominated as much as the aforementioned Billy. He finished in third.

Season 22 (The American Dream)

• Sandra. She was nominated in the first dinner service alongside Brad, Atoye and Tad but was spared because Tad was The Ditz. Then she was nominated alongside Melissa after the fourth service but was spared again because Melissa had stopped being a team player. She was nominated again in the next service alongside Jermaine, Jason, and Raneisha, and was spared yet again in favor of Raneisha, possibly because while they both were bad in the previous challenge Sandra had no notable mistakes and Raneisha did. It wouldn't be until her fifth nomination where she ran out of chances and finished tenth.
• Jason. He was considered for nomination in the first dinner service but Brad and Tad were viewed as weaker than him. Then after the third dinner service, he was nominated alongside Mattias but Mattias was viewed as weaker. Finally, he was nominated after the fifth service alongside Jermaine, Raneisha and Sandra and Raneisha was viewed as the weakest among the four of them, sparing him yet again. That said, he might have been eliminated alongside Raneisha had Brad not been in too much pain from an earlier surgery being exacerbated by the reward to continue. After that, he was nominated to take part in the Cook For Your Life Challenge, but saved himself, then he was nominated alongside Atoye, Carmen and Donya, but was spared because Atoye struggled too much. Then during the Charity Night service, he completely bombed and had Donya been a more effective leader, he undoubtedly would have been a goner. Instead, he survived, much to the shock (and probable anger) of the others. In the following episode, he finally ran out of chances and was eliminated in the Black Jackets Challenge!

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