- Joined
- Sep 27, 2023
Leaf here. The video is region-blocked. I'd love to watch it, though, since I've never seen it before.
Synopsis of the episode:
THE PITCH
- The protagonist Jack enters the scene, clumsily climbing down from a private jet. He carries several cases of luggage with him, even though he only wears two shirts and the same jeans during the entire trip.
- After introducing himself, Jack says he wants $300,000 for 20% of the business. The investment will go to hiring people who will “help run the business” for him so he can go on a nationwide tour to promote the sauce. Basically, he wants to go on a vacation
- Butch (guy with glasses and long hair) says that they want to see what kind of personality they are dealing with. Rooster (gruffy-voiced guy) says to see this, they send their friend Gil, a really old stereotypical Texan guy, to pick up Jack in a beaten pickup truck, to see if Jack was expecting royal treatment
- Jack is surprised that it wasn’t a limo that picked him up. Gil struggles to close Jack’s door. Jack expresses that if this is his ride, he doesn’t know what to expect.
- Gil recons some info during the ride. Jack says he has his own line of sauce, and that here’s travelled to Texas for help
- Arriving at the “clubhouse”, Jack says that the décor and the guys weren’t what he was expecting. He seems to have thought this was more “formal”
- Jack starts his pitch, but Rooster and Butch interrupt to say that they just want to savor the “moment”, surprised at the thought of an Italian BBQ maker. From here on out, you can tell that they are just joking around in a friendly sort of way. If there is anything we know about Jack, its that he takes himself very serious. This will set the mood for the rest of the episode
- Jack introduces himself as the “developer” of the “Best Sauces You’ll Ever Taste”. Butch says the obvious to what an American would think, but for those that can’t view the episode (thus not American): Texas is known for having a really strong BBQ culture. It’s a stereotypical aspect of Texan food. So Butch is saying that as a non-Texan going to Texas to advertise the “best BBQ sauce ever” is a huge claim. For those that still don’t see how important BBQ is in Texas, imagine if Mushbrain flew to China to tell them that his orange chicken recipe was the best Chinese food ever made by anyone
- Jack gives his small talk and the story behind the name. He offers them a taste but they want to hear more. He gives them the pitch – 20% for $300k. Rooster and Butch are somewhat surprised, and ask for his profit. Jack believes it to be $106k a year. They press him on how much of that is profit. “Off the top of his head”, its $35k, to which Butch is surprised that he doesn’t know such an important number, saying how much of a basic business concept this is. Jack is just clumsily throwing out numbers of previous years profit. Rooster repeats it, saying the evaluation is not that high
- Jack proudly points out that his sauce is in 150 Walmart stores, to which Butch notes that there are thousands of Walmart stores everywhere. They ask why so few Walmart stores, and Jack says they are testing the product.
- They ask what is driving his sales then if so few Walmarts. Here, Jack proudly states that he is a host of a cooking show on Youtube that rakes in millions of views a month and earns $5k a month. Rooster and Butch, perhaps as boomers (or Jack being a huckster), are visibly taken by surprise at what they think is a successful cooking show. But Rooster is still wondering why that Youtube popularity doesn’t translate to high sauce sales.
- Butch wants to know more about what he thinks is a good avenue to sell sauce, but Jack, now armed with the attitude of a superstar, quickly says the Youtube channel is not part of the deal as it is a separate “entertainment company”
- Rooster is wondering why Jack separates the channel from the deal even though the channel and sauce interwind, and Jack states that the show is his and he doesn’t want to sell a percentage of himself
- Rooster jokingly tells Butch that Jack will not “abollicate” the channel, and Butch asks Jack is he is nervous. He isn’t. He asks Jack if he’s having fun, and he is because they are cool. By now, Rooster and Butch start to mess around with Jack in a friendly way. It doesn’t go well with Jack as you’ll see soon
- Jack tries to get back on the sauce to which Rooster interrupts to ask him which one of the two guys is coolest. Confused, Jack says Rooster is funnier than Butch but Butch gets to the point.
- Clearing his throat, Jack gets back on the sauce. Butch interrupts to make a note that Jack doesn’t think he is funny. Jack is flabbergasted, but Rooster then asks for samples of the sauce. It doesn’t go well.
