Hmm. I thought he would get the offer to work with him and have the restaurant. Guess I missed that. Anyway, I thought Michael deserved the win over Ralph who tended to toot his horn way too much.

Season over. OK show. Don't care for another season.

Exactly, Ramsey has backed a number of his Chefs in their restaurant ventures. Michael isn't giving up his restaurant. He will be far better off in the long run for having worked under one of the best chefs in Europe and having his backing when its time for him to open his own restaurant.

I'm glad he won I was pulling for him.

The right man won. Ralph isn't as big as he thinks he is. As for the "fix" . . . Michael had the choice. I can see Ramsey being impressed enough to try to keep him for himself. Michael is pretty young to have such a flair for cooking, so Ramsey probably saw a lot of potential for him. I think he personally liked him better than Ralph anyway and if Ralph had "won" Michael still would have ended up in London. Anyhoo, Michael will be better off spending a few years working under Ramsey in a world class restaurant. It'll only help him in the long run.

Without actually tasting the food, it seemed like Michael was a better chef, while Ralph was better at running the kitchen. I thought that Michael would be too young to start his own restaurant, so that is why I thought that Ralph would win, but since the prize turned out to be training under Ramsay (winner's choice), it makes sense that Michael won since he is more talented and younger.

My only complaint about Michael winning, was I thought it was pretty poor sportsmanship of him to try to sabotage the other player/team. He did with Ralph, intentially making the food bad, to see if it got through, and also with the team competition, intentially pushing 1 dish to run out of it. I guess it's pretty smart, but I was hoping Ramsey would say, in the end working in a kitchen is a team objective, and that would have cost the whole restaurant in the end. Thus, not pick Michael.

I too was hoping Ralph would get the restaurant, since Michael didn't take it.

While I think Michael has the better potential to be a great chef, I don't believe he was ready to take over his dream restraunt. Taking the job with Ramsey was definetly the right choice to make, and will give him the experience in not only cooking but allow him to see what else it takes to make a successfull restaurant.

The lesson learned was cheaters do win.

Michael's methods are why I no longer wanted him to win at the end of the show. Intially, I was rooting for him, but after seeing a couple of things that he did, I wanted Ralph to win instead.

I want to wish Dewberry and Brad Pitt all the happiness in the world.

If Ramsay is serious about what he offered Michael, it could lead to millions of dollars in income for Michael. He chose...wisely.

I heard that Jake Byrd from The Jimmy Kimmel Show was on HK last night.

I thought Michael exposing other people's weaknesses was a smart move. Why would you let someone advance and potentially boot you when you know they are inferior? It's a competition. It's not cheating. If Ralph was doing his job, Michael's crabless plates never would have made it out to the dining room. He would have called Michael on it, Michael would have apologized, and that would have been the end of it. But that's not what happened. Michael knew Ralph was just pushing the food through without doing quality checks, so why not expose that fact? The heat was on Ralph, not Michael, during this time, so it was a logical strategic move. And as Ralph said, Ralph made sure to not fall for that trap later on during real service.

What other examples of "cheating" are there? I've only seen the last half of the episodes.

Exactly, I don't feel he did anything wrong. He played it like it was a game, which it was. I am glad that he won.

Ralph's no saint.

After whats-her-name went on TV with Ramsay, Mike had no problem ignoring her that night in the kitchen, even when she was asking honest questions.

I don't think there was any real cheating going on. I just felt it was poor sportsmanship, although prob smart in the end.

The other thing that came to my mind, was when it was the two different teams, he knew the one team was short something (say filet). His team was doing the table services at the time, he had them all push the filet on the customers to try to make them run out of filet, and cause a problem. Again I don't think it's cheating. Just seemed sorta shady to me.

Although I agree, Ralph wasn't a saint, just seemed slightly less ego driven, and didn't reall knock Michael, like Michael did him, saying his time was past, his style is dated etc.

Good show though, and liked the final challenge.

Yeah, the more I think about it Michael made the right call. He'll probably get a restaurant either way. He can either do it now as "reality tv show winner Michael" or later as "Gordon Ramsay protege Michael". The latter has better odds for success, plus he'll simply get better at what he does.

I think Michael is the better chef if you noticed his dishes always looked more artistic and tasted better. Ralph tended to make easier dishes like beef.

Working under Chef Ramsey for a few years was the right choice. He'll learn so much and when he does eventually open his own restaurant he'll be prepared and have a great reputation

Although what's with all the tattoos??. That kind of bothered me

Actually Michael was pushing the lasagna the one night. However, he also (apparently) hid the filets another night while Jessica was on the meat station.

Michael's wife was pretty hot, except for the child-like scribbling all over her body.

Over the last 5 years Ramsay's former proteges have earned big money at restaurants Ramsay has financed, as well as being made partners in them. Presently, to my knowledge, Ramsay has no stake in a restaurant in the US. The dream scenario for Michael would be to go to work under Ramsay for a while, then be given Ramsay's new LA restaurant to run. Again, this presumes Ramsay was serious about giving him a shot. If that were to happen, Michael could be set for life. A lot has to happen first, but he's apparently been given the opportunity. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. This isn't like other reality shows where the winner lives off appearance money for a year or two until people get bored with them. For Michael this could be a life defining career turn.

If there really was a restaurant to offer...they would have showed it to us...the space....something...

There may not have been a physical space selected. Perhaps it was some contract to provide financing once a place was agreed to. Also, since this was shot back in October/November last year, they knew he wasn't taking it long before this aired. But the prize description of "their own restaurant" is pretty nebulous.

Remember too when considering Michael's options that even if they gave him a $2 million restaurant, he'd have to come up with something like $1 million cash to pay the taxes on the prize value, meaning a large loan against the restaurant would likely be required.

It would be interesting to see an interview with him to find out what exactly was going on in that final 5 minutes of the series.

Couldn't it have been the restaurant the series took place in?

That was exactly what I was thinking.

I don't think a physical space could be planned ahead of time because the winner would probably want it in their hometown and not want to move to LA.

There is no way they would just build a restaurant wherever the winner wanted it. It would be in New York, L.A., etc.

They aren't just going to build a fancy restaurant in Ypsilanti, Michigan because Michael wants to live there.

The restaurant where they filmmed was actually a set. They built the entire thing from top to bottom.