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It starts with an aggressive musical sting and an animation of Gordon Ramsay sharpening a knife in a computer-generated void. He’s surrounded by a frantic tornado of animated knives. Then there’s a narrator’s voice: “Tonight, on Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon heads to Oyster Boy Dringo’s, a raw bar in Elizabeth, New Jersey.”

In a spliced-in clip from later in the episode, Gordon is seated at a table. He looks around the otherwise empty restaurant and says, “Where the fuck am I, a discount catacomb?” The camera pans to show the rest of the dining room, plastered wall-to-wall with faux marble wallpaper.

The narrator again: “What he finds is a restaurant in crisis. Cazador, the owner, is a delusional tyrant, knee-deep in debt.”

A clip of Cazador is spliced in. He’s sitting at a table with three young men in polo shirts, eating and laughing. The camera zooms in on Cazador, then shows the rest of the mostly-empty dining room. A young, red-headed waiter lingers nervously in the background of the shot.

The bed music intensifies as the narrator talks again. “The waitstaff is a skeleton crew. Godey, Cazador’s right-hand man and chef, is overworked, exhausted and checked-out.”

It cuts to a clip of Godey standing in the kitchen. He stares into space dead-eyed, while a pan on the stove in front of him billows grey smoke.

“With just a few days to turn it around, Gordon must get to the bottom of Cazador’s drama and pull the crew together – fast.”

Cazador is spliced in, giving a talking-head style interview to the camera, seated at a table directly beneath his own oil portrait. He snarls, “I have no doubt my concept is good. The people of Elizabeth long for a raw bar. It’s the rest of these idiots who can’t execute my vision.” 

A well-timed, whimsical musical sting casts it in a light that’s far sillier than it is threatening.

There’s a montage of clips of Gordon and Cazador facing off, Cazador storming out, and red emergency lights flashing in a blurry, far-away shot outside the restaurant. 

The narrator speaks over it: “Can Gordon save Oyster Boy Dringo’s? Find out in our most dramatic episode yet!” The music intensifies and a chaotic knife-storm sweeps across the screen to signal the start of the episode proper.

Gordon steps out of the passenger seat of an old black Cadillac El Dorado. The narrator explains, “Gordon has been picked up by the owner’s right-hand man, Godey, who insists on dropping him off up the street from the restaurant.”

After a quick talking head in which Gordon wonders what the fuck that was about, he walks briskly toward Oyster Boy Dringo’s. He narrates as he walks, “Right. I’m here at Oyster Boy Dringo’s.” He rolls his eyes at the name. “I’d much rather be grabbing a burger, if I’m honest.”

The neighboring restaurant, BURGUR, is just visible in the background as he passes through the door into Dringo’s. Inside, there’s nobody to be found. 

“It’s self-serve, I guess?” he snarks, looking around. He examines the decor, pulling faces at the camera. The walls are, as shown in the episode introduction, lined with cheap stick-on marble wallpaper. It’s swirled with grey and flecks of gold, overlaid with faux golden detailing. At the center of the biggest stretch of wall is an enormous oil portrait of Cazador in a gaudy, gilded frame. In it, he wears his signature black bowling shirt, with the card-suit-littered front panel. Depicted in front of him is a table littered with oyster shells.

Gordon walks up to the portrait, which appears slightly crooked, and straightens it. In doing so, he discovers that it was tilted intentionally to cover a torn patch of wallpaper. Gleefully, he reaches out and takes hold of a small flap to rip it further.

“Un-fucking-believable,” he says, taking the piece of wallpaper he’s torn off like a prize. 

He sits down at a table, the chair immediately wobbling beneath him. He makes a classic Gordon face of outraged disbelief and wobbles the table, too. It’s almost patio furniture, thin wooden planks held together by cheap wrought metal. The bed music is silly, to emphasize the contrast between the veneer of luxury and its cheap quality.

“Where the fuck am I, a discount catacomb?” he asks, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

From the back of the restaurant, finally, a server emerges. A short, young man with a parted mop of auburn-red hair and concern in his eyes. 

“H- hi, sir,” he manages to stutter out.

“Hello?” Gordon asks, tilting his head expectantly.

The server approaches, fumbling in his apron for a notepad. “What can – what can I get you?”

“A menu?” Gordon asks, looking at him with raised eyebrows. 

The server gasps and ducks his head, running to the host’s stand and back to hand Gordon a menu. Before Gordon can ask any questions, he’s disappeared again into the back of house.

