Sebastian's

S01E06

Another day passes, and this time the staff walks in to find that the restaurant's décor has been submitted to the usual revamping. Squeals all around. Lou is so happy, she cries. It's sweet. Sebastian looks blank, but I guess he's happy. At the very least, he isn't daring admit he thinks it looks sucky when everyone else loves it. Ramsay also presents Lou with a 20-quart dough mixer so she can make her own dough. It's a beautiful thing. Lou cries harder. ["Probably at the prospect of cleaning it at the end of the shift. I just teared up a bit myself. Meeeemorieeees!" -- Sars] Sebastian still looks fairly blank. , Ramsay sits the kitchen staff down and explains the new menu. Ramsay's version doesn't have pictures to read, and it also doesn't have twenty-some gourmet flavor combinations made with your choice of frozen, processed food. Instead, Ramsay showcases fresh and homemade dishes, including a succulent chicken baked in the wood-burning oven. Sebastian is clearly not happy. The cooks like the new menu and take copious notes. Sebastian whines that he doesn't see any uniqueness to the menu. Unique like fish sticks? "You're not going to now ask me to turn around and say what you gave me in terms of pizza was unique?" Ramsay asks/states, threateningly. Sebastian continues to whine about the loss of his twenty-some gourmet flavor combinations.

As Sebastian's relaunch happens to fall upon the same night as the Academy Awards, Ramsay decides to theme the place up with a red carpet and an Oscar party. The night starts off pretty well with the customers and the cooks enjoying the new menu, but Sebastian can't let his old menu go and willfully reverts to his old microwaving ways. Sebastian's interference wreaks havoc in the kitchen and confuses the servers, who start bringing out erroneous orders. Ramsay grabs his temples and watches his plan go into the deep-freeze right before his very blue eyes. He yanks Sebastian outside and calmly tells him, "I'm forty years of age and I've gone to a lot of restaurants but I never, ever, ever, EVER met someone I believed in as little as you." Ramsay says Sebastian will just go back to his "sloppy, shortcut, five-out-of-ten, frozen ways," claps him on the back sarcastically, and walks back to the kitchen, swearing a streak that is pretty damn navy. For his part, Sebastian starts screaming and yelling how it's his "fucking life" and walks down the street, still screaming and swearing. Sebastian yells, "We're done, get the whole fucking team outta here!" I guess he's talking to the production crew? Totally breaking open some door (seriously, pieces of wood splintered off) and walking by a taped-up sign that says "Kitchen Nightmares," Sebastian bellows for Ramsay. They get into it again and it's all loud and cuss-ful and reeking of testosterone. Ramsay calls Sebastian an "ungrateful, nasty, vindictive joker," and each accuses the other of having an act. Ramsay sort of moves Sebastian back outside what I think might be a production area, and asks him if he's supposed to be scared. Sebastian storms off, calling Ramsay a "los-ah" and a "fucking dickhead."

We segue into how freaking confusing Sebastian's menu is. He's dreamed up some sort of "unique" "gourmet flavor combinations" which number in the twenties. The servers bewilder themselves trying to explain it to the confused and bored customers, and I'm not even going to begin to understand any of it until Ramsay thinks it's pertinent for me to do so. Even with his wife's initial investment of $300,000, Sebastian is losing money. Forget Sebastian's, I want to know what his wife does! When Sebastian lets the staff go at 8 PM one night, because they have no customers, we are to tremble with just how dire the straits are.

Enter The Ramsay, who strides up the walk and immediately rolls his eyes at the cheesy advertisement of plasma TVs Sebastian's boasts as one of their dubious attractions. Having adopted Ramsay's signature 1950s-dentist attire, Sebastian greets Ramsay and welcomes him to his restaurant. Ramsay takes a seat and starts to peruse the menu, taking sardonic note of the food photographs that are sprayed like spittle all over the menu. Sebastian proudly admits to having taken the photographs himself. Ramsay pronounces them "ghastly," but since he's British, it comes out as "ghaaaaahhhstly," which doesn't sound quite as bad. However, he also goes on to say that whenever he comes across a menu with photographs, he "gets the fuck out of there." And that's bad. Meanwhile, the frenetic Psycho-esque music is making me really nervous and I don't know why.

