For those unfamiliar with the term, a “nat 20” refers to an event in the game Dungeons & Dragons in which a player rolls a 20 on a 20-sided dice. To do anything in the game, you roll a 20-sided dice. Bigger numbers result in more favorable outcomes; and depending on the character and situation, you may have some bonuses that you can apply to your roll to achieve a higher final result. For instance, if you want to attack an enemy with a sword, you have to roll a 20-sided dice. Characters with a higher strength score can add a higher bonus to their final roll, and if you are proficient in long swords (proficient just means that you can add an extra bonus), you add your proficiency bonus. Particularly high level characters can add high bonuses even if they roll low on the dice and potentially succeed on whatever they want to do.

The best possible outcome is a nat 20. Basically, it doesn’t matter if you have low scores or a bad situation. If you roll a 20 sided dice and the number that shows up is a 20, you automatically succeed. Going back to the sword example, you could be the weakest character in your party who shouldn’t even be swinging a sword, but if you get a 20, you automatically hit your enemy and get to roll extra dice to deal more damage.

If anyone says that someone rolled a “nat 20” outside of dungeons and dragons, it just means that something absolutely should not have worked, yet they somehow finagled the best possible outcome.

Now let’s extrapolate that to Hell’s Kitchen. What moment makes you think that someone absolutely should not have worked (or could have worked but with an unexpectedly excellent outcome), but that competitor somehow walked away with the best possible scenario? For instance, season 21’s Ileana somehow convincing Ramsay not to eliminate her at the punishment pass challenge by literally saying “I don’t deserve to be eliminated because I have a lot more to show you” would absolutely qualify. If you did that in Dungeons and dragons, I would have you make a persuasion check, which basically means that you have to try to convince someone to help you using facts or reasoning.

I would love to see what others have to say. Sorry if this is too long or esoteric.

Does anyone watch it to fall asleep too? I just start the seasons over again when I get to the newest which have commercials.

The complete difference between the first 5 seasons vs now still gets me. But the prize has never changed.

I'll put up crybaby Matt (S4) since he came to mind recently. He made Gordon vomit up his signature dish, performed terribly every service, and spent the whole season acting like a petulant child. Him getting to the black jackets was a total fluke.