Chef's dead....

The children try to rescue Chef, but in the end he turns to head back to the "Super Adventure Club" — until he falls off a bridge onto rocks, is burned, stabbed and mauled by a mountain lion and bear.

Then he apparently dies.

"A lot of us don't agree with the choices the Chef has made in the last few days," one of the children eulogizes him at a funeral. "Some of us feel hurt and confused that he seemed to turn his back on us. But we can't let the events of the past few weeks take away the memories of how Chef made us smile.

"We shouldn't be mad at Chef for leaving us," the eulogy concludes. "We should be mad at that fruity little club for scrambling his brains."
The door for Hayes' return wasn't completely closed. In the show's final scene, members of the "Super Adventure Club" try to revive Chef, and it's not clear he's really dead.