The contestants are subjected to a prison movie challenge.
Tropes:
- Bland-Name Product: A Jumanga game is visible when Izzy leads the Gaffers through her shortcut.
- Bucket Helmet: When Chef introduces DJ to kitchen duty, DJ has to wear a saucepan on his head as a stand-in for a helmet while Chef goes all military on his instructions.
- The Bus Came Back: Izzy returns to the Killer Grips in "The Chefshank Redemption" after being voted off in "Riot on Set". The argument she gets to return on is that officially Kaleidoscope was voted off, not Izzy, so by ditching her Kaleidoscope identity she's still in the game.
- Circling Birdies: To prevent her own team from winning, Gwen smashes their one shovel in pieces over Harold's head. He goes down while four stars and a blip circle above his head. Despite no birds being present, bird sound accompanies the stars.
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Heather endlessly complains about Gwen's actions, but nobody on the Gaffers takes Heather's claim seriously until Gwen hits Harold in the head with the shovel.
- Cranial Eruption: Faking a claustrophobia-fueled panic attack, Gwen grabs the Screaming Gaffers' one shovel and breaks it over Harold's head. In the follow-up confessional, Harold sports a bandaged bump about a third of the height of his head.
- Door Judo: Chris has the trailers locked, forcing the boys and the girls to struggle to break out. The boys agree to use Owen as a battering ram and just as they're about to hit the door, Chris opens it anyway. The group lands several meters away from the trailer.
- Epunymous Title: The title is pun based of off The Shawshank Redemption, with Chef's name replacing the first syllable.
- Funny Terrain Cross Section: Part of the challenge is for the teams to dig their way out of prison. Objects that they dig past include a mummy's arm, a crown, a safe, the eyepatch-wearing skull and hook hand of a pirate, a plesiosaur skeleton, a gun, a Roman helmet, the Lament Configuration, the game Jumanga, a disc, and a skull with a Mickey Mouse hat. Because they're digging through the ground beneath an abandoned movie lot, each object has as much a chance of being a prop as it has of being the real deal.
- Give a Man a Fish...: In "The Chefshank Redemption", Harold comes up with a bleak variation of the phrase: "Give a man a hole and what does he have? Nothing. But give a man a shovel and he can dig a hole to contain the nothing!"
- Gone Horribly Right: Justin's efforts to manipulate Beth, which leads to her losing her retainer in the food, which leads to Lindsay losing the first challenge for them.
- Graceful Loser: Gwen accepts her elimination and only vents about her anger over having to keep her deal with the Grips.
- Heads or Tails?: Lindsay suggests that the team flips a coin over the argument whether or not they should pick Gwen as their prisoner for the challenge. However, due to her short attention span, she assigns "we win" to heads and "victory is ours" to tails. The Killer Grips are not amused.
- Hidden Depths: Owen is incredibly offended when the other guys in the trailer aren't willing to let him do anything for fear of him farting. He gets over it quickly though.
- High-Five Left Hanging: Once the Killer Grips have won the challenge, Izzy, who had previously been removed from the game under a different identity and has spent some time living with the prairie dogs, runs up to them to rejoin their team. She asks for a high-five, but is left hanging because the Grips are confused she gets to come back after being eliminated.
- Hope Spot: The Gaffers seem to be on the verge of winning after Izzy offers to help them, only to lose anyway.
- I Broke a Nail: While climbing the other guys to get to the one ceiling exit out of the trailer, Justin is horrified to incur a hangnail.
- "Just Joking" Justification: When Gwen is voted off, Duncan offers himself as an elimination instead. Chef is fine taking him up on that, which makes Duncan back out because he didn't think the exchange would be accepted. He tries saying he was joking, but Gwen spares him from further humiliation by telling him she's the lucky one for leaving the show.
- Love at First Punch: Harold admits that he's a little attracted to Gwen after she breaks a shovel on his head.
- The Mole: Gwen for the Grips, though not by choice. She ends up voting herself off as a result.
- Plot Hole: The Grips have only spoons to dig with and only Beth and Owen are seen digging, with Justin refusing to participate and seemingly convincing Lindsay to lay back as well. Meanwhile, the Gaffers had a shovel until Gwen destroyed it and were shown a shortcut by Izzy. Yet, the Killer Grips still ended up being first on the finish line.
- A possible explanation is that Izzy lied about knowing a shortcut and the way she led them was actually longer, allowing the Grips to catch up, although with a bit of cartoon logic considering how long it'd take to dig with just spoons.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a play on the film The Shawshank Redemption.
- Properly Paranoid: Heather immediately realizes something is up with Gwen and explicitly threatens her with elimination if it turns out she is deliberately throwing the challenge.
- Prison Episode: The movie genre in "The Chefshank Redemption" is the prison flick. The first challenge deals with prison food, while the second and third challenges emulates a prison escape.
- Shout-Out:
- In the recap Chris says that the Gaffers won the west.
- Chris tells the contestants "No get out of jail free cards here".
- The Lament Configuration and a skull with a Mickey Mouse hat are buried near Izzy's shortcut tunnel.
- Heather pushing Chris at the Awards Ceremony is based on a scene from the movie Bring It On: All or Nothing.
- Shovel Strike: Gwen sabotages the Gaffers' escape by breaking their one shovel over Harold's head. This prompts both Harold and Leshawna to vote her off that night.
- Supreme Chef: DJ's Momma's Spice is introduced, which makes every meal tasty and establishes DJ as a cooking genius.
- Take Me Instead: Duncan offers himself to be removed from the game when Chef carts her off upon her elimination. Chef is fine to oblige, but Gwen refuses for Duncan to take the fall.
- That Was Not a Dream: Played for Laughs: Owen said that he dreamed they were on a show in a prison, only to sound defeated after realizing it was real.
- Use Your Head: When trapped in the trailer, the guys try to use Owen (at his own insistence) as a battering ram, only for Chris to open their door at the last second.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Lindsay's projectile vomit right at Gwen after seeing Beth place the retainer in her mouth that Gwen had been chewing on.
- Wham Episode: Gwen is eliminated, and both teams are without a captain.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Chef gives this treatment to DJ after he puts his Momma's Spice into the gruel that they were serving to Lindsay, which would've cost them the challenge if it went the logical route.
