Part 10: Nemesis - part 1

Episode 10: Nemesis - part 1



Armand, can I talk to you for a minute?

Sure George. What's up?

I've gone over the past couple of episodes and, I've got to be honest with you, they haven't been great.

What do you mean?

I don't know, you seem out of your element lately; like you're distracted or something. Are you ok? Anything you wanna tell me?



Armand doesn't give a fuck.

Nope, no problems. I'm doing great actually.

You sure? Because we've seen the Nielsens and lately our ratings haven't been spectacular, you know?

As I said it's just a little fatigue with running my restaurants and the show. Trust me, I'm fine.

If that's what you say. Alright then. Well the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is the upcoming Grand Master Chef Contest.

Yeah sure, what about it?

You know, I just wanted to make sure that you're prepared and everything. I don't want my star to be on the losing side of the contest. Know what I mean?

Don't worry about it. Everything'll be fine. The title's in the bag.

I hope so. Coz if it doesn't pan out as well as we hope, then we could have some problems down the line.



All right, this mission's really simple. There's a cooking contest, and we have to win it. Let's go!



This isn't a little local contest like the one Ozkan had to do last mission. This is a five-round mega-contest. We'll be cooking breakfast, appetizer, soup, dessert and a main course. Let's smash it!



In the good guys' corner, our boy Armand! Who's that other guy that we're up against?



None other than Sergio Tristan! He was an employee of OmniFood in the last game who cleverly tricked us into revealing all our secret recipes to him by asking us for them. He's a cunning one, but Armand is the better chef!



Breakfast is usually pretty dire, but luckily we just recently bought an incredibly high quality breakfast recipe: three pounds of French fries.



I like this thing where we are now the evil, unbeatable restaurant giant, and OmniFood is the sympathetic underdog getting crushed under our heel.



Round two, appetizers. Our excellent tuna gazpacho which we also purchased quite recently. Armand's cooking skill with these new recipes isn't 100% yet, but they're just so good that it's still better to use these than to use something mediocre that we cook perfectly.







We don't actually have a great French soup, but the onion soup should be good enough. Don't bother checking, this recipe actually does contain onions, sadly.



They'll be crying at OmniFood tonight, and not just because of the onions. We haven't even brought out our big guns yet.



The fruit gratin is still our best dessert, just barely better than the nougat parfait with strawberries.



38 points ahead with only our strongest category to go.



The legendary stuffed lamb. Unfortunately we've run out of the foie gras supreme which in the last game boosted this recipe to a guaranteed 100% quality rating, but this should still be more than enough to crush that OmniFood upstart.







We're number one! Armand's home life is a mess and we're keeping half a dozen terrible restaurants on life support, but we're number one!



All right, but that was just the warm-up! This is the actual contest that we need to win, the World Grandmaster Cooking Contest. Four rounds where we can cook any recipe from the French, Italian, American and… German cuisines? I don't even know what German cuisine is!



Armand is up again. And who's the other contestant this time?



Edmund Valron! That scoundrel, he's back! He was the head of OmniFood and the final boss of the last game! Back for another round? Let's do it!



The first round is French food. Naturally, we'll cook the undefeatable stuffed lamb once again.



What the FUCK it is not even POSSIBLE to get more than 100% quality!



Okay, maybe they wanted to make sure you didn't just coast to victory on the strength of the last game's winning recipe. Our three pounds of potatoes technically count as Italian, so we should do pretty well in this round. As long as we win the last three rounds, we'll be fine.



WHAT! We have to beat 99 points in the Italian round? We don't even have an Italian restaurant!



All right, it is on now. We got this gazpacho recipe from our chef friend Tyrone in the last game. If we channel our soul power, we'll be able to win this contest.



What is going on! This was WAY more fun when I was the one doing this to the other guy!!!



Apparently Armand knows a couple of German recipes? This one's quite good. Unfortunately, since he's literally never cooked this, it's going to be a little difficult to use it to win this round!




We lost?



No, fuck that, this is unacceptable! I'll redo the contest until we beat it!



WHAT



IS



GOING



ON



I can't do it. It's not possible.



I'm sorry Armand, it's just the way it is. There's nothing I can do.



I can't believe this! Remember that YOU were the one who called ME! I never even wanted this in the first place!

Please understand this is not my call. The powers up in management are concerned that your profile has taken a hit with your loss at the Grand Masters…

…and so they just decided to fire me because I didn't win?

I did the best I could, and that still isn't good enough?!

It doesn't matter anymore. The only thing that mattered to them was that you win… unfortunately, you didn't. We're already off the schedule. I told you we'd be in a pickle if this happened…

You knew about this? You knew about this and you didn't tell me?!

Calm down Armand. Calm down… I had a feeling this might happen but I wasn't privy to any confidential information.

Our audience loves us. We've been getting great reviews ever since we started. And they're still willing to pull the plug?

We haven't been performing up to projected targets in months Armand! That's what I've been trying to tell you for weeks. I've tried to shield you from the network hoping you'd get back to your old self but it hasn't done you any good.

And you didn't at least try to convince them that we could turn it around?

I'm just a lowly producer, an employee like everyone else. Only the network execs have that kind of power.

I hate to tell you this but you've been living in a dream world Armand. The show's ratings have been on a freefall for a while.



I… I… I guess it's oven then…

I'm sorry, but it was coming.

… I'll see you around George. You've been a friend…

Maybe we can work together again some other time.

That's nice of you George. But I wouldn't bet on it.


Continued in part 2.