“The menu’s longer than fucking Dracula,” Gordon laments. He flips through page after page, muttering and questioning dishes under his breath – “Fuck me. Clam carbonara, fried oyster po boy, tinned fish charcuterie – what the fuck?” 

When the server comes back, Gordon says, “You didn’t even tell me your name, young man.”

The server blushes bright red. “Dringo.”

“You’re the owner?” Gordon asks, shocked, his eyes going comically wide.

“Oh, no sir,” Dringo says. “Cazador Szarr is the owner, I’m just a server.”

“Big man from the painting? And he named the restaurant after you?” Gordon asks pointedly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Right.” 

There’s an awkward silence, then Dringo gulps and asks, “Do you know what you’d like to order, sir?”

“Can I have one of everything?” Gordon looks directly into the camera, fanning the pages of the menu like a flipbook to emphasize the absurdity of his request.

“Uhhhhhh, sure.” Whimsical, bouncy music plays as Dringo awkwardly sidles away, throwing a glance back at Gordon.

The shot cuts to the back of the kitchen, where an old man – Godey, the chyron shows – is standing at one of three commercial stoves. All three are burning, for some reason, and Godey just stares into space, dead-eyed, as a pan billows smoke in front of him.

“Mr. Godey, sir, Mr. Ramsay is here.” Dringo waves in Godey’s periphery, trying to get his attention. 

Godey doesn’t respond or acknowledge him. 

“He said he’d like one of everything… can… can we do that?” Dringo asks tentatively.

It’s unclear whether Godey really stands silent for a full minute, or if dead air has been added in the edit. The whole time, Dringo shifts nervously from foot to foot, waving closer and closer to Godey’s face.

Finally, he responds, “No fuckin’ way.” His voice is gravelly, almost like his vocal chords are grinding against each other from disuse.

“Uhhhhh, okay, what should I tell him?”

Another prolonged silence, then Godey growls, “Tell him to pick one thing.”

“Yes sir,” Dringo says nervously. 

The camera follows him toward the dining room, then we cut to the previous view of Gordon. Dringo enters the frame and clears his throat.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we can only make you one thing.” There’s a quick waterphone sound effect, underscoring the ridiculousness.

Again, Gordon looks directly into the camera, laughing in disbelief. “One thing? Fuck me, is that the rule?” 

“I suppose so, sir.”

“And what are the other rules, then? So we can save some fucking time.”

“Do – do you mean Cazador’s rules, sir?”

“I don’t fucking know – you tell me.”

“Cazador has four rules. We can’t drink any of the soda from the soda fountain, we must obey him in all things, we can’t leave until our shift ends, and we… well, we belong to him, sir.”

There’s a long, awkward silence, then Dringo asks again, “What can I get you?”

“You know what, you pick, I’ll have whatever you think is the best dish.” After that, for once, Gordon is speechless. 

Dringo sidles back into the kitchen, but this time, we stick with the shot of the dining room. Over a montage of clips of Gordon playing with his silverware, napkin, and water glass, the narrator speaks. “The kitchen is slow. It’s taking over an hour for Gordon’s food, and he’s getting impatient.”

Gordon gets up and walks out. The camera follows him down the street to BURGUR, and through the front door. As he walks, he looks back over his shoulder into the camera to shake his head. 

He stops in front of the door to BURGUR to give a quick talking head. “I cannot believe how long I’ve had to wait; I’m going to get some real fucking food.” With one hand laid out flat, he karate-chops the other into it syllable by syllable for emphasis. He marches into the restaurant, a bell on the door ringing to announce his arrival.

An assertive, friendly voice rings out. “Welcome in to BURGUR, have a seat anywhere!” 

Gordon sits down and says quietly to the cameraperson, “I bet I can order and eat before my food’s ready back at Dringo’s.”

A long-haired man with two braids and a mustache approaches the table. The chyron shows it’s Gandrel Gurney, owner of BURGUR. He hears the end of Gordon’s sentence and laughs knowingly.

There’s a quick cut, then Gandrel brings a burger and fries to the table, setting them in front of Gordon. “Can I get you anything else?” he offers.

Gordon seems to think for a minute, then leans in and stage-whispers, “What’s the story with Dringo’s down the road?”

Gandrel leans back and lets out a long belly laugh. Finally, he says, “I hope you’re not in a rush or too hungry. Good luck getting fed in less than an hour.”