- Rooster thinks its OK, to which Jack smiles like a cherub. Butch thinks its too sweet, wiping that smile out instantly. Butch says that Texan BBQ is usually smokier than Jack’s sauce
- Rooster and Butch state that their opinion isn’t the real test. They reveal to Jack that they’ve set him up on an assignment to test him: compete against one of the best BBQ masters in Texas in a cook-off for a hundred people. A noticeably dejected Jack shits bricks upon hearing this, but asserts he is ready. Gil is teamed up with Jack in the competition
THE ASSIGNMENT
- Gil and Jack arrive at the BBQ place where he’s supposed to compete with the owner, Dustin. Dustin greets Gil but gives Jack the cold shoulder. In what most people would see as the guy just messing around with the competition, Jack looks visibly insulted
- They make their way out to the grills where Jack almost has a stroke upon learning that he’s going to be cooking BBQ with a grill and wood, not on a stove. Rooster is in awe at the idea that Jack claims he makes the best BBQ sauce ever but has never cooked BBQ the classic way
- Jack fumbles around with the wood he’s supposed to burn, until octogenarian Gil steps in to do the physical work for Jack. Meanwhile Dustin is already setting cooked meat on a tray. Also to note: Jack has never cooked spare ribs before, so he has no idea what to do
- Rooster and Butch arrive at the cookout to see how things are progressing, and they see that Jack is completely lost. Rooster notes how raw Jack’s meat is. Seeing how lost Jack is, they step in to help. Mushbrain interprets this as Rooster and Butch arriving to replace him, not help him, so he walks off the grill as they are getting their hands on the meat and ingredients
- While Rooster and Butch are busy laboring in front of a giant grill (keep in mind, Rooster and Butch are the investors he needs to impress), Jack is going around introducing himself and autographing bottles of his sauce. One lady says she’s heard of his Youtube channel and he couldn’t have had a bigger smile on his face if they put him in a pen of mud and shit. Rooster and Butch are of course very annoyed at this while Gil mocks him in an interview scene
- Whenever someone mentions Youtube, Jack announces this to Rooster and Butch with a giggle and smile. He proceeds to ask people if its OK if he can stare them down like a gorilla as they eat meat. He finally steps in to help Rooster with the impossible task of carrying a tray of meat, which he brushes Jack off as he’d been doing all the work for him already
- People vote for who they like, with red plates being Jack and blue plates being Dustin. Gil makes a show out of introducing the judges. Keep in mind, they are actually judging Rooster and Butches’ cooking, not Jack’s. Jack’s only contribution to the cookout is his awful sauce
- The four judges (Rooster and Butch being two) reach a tie between Dustin’s cooking and Butch/Rooster’s cooking, so Gil goes to the audience vote. While Butch and Rooster probably cooked good BBQ, it was contaminated with Jack’s sauce which costs them the competition 34-19 against Dustin. Jack looks as euthanistic as someone whose doctor told them they have AIDS.
- Like a sportsman, Jack says he’s OK that “the hometown won”, and considers a tie between the judges to be a victory of sorts (keep in mind, he didn’t do shit during the cooking)
- In a cut away, Butch surprisingly thinks Jack did an OK job, but as a person and not a cook. Rooster is less impressed with the sauce, but still thinks Jack can potentially market his mediocre sauce on Youtube
THE POW-WOW
- Back at the clubhouse, Butch, Rooster, and Gil talk about what they think. Rooster immediately states he does not like Jack’s sauce. They joke around about how Jack ditched the cooking the second someone said something about his Youtube. Butch plays Devil's Advocate, stating that he liked that some people recognized him from Youtube. Gil concurs, saying that he can potentially reach fame someday. Rooster still has some hope, considering Jack to be a good person. Butch states that Jack was staring him down as he judged the BBQ, whether this is a joke or not is unclear given that its about Jack.
- Gil is asked for his opinions. He also thinks Jack is good but gives an insightful tip that you can’t do business with bad feelings as it hurts things down the road. They end the day by agreeing that the sauce won’t sell itself, so they want to implement Jack’s Youtube channel into the deal to sell the sauce
THE DEAL
- The next day, everyone is optimistic and they restate that his sauce is “so-so” and that his evaluation of $1.5 million is too much, but still desire to get involved in his channel. Jack arrives and is made to sit on top of a milk cannister. In an emotional moment, Jack states he has only one more shot at this deal and its not like he can restart and make a new career if this fails.
