From the billboards alone, you might assume the Food Network broadcasts MMA events and Bobby Flay kicks outrageous amounts of ass. I feel any advertisement I see for the station’s programming features one of its celebrity chefs with his arms crossed and a combative scowl that says, “if you don’t like this gourmet doughnut, I’ll fight you.”

And apparently that renegade mentality comes down from the Food Network’s decision-makers themselves.

I caught an episode of Food Network Challenge this weekend called “Cereal Bridges 2.” The original installment of Cereal Bridges, which challenged world-class pastry chefs to recreate famous bridges out of Rice Krispie Treats, failed miserably. Only two of the four cereal bridges even made it intact to the judges table and the winner, by all accounts, took the contest by default.

If Food Network executives operated under fear of embarrassment, they might opt to just move on, recognize the episode as a failed experiment, and agree never to rerun the program.

But Food Network executives, apparently, are a bold and reckless bunch. They rallied the pastry chefs for a thrilling sequel to “Cereal Bridges” because, you know, it’s really important to determine once and for all who can best build a bridge out of Rice Krispie Treats.

The United States rules. People are starving all over the planet, and we construct six-foot tall likenesses of great architecture out of cereal for our own entertainment, with no intention of anyone ever eating them. Take that, world.

One of the chefs, working on her version of the John A. Roebling suspension bridge in Cincinnati, actually used a bandsaw to cut precise towers for her delicious, marshmallow model. A bandsaw. Her plans went horribly awry when, about four hours deep into the eight-hour competition, the bandsaw broke and her assistant had to take time away from crafting suspension cables from spun sugar to attempt to fix the machine, something I’m almost certain is not covered in culinary school.

One of the judges — the hardass judge in the Simon Cowell mold — told a competitor that she needed to better understand her medium. Just a reminder: Her medium was Rice Krispie Treats.

It has been said that Michelangelo stared at a slab of marble for months before sculpting the David. I can only assume that the woman who ultimately won Food Network Challenge: “Cereal Bridges 2” meditated for years on the structural qualities of Kellogg’s classic breakfast snack, dining only on the dried and toasted grains themselves, lulled to sleep every night by that familiar soundtrack: Snap. Crackle. Pop.

I have no idea what practical application there could possibly be to the ability to mimic complex works of architecture out of cereal. Maybe if the Museum of Modern Art holds a bake sale.

The winner, inarguably the Le Corbusier of Rice Krispie Treats, earned a $10,000 check and, of course, bragging rights. Her sweet, chewy rendition of the Valentre Bridge in Cahors, France impressed the judges with its attention to detail and its structural integrity.

Because, you know, nothing says “structural integrity” like a bridge made out of cereal.