“You’re not fucking kidding!” Gordon takes a bite of his burger and gives Gandrel a thumbs up.

Gandrel is clearly over the moon that Gordon likes his food. He beams and closes his eyes happily. When he opens them, he looks around mischievously, then says, “I wouldn’t get the raw oysters at Dringo’s, either…” 

Gordon raises an eyebrow, emphasized by the waterphone sound effect again.

“I heard some people got sick recently. That’s all I’m at liberty to say…”

“Fuck me,” Gordon says. “Alright, thank you.”

There’s a hard cut to the camera that stayed behind, focused on the empty Dringo’s dining room as Gordon comes in the front door. Just when he sits down, Dringo emerges from the back with an ornate gold platter. The shot zooms in briefly, showing a mound of ice, studded with six oyster shells. There’s a feeble dollop of cocktail sauce in a small plastic cup – at odds with the ornate platter.

“This is our special, oysters on the half shell with our house cocktail sauce,” Dringo says, setting the plate onto the rickety table. 

Gordon makes a face of broad disbelief. “They’re raw!” he shrieks, adding, “And raw oysters took you an hour? Were you all standing back there with your fucking thumbs up each other’s arses?!”

Dringo stutters, unable to respond for a moment, before saying, “I can – I can ask the kitchen why it took so long?” He says it like a question.

“That’s alright, thank you, young man,” Gordon says. Dringo vanishes into the back again. 

Gordon loosely makes the sign of the cross, tapping his forehead and shoulders. He says, more to himself than the camera, “May the lord not kill me of food poisoning.” 

He examines the oysters and picks one up, then tilts it slightly, letting a small stream of water pour back onto the platter. He looks at it up close and the camera zooms in as he pokes a blunt finger into the wobbling raw oyster to pull out a large shard of shell. 

“They’re all like this,” he realizes, picking up each of the other oysters. “Unbelievable.” He pushes the plate away from himself and walks out of the restaurant.

The camera cuts to the street in front of Dringo’s again, though it’s dark outside, indicating time has passed. The narrator talks over the static shot. “Gordon has come back to watch dinner service at Dringo’s, to see what he can learn about how the restaurant operates.”

Gordon walks up to the camera, slamming his hand into his palm for emphasis again. “It’s time to see what a busy Dringo’s looks like and figure out if there’s even enough here for me to save.”

There’s a smooth transition to an inside camera, which shows Gordon standing by the door to the kitchen, observing. There are only a few tables occupied. One is taken by a group of ancient, greying men and another by Cazador and three young men in polo shirts, all with the same slicked-back hairstyle.

Gordon looks on apprehensively as Dringo approaches Cazador’s table. 

“I think that’s the owner,” Gordon whispers to the camera. The shot zooms in on Cazador’s face, his greasy ponytail glinting in the light of the chandelier at the center of the room. Despite the fact that he’s at a full table, mid-meal with several people, he has a Bluetooth earpiece in, which he holds a finger to. The chyron confirms: Cazador Szarr, owner.

Holding out a hand to shake Cazador’s, Gordon approaches the table. Tentative, taut bed music highlights the tension. The owner sneers at him viciously, holding up one finger to indicate he’s on the phone. Gordon laughs bitterly and retracts his hand, waiting with an equally vicious expression.

When Cazador finally finishes his call, he presses a button on the earpiece and introduces himself to Gordon. “Cazador Szarr, owner and proprietor,” he sneers, finally holding out a hand. 

Gordon doesn’t shake it.

Dringo approaches from somewhere behind Gordon with a tiny, gold filigree espresso cup and matching saucer. He ducks around Gordon to proffer it to Cazador, aiming his gaze at the floor in deference.

Cazador snatches the cup from him without a thanks and sips it immediately, inhaling sharply at the heat before setting it down. 

“Send a bottle to Doctor Thorm over there, boy,” he says.

Dringo nods and says, “Yes sir.”

Gordon cocks his head toward Cazador in curiosity, emphasized by a waterphone sound effect. “Bottle of wine on the house, does that come off the top? The doctor must be pretty fucking important, huh big boy?”

Cazador all but spits at Gordon’s feet, a dangerous look in his eye. The three men at the table look too, fixing threatening gazes on Gordon.

“Does that come off the top?” Gordon repeats, pointing a thumb back toward the doctor and his bottle of wine. He adds, “If you’re in as much debt as I think you are, seems like a piss-poor idea, doesn’t it?”

