Flay Me Alive: Pilot Episode
The hot new TLC show that asks: “How far would YOU go to physically become celebrity chef Bobby Flay?”
There’s been a flood of new subscribers both paid and unpaid, and to all of you I want to say a HUGE thank you! To the paid ones especially, I’d like to gratefully raise a flute of champagne, or perhaps some Welch’s Sparkling Juice Cocktail – though if you all keep signing up at this rate, we’re well on track to be able to afford a whole case of Cupcake Prosecco!
Onto this morning’s business: I’m a great fan of the Juvenalian satire, the Swiftian riposte (both Jonathan and Taylor), especially the ones inspired by personal experience. Since my culture wars at Hogwarts post was a hit with you all, I thought I’d follow up with this little ditty. Those of you with whom I’m on a texting basis have been wanting me to write the full thing, and I’ve been meaning to pitch it to the networks anyway, so here it is: my proposal for a new reality show about everyday people wanting to be transformed into Bobby Flay.
Flay Me Alive: Concept
Given the well-documented rise in individuals seeking medical interventions to become celebrity chef, restaurateur, and self-made businessman Bobby Flay, I am proposing an hour-long reality series that invites a group of six hopefuls to Las Vegas to live as Bobby Flay while competing for the chance to receive the crucial treatments that will allow one lucky winner to actually become Bobby Flay. Like so many great programs already on your network, Flay Me Alive will do the much-needed double duty of raising awareness of a crucial human rights issue (in this case, the rights of people who are not Bobby Flay by birth, but nevertheless want to live as Bobby Flay) while providing eminently binge-able content to a wide streaming audience! Call it consciousness-raising TV, call it infotainment for the post-Trump/postmodern/posthuman era, but don’t call me late for dinner at Mesa Grill, the restaurant for which Bobby received his only Michelin Star in 2008, and which was cruelly revoked in 2009!
Long form pitch
As we are still in the process of casting the pilot, I’ve fed the details of the two contestants we’ve already cast into a sophisticated AI called ShoRite, which has produced a description of what a pilot episode of Flay Me Alive might look like:
HOST: For centuries, humanity has sought to surpass the limits of the body. From Archimedes to Elon Musk, remarkable individuals have proven that we can seek excellence instead of just accepting our lot in life.
Which is why we want to document a new phenomenon: ordinary, salt-of-the-Earth Americans who feel strongly that they are living the wrong lives in the wrong bodies. These people – shop clerks, firefighters, high school teachers – are tired of living a lie. Now, for the first time, they are going to live their truths and step into their authentic selves while all of America watches.
They are going to become Bobby Flay.
[FLAY ME ALIVE theme music plays over montage of contestants’ faces.]
DR. SPRACH-HEAD (V.O.): A lot of lawmakers and deep-state regressives think this isn’t a real thing, but it is. It’s quite well-documented, in fact.
[DR. SPRACH-HEAD takes the vitals of recent college grad KELSEY, 23, in his office.]
DR. SPRACH-HEAD (V.O.): Nowadays, the technologies and tolerance are there so that people who only five or ten years ago would have had to just suppress their desire to live as Bobby Flay can do so openly, and quite convincingly. This is where science’s human element comes into play – I am one of the first to specialize in medical interventions that help people become the Flay they’ve always wanted to be.
DR. SPRACH-HEAD (to KELSEY): Your blood pressure’s looking really good, Kelsey. And your labs came back great.
KELSEY: Thanks, doctor. If it’s possible, I’d really like to start focusing on my abilities to cook Cajun and southwestern cuisines.
KELSEY (V.O.): Hi, I’m Kelsey, I’m twenty-three years old, and I would like to live my life as executive chef and Food Network star Bobby Flay.
[Interview with KELSEY, interspersed with shots of her daily life: driving to work, helping her parents cook dinner, playing with her dog]
KELSEY: I guess you could say I was a pretty normal kid, not that unhappy. But when high school started, I felt kind of aimless, like something was wrong with me. I guess a lot of kids feel that way, but they never get an answer, and I did.
I was about to go to bed after staying up late to do homework one night when an old episode of Bobby Flay’s Barbecue Addiction came on the Food Network, and I couldn’t stop watching. It was the greatest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I watched more episodes, and eventually I realized something: the way Bobby tenderizes and grills pork loins, the way he brushes them with homemade barbecue sauce? That’s something I’ve always wanted to do, too.
[KELSEY stands in front of a full-length mirror wearing a chef’s jacket and artificial eyebrows, chanting over and over to herself.]