, Sebastian attempts to explain their flavor-combination concept. You choose one of twenty-some marinades, toppings, and seasonings, and then you choose your protein or portobello mushroom, and BAM! that's your meal. Sounds to me like Sebastian is scrabbling at a Craftsteak mentality, but he's just fouling it all up and turning it into Crapsteak. Also, can vegetarians please get a robust option other than the freaking portobello mushroom? What about thick slices of squash or braised fennel? ["Portobello does a decent imitation of the 'nose' of beef, in a way nothing else really does. I agree that it isn't imaginative but if you're taking a run at a vegetarian cheese-'steak,' portobello's your man." -- Sars]

Confirming that it's fresh, Ramsay orders the calamari and then has a bit of a chat with Sonja The Server out of Sebastian's earshot. After determining that she's also an actress, Ramsay asks, "Do you play with Sebastian?" That's such a Britishism, but poor Sonja is totally disconcerted by his terminology and is clearly thinking, "Play…doctor?" Ramsay clarifies that he means "performs," and Sonja answers that she definitely doesn't. Ramsay then asks if the calamari is fresh. "They are frozen," Sonja tells him. Sniff-sniff! Chef Sebastian better check the ornamental wood-burning oven because I think his PANTS are ON FIRE!

After Ramsay tastes the calamari and tells us that Sebastian is a crap chef and a liar, he tells Sonja that he'd like a sick bag. Not at all knowing what to do with this, she tells Sebastian, who bristles at the rudeness. "I understand that the guy's a professional, but to say something like that? A sick bag? Come on," Sebastian tells a cook. Every chef who agrees to be on Kitchen Nightmares without watching any of Ramsay's shows deserves to have his entire restaurant menu WRITTEN on sick bags. Used sick bags. Ramsay tries the house specialty, the Popeye Pizza, which seems to have spinach on it even though I really wanted it to have yams. While Ramsay doesn't enjoy his food, Sebastian gets on the phone to his mommy and whines about how Ramsay requested a sick bag. Sebastian's father -- on speakerphone -- thinks Ramsay should be thrown out. Oh, please, please, please do it! The resulting fracas and stream of Ramsay-isms would be an early birthday present for me!

Ramsay suffers through another plate of Sebastian's food, calling it a "can of dog food" and an "embarrassment to New York strip steak," and decides he's had enough pet food for the day. He faces down Sebastian, calls him on his shit food and his frozen calamari, and demands to know why Sebastian lied to him. Sebastian says, "I'm not going to buy top calamari to mix into a seafood medley; I'm not a four-star restaurant." Okay, but that wasn't a medley Ramsay had, was it? It looked to me like it was fried calamari, which is some of the best nosh around if it's not screwed up with heavy batter and sub-prime squid. Not only is the calamari frozen, mind you, but so is the pizza dough at this "pizzeria." Sebastian says the dough is "flash frozen," like that makes it any better. Ramsay can't get his head around how pizza can be their "speciality" if they use frozen dough. Oh, but Sebastian rushes to correct him that pizza at this "neighborhood pizzeria" is not their speciality, no sir. "Our menu -- that concept that baffles you? -- that's what we're famous for," Sebastian tells him. And that's why he's losing money, which is what Ramsay tells him through megaphone-cupped hands with a dusting of curse words. Sebastian is miffed and tells us he has no respect for Ramsay: "His awards -- they mean nothing to me at this point." That's because the closest you'll ever get to a Michelin is when you get your tires rotated.

Sebastian informs Ramsay that his pizzas will soon be in supermarkets. While Ramsay steps outside for some deep breathing and raises a moistened finger in the air determine how cold hell is at this very moment, Sebastian whoops it up in the kitchen and brags, "I won that one!" I love the smell of sautéed hubris in the morning. Suddenly, Ramsay appears in the kitchen and calls Sebastian's name. Sebastian jumps and scuttles over. Ramsay reams Sebastian out and tells him he's won jack-shit, and he's seriously mistaken if he thinks he's going to franchise his joint. Sebastian argues back that a lot of people think Ramsay himself is delusional. Ramsay shakes Sebastian's hand and walks out of the restaurant, leaving Sebastian to whoop and celebrate some more about his "win," and give us wholly unnecessary eyefuls of his prodigious, lapping belly.