“And what the fuck would you know about the debt I’m in? Of course it comes off the top. What do you want me to say; the guy takes care of me.” Cazador’s already amped, angry, speaking quickly. It’s almost certainly more than the situation demands. His eyes shift quickly around without settling on anything in particular. It’s possible he’s on something stronger than espresso.

“He takes care of you,” Gordon repeats angrily. “And who takes care of the restaurant?”

Cazador glares at Gordon with pure venom. “I do.”

“Is this what you call taking care of the restaurant?” Gordon asks, gesturing toward a table laden with food, much of which doesn’t even appear to be on the menu. “Eating your own self out of house and home?”

Cazador sputters, his face growing redder. Gordon pushes even harder. 

“And besides, I came in for lunch and you weren’t around, where were you? Are you a fucking vampire? You can’t show up during the daytime?”

Cazador’s eyes almost bug out of his head. He stands up, knocking the table on the way and casting food and drink all about onto the floor. 

The camera gets shaky here, and it’s clear the operator is backing away. 

Cazador is up close to Gordon, face to face, and he finally gets words out: “You want to take this outside, you cocksucker?”  He’s sneering so deeply it must hurt and practically spitting from enunciating. 

The three men stand up now, and hold Cazador back, all saying some variation on “He’s not worth it, boss.”

The shot cuts again to an outside-the-restaurant shot. The narrator speaks over it, “Cazador left to cool off, and not a single other customer showed up for dinner service. Hoping he can still have an impact on the restaurant, but losing hope for them, Gordon returns for the overnight kitchen remodel.”

Another cut, and now Gordon’s in the walk-in cooler examining the backstock. 

“Raw and cooked oysters together, mold, decaying rotten vegetables,” he rattles off. He picks up a bunch of moldering celery that disintegrates under his fingers. “It’s like a fucking crypt in here!”

He emerges from the walk-in to find Godey walking past, dragging a heavy plastic bin along behind him.

“What’ve you got in there, a fucking body?” Gordon asks.

It’s clear from the musical sting that accompanies it that it’s a joke, but still, Godey startles and holds a gnarled hand to his heart. 

“Seriously, should you be lifting that much at your age?” 

Godey sniffs and rubs his fingers across his nose crudely, then shrugs.

Gordon reaches into the bin and pulls out an oyster, slimy water dripping slowly from his hand. “They’re fucking open, all of them!” he says, poking a finger in to illustrate. “Do you know what that means?”

Godey stands there, blank-faced. Gordon waves the oyster in front of his face, but still, he doesn’t respond. 

Gordon laughs and moves on, examining the rest of the kitchen in his typical style. He swipes at a thick layer of grease above a stagnant deep fryer and comments on the fire risk, he pours out crates of seafood slime directly onto the floor, he sorts through moldering vegetables and sniffs them before dry heaving. At one point, he holds up a suspicious looking pump-top bottle of a pink viscous liquid, makes an absolutely disgusted face, and says “I don’t even want to know what that is.”

There’s a montage of them cleaning overnight, set to industrious bed music. It’s just Gordon, Dringo, Godey and some of Gordon’s crew members; Cazador is notably absent. They grow more and more tired, and there’s a shot of Dringo pulling espresso shots for the crew before they get back to cleaning. The final, static shots of the kitchen show a marked improvement, though everything still looks old. There’s no dramatic dining room makeover, no poorly disguised Viking range promo.

Then there’s just an abrupt cut to a shot of the dining room, and the narrator explains the jarring time jump over footage of Cazador pacing. “It’s the morning of the reveal, and Godey’s nowhere to be found. Cazador is already in a rage. He hasn’t even acknowledged the overnight cleaning and renovation.”

“I don’t need to take this fucking bullshit from you!” Cazador shrieks, approaching Gordon with one limp finger pointed at him. He’s so worked up, and the camera is pulled in so tight that a thick line of spittle is visible stretching and breaking between his lips.

“You don’t?” Gordon asks, not backing down. “If this doesn’t work out, then what? You’re six figures in debt!” he screams. “Stop acting like a fucking baby and take some fucking responsibility!” He stretches the word “responsibility” out into what seems like five or more syllables, almost shrieking by the end of the word.

“Oh, yeah, right, blame everything on me!” Cazador moans. “You might as well blame 9/11 on me, too!” He flops his hand around in the air recklessly, angrily. “And I’ll have you know, I’ll be fucking fine if this doesn’t work out.”