KELSEY: I am Bobby Flay. I am Bobby Flay. I am Bobby Flay.
[Interview with KELSEY’s parents, IRMA and TED]
TED: I thought it was madness at first.
IRMA: I asked her, is it just that you want to be a chef? We can get you cooking lessons. Or do you want to become an entrepreneur? You can major in business when you go to college. But she was insistent: No, mom. I specifically want to be Bobby Flay, the celebrity chef who took Vegas by storm in the late 90s, and who helped Long Islanders fall in love with burgers all over again.
TED: Yep, she said exactly that. I remember it clear as day.
IRMA: I made her promise to at least wait until she turned eighteen to pursue treatment. I thought it was just a phase, but I was wrong.
[In DR. SPRACH-HEAD’s office, a nurse measures the length of each sleeve of KELSEY’s chef jacket. When this is finished, she conducts a battery of other tests, including listening to KELSEY recite popular Bobby Flay quotes and measuring the length of her eyebrows.]
NURSE: The doctor can write you a prescription for more BrowGro, Kelsey.
KELSEY (V.O.): Dr. Sprach-Head is the only doctor in the country who currently specializes in Flay medicine. I really want to get the treatments as soon as possible, especially the eyebrow implants, because the BrowGro can only do so much and my eyebrows are my greatest source of no, chef.
DR. SPRACH-HEAD (V.O.): There is a lot of very niche terminology used by the Flay community online, but one set of terms that’s really caught on is yes, chef and no, chef. Basically, if you wake up and are feeling very in line with your Flay identity, like your outward appearance matches the Bobby Flay you know yourself to be inside, you are feeling yes, chef. And if the opposite is true, if your appearance doesn’t match your identity, then you are feeling no, chef.
[Smash cut to DARRYL, 43, IT consultant. Montage of DARRYL’s daily life: driving his kids to school, helping his wife with yard work, playing retro computer games on an old PC in his spare time. He is dressed in chef’s attire, and resembles Bobby Flay in virtually every way except for his height and facial features]
DARRYL (V.O.): It took me a lot of courage to admit that I’d been living my entire life in a state of very painful no, chef.
HOST: Many of the Flay-identified find themselves living in a perilous limbo: Do they live their truths and potentially upend their lives? Or do they suppress their authentic selves in order to preserve everything they’ve built?
Some lucky individuals like Darryl haven’t had to choose.
[Interview with DARRYL and his wife, MARY]
DARRYL: I’m one of the odd ones who’s actually known from pretty early on.
[Montage of photos of DARRYL as a child dressed as a chef for Halloween, eating barbecue, and posing excitedly in a booth at the Mesa Grill. Montage ends on a photo of DARRYL posing with the actual Bobby Flay at a signing for his 1999 book, Bobby Flay’s Boy Meets Grill]
DARRYL: My parents thought it was just a case of hero worship, and I figured it was, too. I just loved Bobby Flay, I didn’t want to become him.
MARY: But then I guess your no, chef was pretty loud and clear, right?
DARRYL: Yeah, it was.
MARY: It was pretty soon after we started dating. Basically, Darryl opened up to me and said that I was the first person he’d ever felt okay asking for this. If I – if I wouldn’t mind calling him Bobby at home, and if it was okay if we just spoke about his life like he was a celebrity chef and “grill master” instead of an IT professional.
DARRYL: Mary’s just always been so open-minded, so I felt comfortable saying stuff to her that I’d never said to anyone before. I’d say things like, “There’s nothing regula about my fregola.”
MARY: Right. Or, “When it comes to mac n’ cheese, I’m the Mac Daddy.”
HOST: Over the years, Darryl has transitioned from just living as Bobby Flay at home to living socially as Bobby Flay. His kids have started calling him “Bobby” instead of “dad,” and his employer has been willing to install an Iron Chef-style kitchen in the break room so that Darryl can have a safe space to prepare innovative five-star dishes if he feels he needs to do so while on the job.
DARRYL: I really want to win Flay Me Alive so I can afford the limb-lengthening procedures and Facial Flay Surgery that will make it easier for me to realize my Flay identity.
MARY (tearing up): I just love him so much, and I want to see him become the Bobby Flay I know he’s always wanted to be.
*
That’s it for now, though stay tuned: if I surpass 50 paid subscribers, you may just get to see a preview of season one ;). And remember, folks: you don’t need to be born a chef to be a chef!
👏 you've got me ready to pop some corn and binge this already! Feeling very 'yes, chef'