Ramsay walked out, but he's not gone for good. He returns to Sebastian's to observe dinner service. While the servers all but cram their headshots down our throats, Sebastian talks large about all the producers and directors that frequent his place: "Sebastian's is the young Who's Who of Hollywood." Of course it is, in every sense of the word "Who?" Ramsay watches how confused the customers are with the menu (very) and how much Sebastian himself cooks (not at all). As Lou-Bertha rocks the orders, Ramsay examines the food. He bemusedly pulls a frozen portobello mushroom out of a fry basket and wanders into the walk-in. On the upside, nothing's rotting or bloated with botulism. On the downside, "freezer burn" is one of the twenty-some gourmet flavor combinations. After talking to Q, a cook, Ramsay learns that the microwave is Sebastian's best friend. Q is of the opinion that they should be making way more stuff from scratch. What I don't understand is why Q doesn't just snap his fingers and summon up homemade meals, an adult Wesley even more dorky than the actual, and a moment of pure laughter for Ramsay.

Hoping to impress Ramsay with his command over the "Express Defrost," "Popcorn," and "Start" buttons, Sebastian finally steps into the kitchen, shoving Lou-Bertha off to another station. Soon, Ramsay has proof of Sebastian's ability when a diner finds a long hair in her salad. My gag reflex was jumping with such heartfelt sympathy, I had to hit pause on the TiVo and check out Sebastian's current menu where I hoped to find relief. I was wrong. They have a "Fudgie Wudgie" chocolate cake on the menu. See, if "wudgie" makes me think of a wedgie, can you imagine what adding "fudgie" conjures up? I haven't wanted to poke my inward eye out so bad since the days of Domino's ill-fated Fudgems.

Sebastian comps the follicle salad as well as the party's pizza, and another server, Ali, reports that $300 worth of food was comped that night. Finding Sebastian kicking back with his buddies, Ramsay irritably yanks him aside for a private chef's tasting. He makes Sebastian taste the frozen mashed potatoes and says, "You're happy to be a fake chef, aren't you?" Sebastian doesn't think he's a fake chef and starts talking about how his concept is a "franchiseable concept." Ramsay doesn't understand why Sebastian so obsessed with becoming famous as a sub-standard franchise instead of caring about being just a good restaurant with good food. Sebastian still doesn't get it, and it's clear that Ramsay is close to sticking is head in the microwave and punching up "Baked Potato."

Ramsay sits the restaurant staff down and bellows at Sebastian for all the comped food and announces that the menu will get changed. At this, Sebastian starts to cry. The day, Ramsay informs Sebastian that wood-burning pizza ovens will not just be for show anymore -- amazingly enough, they will be for pizza! Ramsay announces to the staff, "All of you are now going to become great tossers." Hee-hee, they're all a bunch of tossers! Ramsay's gotta be relishing saying that no end. Ramsay brings in two pizza tossers to show the crew how to toss real pizza dough. "I want you to become the perfect tosser," he tells Sebastian. He already is, Gordon; he already is. Everyone tosses. Lou-Bertha loves the fresh pizza dough, even if it means she has to get rid of the nails that no cook should ever have anyway.

Mr. Voice-Over terms Sebastian's tantrum as "letting off steam," and we get some crying interviews with Sebastian whining about how hard he tried. "If you look at the numbers, then I guess it looks like I'm failing," he says. Um, duh? Ramsay keeps the kitchen moving, getting food out to the customers. Finally, Sebastian admits to the cameras that Ramsay is right and it's been hard for him to accept that. He tells us he didn't go to school, but he's a damn good cook and he's not giving up. He marches back into the restaurant and looks around before getting back into the kitchen and doing it Ramsay's way, making this an unrealistically happy ending.

Ramsay tells us that as he leaves Sebastian's, he has a lot of mixed feelings: "I also feel Sebastian has very little interest in sticking to the new plan." Well, looking at the menu that still boasts the gourmet flavor combinations, it looks like Ramsay's right.