“Dear, oh, dear. Well, then, maybe I should leave, if you don’t need me!” Gordon says, voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm.

“You leave?! I’m going to leave!” Cazador shrieks, at the absolute upper limit of his voice’s pitch and volume, voice cracking like a pubescent boy. He bursts through the front door, out onto the street. There’s a moment where the camera operators clearly hesitate, trying to decide what to do, but they follow. 

Cazador has a Cadillac waiting for him at the corner, and he gets into it. The camera operators load themselves into a car and follow in a low-speed chase.

The next shot is shaky. There’s the crunch of footsteps on gravel, then an audible spray of pebbles as they skid to a stop. The view narrows, zoomed-in sharply through a new-looking chain-link fence. At the edge of the pond is Cazador. His face isn’t visible, but it’s clearly him. He’s wearing the black bowling shirt from his portraits, and his long, greasy hair is pulled back in a ponytail still. 

It becomes clear he’s on the lawn of his compound at the same time as another camera person seems to catch up. The shot changes to their vantage point, a different angle, still shaky and unfocused. Cazador stumbles down the hill toward the pond and can be seen wrestling with a rolled-up Oriental rug. 

A cameraman is barely audible in the footage, but subtitles confirm he says, “Is that a body?” 

Cazador looks up, directly towards the camera, and a shrill, startling sound effect amplifies the fear. The shot zooms out fast, then drops to show the ground. It’s a hard cut to the other camera, still rolling. 

Cazador starts running before it’s obvious what’s happening. Flailing his arms in the air madly, he runs in a zig-zag, then falls to the ground. It’s only when he’s overtaken by it that the alligator becomes visible. It latches onto his lower legs, and he’s thrashed around violently. He scrabbles for purchase with his arms, then tries to fold himself in half to pry the alligator’s jaw open.

“Holy fuck!” The other cameraperson says.

In a blurry, hard-to-make-out shot, the only thing that’s really clear is that Cazador is being mauled. There’s faint screaming and a blurred red blob and then the camera cuts.

The shot jumps to several FBI agents descending upon Cazador’s compound, and the narrator starts explaining. “The crew called the authorities, who showed up to help. Godey and Cazador did not survive, so Gordon meets Dringo back at the restaurant.” It’s woefully nondescript.

There’s a prolonged montage of clips with dissolve transitions showing Gordon and Dringo organizing and testing a new menu of food, holding interviews with new front- and back-of-house staff, and generally figuring out a way forward for the restaurant.

The final shot of the show is another talking head from Gordon. “So. Cazador got fucking eaten by alligators in the end. I’m really lost for words, there, I dunno. But honestly, Dringo’s doing fantastic. Cazador did more than just name the restaurant after him – the whole thing was in his fucking name. Except Cazador’s hundred-thousand-dollar debt. So, I’ve brought in a friend of mine – Joe Bastianich – to help Dringo –”

The video buffers to a halt. 

Astarion groans, then goes to scrub back in the video. “I’m just going to replay the part where he gets eaten,” he says, grinning.

Gale lays a gentle hand on top of Astarion’s, covering the phone. “I’m afraid I can’t stomach it, karmically speaking, my love.”

The squeeze of Gale’s fingers presses the cool metal of his engagement ring into Astarion’s hand. Astarion keeps his hand there, letting the cool sensation linger a moment. It’s just a simple band that Astarion bought from the pawn shop with his first week of Waffle House tips. Still, it’s a reminder of their commitment to each other and a chance to daydream about the Gatorland wedding of their dreams.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re probably right,” Astarion says. Though he’s loath to, he extricates his hand from Gale’s and locks his phone. He catches a brief flash of his own lock screen – a photo of Gale, laid out along Bonecrusher’s back – before it goes black. That mental image, his own private after-hours gator show, lingers anytime Gale is busy mucking stalls or feeding gators through dinner. 

But right now, his beautiful fiancée is with him, so he pockets his phone. The battery is burning hot against his leg thanks to their prolonged viewing party for that leaked episode of Kitchen Nightmares.

Gale lounges back on the couch and stretches his arms above his head, revealing a tempting sliver of hairy stomach.

Astarion giggles and contorts himself to blow a raspberry on it, lips thrumming wetly against Gale’s happy trail.

Gale lets out a half-laugh, half-groan, and says “You know what I could stomach, though?”

“I think I have an idea, yes,” Astarion chuckles. He starts to grapple with the zipper of Gale’s jeans.