Food

For the Love of God, Please Give Guy Fieri His Own 'Law & Order' Spinoff

"In Flavortown, the one dedicated detective who investigates bland food is the leader of an elite squad known as the Sketchy Chef Unit."
Drew Schwartz
Brooklyn, US
Guy Fieri
Via Guy Fieri / Twitter

Guy Fieri has spent 51 years on this earth in search of his true purpose in life. He has opened dozens of restaurants—from a chain of "California pasta grills" called Johnny Garlic's to a barbecue and sushi joint (???) called Tex Wasabi's—most of which have been technically successful, but objectively terrible. He has starred in countless Food Network shows, but most have flopped, aside from his mainstays like Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and Guy's Big Bite. Another year goes by, another restaurant opens, another Food Network show launches—but every new venture is nearly identical to the last. He is stuck in an inescapable cycle: Donkey Sauce, giant hoagie, Flavortown pun. Donkey Sauce, giant hoagie, Flavortown pun.

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Guy Fieri needs a change of pace. He needs something new, something big to rescue him from this feedback loop of "funkalicious," "bomb-dot-com" drudgery he has languished in for years. He needs—as Fieri himself has recently discovered—to star in his own Law & Order spinoff.

Just imagine: Each episode opens with the discovery of some miserable, borderline inedible dish—a sandwich comprised of nothing but bologna and bread, unseasoned grilled chicken burnt to a pile of ash, the hellspawn formally referred to as "sushi casserole"—and, immediately, the responding officer in the Flavortown Police Department knows who to call.

"This one's a doozy, Johnson," the cop says. "Get Detective Fieri on the line."

Cut to a shot of the FPD headquarters, and we see Fieri, senior detective at the Sketchy Chefs Unit, speeding out of a parking lot in an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile with a police light on it, sirens blaring, hauling ass to the scene of the culinary crime while simultaneously demolishing a cheeseburger the size of his head. He picks up the offending dish in question (plain, boiled broccoli, perhaps) with a pair of tweezers, sniffs it, and takes a small bite.

"I hate to say it," Fieri sighs. "But the sick, sadistic son of a bitch who made this just booked himself a one-way ticket to Flavortown Prison."

From here, he enlists the help of the forensics lab, helmed by none other than famed food scientist Alton Brown. Fieri and his partner, Bobby Flay—who, for the purposes of this show, is a hard-drinking, chain-smoking cop who doesn't think twice about putting a paring knife to a suspect's throat or shoving their hand into a George Foreman grill—hunt down the criminal, staking out shitty restaurants and household kitchens all over the seedy underbelly of Flavortown. Once they've finally found the perp, they bring their evidence to District Attorney Gordon Ramsay, and see if they've got enough to make a case.

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"Good Christ, Fieri, you've done it again," Ramsay barks. "Let's nail the bastard."

Ina Garten presides over the courtroom; Rachael Ray is the ADA. Giada De Laurentiis is the stenographer, and Emeril Lagasse is the bailiff, who can't stop himself from shouting "bam!" every time Judge Garten slams down her gavel. Arguments are presented, various obscure legal defenses are routed by Ray's sharp wit, and—once again, as always—justice is served in Flavortown. Detective Fieri hangs up his gun and badge and marches back to City Hall, where he resumes his secondary civic duty of serving as the mayor, which, confusingly, he is somehow legally allowed to do.

This shit writes itself. Please, NBC: For the love of all that is holy, give us what we want. Give us the police procedural we deserve. Give us Law & Order: Flavortown.

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