This article contains spoilers for Boiling Point episode 1.
The first episode of the Boiling Point TV series is as stressful a watch as you'd expect. Andy (Stephen Graham) might not be in the picture, but the rest of his team are now working flat out for his former sous chef, Carly (Vinette Robinson).
She's launched her own restaurant, Point North, and we join them right in the middle of a packed service that could see them landing some much-needed investment from some VIP guests. Unfortunately, the night soon takes a turn, and the dinner service quickly goes downhill. Here's a full breakdown of what happened in Boiling Point episode 1.
Point North
We join Carly and the team right in the middle of dinner service. Dean tells Carly that Liam’s potential investors have arrived, and she heads into the kitchen to raise morale because they’re on for a busy, busy shift.
The staff are also asking if Carly’s new hire is on his way because he’s late for his first shift. When Johnny finally arrives, Carly gives him a quick round of introductions before asking him to get ready to help out in the kitchen by whipping up some hollandaise sauce. This is when we learn he’s clearly not ready for his new role, as Johnny disappears to change into his chef whites… and looks up a recipe for hollandaise sauce online.
Johnny comes back without his sleeves rolled up properly, but tries to get to work after struggling to find all the necessary ingredients. Liam comes into the kitchen and tells Carly that his buddies have enjoyed their drinks and the restaurant looks great, but he wants her to oversee their entire meal personally and to come out and chat with the investors about the menu.
In general, it’s a stressful opening and there are some hints the chefs are getting on top of one another a little bit, but things look like they’re going smoothly before the titles roll. Unfortunately, things don’t stay that way.
Tensions start to rise
After the title sequence, we see Andy for the first time since his collapse. He’s taking his medication, and looking up Point North online when he has a flashback to his collapse at the end of the Boiling Point movie.
Back in the kitchen, tensions are starting to rise. Carly gets a phone call from her mother, Vivian, but she tells her she will call at the end of her shift, not before. In the dining room, Robyn takes the investors’ order whilst Kat spills a glass of wine over an irate guest.
Dean does his best to calm the diner down and comps the meal for him, much to Carly’s irritation. She then gets another phone call from Vivian, who tells her daughter she’s having a ‘funny turn’. Freeman manages the kitchen whilst Carly’s missing, and the investors’ order comes through.
Johnny ruins up his sauce, so Bolton puts him to work on the grill and tells him not to screw anything else up. Musa, one of the servers, wanders in complaining he’s got a headache, but Dean ushers him out of the kitchen and admonishes him for his section of the dining room and for being hungover at work.
Soon, Carly gets an emergency alert on her phone from her mother. As she can’t get hold of her on the phone, Carly leaves Freeman in charge whilst she goes to check Vivian is okay, despite his protests.
Out of the frying pan...
Orders start piling up on the team. Robyn asks after Carly, as Liam wants her to speak to his guests; when he learns she’s gone home, Liam angrily calls her up. Elsewhere, pastry chef Jamie gets rejected for another room in London, but Emily tells him he can stay with her as long as he needs.
Johnny continues to make mistakes on the grill, so Freeman drafts him in to help plate up. When he makes another mistake, Freeman sends Johnny to fetch his chef’s knives. In the staff room, Johnny phones up his partner and complains he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Dean comes across him and tries to give him a pep talk, whilst also warning him not to bring up Andy Jones in the kitchen.
Meanwhile, Carly finally gets home and finds her mother is feeling fine. What’s worse, Vivian says she was just checking how the emergency alert system worked, before saying that Carly isn’t cut out for a job like this. She also sends Carly out for milk… which she doesn’t even really need.
Johnny makes some more mistakes at the pass but finally gets some praise from Jamie whilst helping with some desserts. Unfortunately, he’s also responsible for a near-miss with the investors’ meal, as he mistakenly poured chocolate sauce into some jugs to go along with their beef.
Freeman intervenes just as the plates are being served and leaves Bolton in charge (even though Carly told him to put Camille on the pass when she left). At the table, Freeman is forced by Liam to sit down with the investors to defend their menu and the restaurant’s ethos. Whilst he endures their questions and their indignation, the kitchen starts to fall apart under Bolton's control.
...Into the fire
The kitchen's in disarray; orders are backed up, servers are waiting for their meals, and the few remaining chefs can't keep an eye on all their work. During the commotion, a pan catches fire and Johnny mistakenly tries to put it out with water, getting burnt in the process.
Freeman spots the chaos in the kitchen and uses this as his moment to leave the table. He begins to shout at the other chefs for their lack of cohesion and for not taking the job seriously enough. Bolton challenges him and argues that Freeman was taking it easy whilst they fell behind without him. Freeman's rage bubbles up, and he throws the misplaced bottle of chocolate sauce from the pass across the room at Camille and Johnny before storming off. Bolton pulls the rest of the team back together so they can finish the shift.
Carly finally returns to the restaurant and spots Liam dining alone. He tells her his friends didn’t think Point North was worth investing in. When she asks him to just keep the faith, he asks her to start behaving like a business owner, as he can’t afford to dump any more of his own money into the restaurant.
Freeman comes into the office to meet them both and Carly asks him to explain everything that went wrong during service. She picks up on the chocolate sauce incident and tells him his temper in the kitchen is unacceptable, insinuating that Andy’s heart attack wasn’t helped because of his previous outburst when they all worked at Jones & Sons. Outraged, Freeman tells Carly to find a new sous chef and quits on the spot.
Whilst the Front of House team gears up for a night on the town, Johnny waits to apologize to Carly and beg to keep his job, enduring a warning from Bolton not to screw up again in the process. Carly tells Johnny he’s clearly underqualified, she says he can come back tomorrow because they’re understaffed.
Carly finds Emily packing some food into a bag to bring to Andy. Carly tells her Freeman has quit, and Emily tells Carly to reach out to Andy before she leaves to drop off the food.
Emily visits Andy. He’s drinking, even though he’s not supposed to whilst on his medication, and his house is a tip. When she tells him Freeman quit, Andy tells her he’s not surprised, and blames Carly for the fact that he no longer has his own restaurant.
Elsewhere, Bolton cooks himself a microwave curry and sits down to play video games with his mates — a far cry from the date he was boasting about in the kitchen — Johnny visits his partner and cares for their baby, and Carly remains at the kitchen, where we see her filling out what looks to be an application for a business loan.
Boiling Point continues on Sundays at 9 pm on BBC One. All four episodes are available to stream as a box set on BBC iPlayer. For more shows to enjoy, check out our top picks for the best BBC dramas you should be streaming right now.