- Rooster states that he abandoned cooking to go out to the crowd, but still see Jack’s strength as a showman. He also noticed that people recognized Jack from Youtube, who responds by saying that he has an audience in 95 countries including Texas. Rooster says they want a piece of his Youtube show in the deal as they see his personality as the product. Jack quickly shoots this proposal down as he doesn’t want to sell a “piece” of himself. Things begin to fall apart here
- Butch isn’t excited to hear that response, as he says that they struggle to find out what Jack’s business really is – the sauce or Youtube. He says that Jack wants a deal with the sauce but not involving his channel. Jack brings up Walmart, but Butch quickly dismisses it because he’s in only a minority of Walmart stores (150 out of thousands)
- They talk about his profit, stating that Jack’s poorly selling sauces are really worth $150,000, not $1.5 million, yet Jack wants $300,000 for only 20% of the company. Jack is visibly in distress by now, stating that his company includes four recipes and the trademark to his slogan. In a cut away, Rooster again says he believes Jack’s valuation and expectations are inflated
- Butch asks Jack how he got to a $1.5 million evaluation. He gives a sad story about how it took 15 years to build, as if somehow every year he sold sauces magically added $100,000 in value. Rooster asks if he really considers that to be “R&D”, but Jack immediately goes on the offense saying that its 15 years of work they didn’t put and won’t understand.
- Butch repeats that the time it took to build the company doesn’t factor into its value. Jack begins to sound off that he’s actually undervaluing his company and that his sauces will profit at least $1.5 million in a year if sold nationwide. Butch again says that Jack wants them to invest in what he thinks he’ll make, not in how much he actually makes
- Jack the business tycoon says that investing in actual value and not value he hopes he'll make is how Butch and Rooster do business in their certain way and that he doesn’t see eye to eye with that
- Butch and Rooster say they are being fair in how they are evaluating his company. Jack loses it, basically saying they are full of it and that he now sees that they shouldn’t work together in that case
- Butch and Rooster also now realize how much full of shit Jack is, and Rooster directly asks Jack if he just came to them to be on TV because he sees that Jack really loves the fame from Youtube. Jack is shocked at the wrongful accusation. Rooster observes that being on TV would probably help his Youtube show. Butch agrees, saying he thinks that Jack cares more about Youtube fame than his sauce. Jack takes this as they are calling him a liar. Butch denies it at first, but believes that Jack is there for the wrong reasons (so yes he’s a liar)
- Jack says that he is not a liar because “however you cook it, its still beef”, whatever that meant
- Jack then gets upset and tough, saying that Butch doesn’t know him. He goes on to say that this is no longer about money and now about his reputation. He gives a sob story about how hard he works to take care of others, to which the producers of the show edited in inspirational music
- Jack states that it matters more that he was talking to people than cooking at the cookout, and that he’s not in it for contests.
- Losing it at this point, Jack’s voice quivers as he talks about how virtuous he is, that he is the only Youtuber on Youtube to answer all emails, how he doesn’t want to be rich but just help people out, and how his humility is why he struggles to sell, how he gives away sauce to the plumbers and FedEx people that visit his house so they can enjoy it
- In a cut away, Rooster says he has no idea what the fuck Jack is going on about and that the situation is getting weird
- Jack proclaims “I am real” before he starts to cry
- Through his sobbing, he again states he isn’t a liar, to which Butch apologizes for insulting him. Butch says in a cut away that he feels sorry for Jack but just wants to “wrap this shit up”
- Butch says he wants to end this on a good note, shake Jack’s hand, and say they’re all friends. Rooster says they aren’t mean vicious people and that he feels sorry for Jack too, promising to get on Butch’s case for making him cry. After handshakes and hugs, Gil walks Jack out
- In a post interview, Jack is back to being cool and chill, talking about how they weren’t a fit because Butch teased him during the judging process by almost voting for his plate and wanting to get involved in his Youtube channel
- In his post interview, Rooster addresses Jack saying that they didn’t mean to hurt his feelings and they were just doing their jobs. Rooster hopes they can still be pals, wishes him luck, and promises to eat his barbeque sauce
- Butch ends it by telling Rooster he thinks that they’ll see Jack later on down the road, somewhere and someday.
