The Bear

[therewillbeblus]

It's definitely not The Best TV Show Of 2022 (though the competition is fierce) despite consistently topping the charts on year-end lists, but The Bear is an impressive tonal blend on a variety of levels, and a particularly promising show that I'm really looking forward to see develop over multiple seasons. Its greatest asset is its restraint, which functions in sync with its characters' admitted lack of skills or comprehension for how to begin processing their emotions and traumas. Under all the exterior chaos of loud personalities and reactive behavior sits a perspective at once in harmony with and at a distance from its characters, who are suffering and empowered, and enthusiastic and exhausted, and wise and confused. They are amalgamations of contradictory qualities, just trying to get by and do the thing they are drawn towards, without having a concrete mapped-out "reason" for doing that thing, and encountering the natural and constructed mayhem that arises from competing wills under internal and external pressures. It's a very honest show, and it never overcooks its comedy or drama, allowing the humor to exist as organic observations of absurd conflict, and the 'real' drama to be contained in the elisions not yet unpacked. But we can all feel the energy that's there. I expect the show will always sustain the ethos of restraint to some degree, but as we peel back the onion layers, the catharses for audiences and characters will synergize more than most shows. This is one to keep an eye on - its showrunners clearly confident in their menu, not even tempted to rush in the main course, which hasn't even begun to boil, before the season's end - we're still on the appetizers. "Chef, it's not ready yet."

[Roger Ryan]

... The Bear is an impressive tonal blend on a variety of levels...

Agree, and I'll only add that the penultimate episode of the first season which covers close to 18 minutes of frenetic action and interaction in one (seemingly) continuous take is a remarkable tour de force for both the actors and the technical crew.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah, plus a great finale - though I found myself feeling gaslit by the show, which explicitly comes down in favor of

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the two chefs who were fucking around during a crisis, totally oblivious to the chaos they had to step up for. Obviously it's not effective leadership to go around screaming at people, but man, having worked in crisis settings for the bulk of my career (centered around interpersonal violence and not cooking, but it doesn't matter - this was pitched as significant when they made clear that missing one shift could cost them the business), there's just zero excuse for team members disengaging during acute situations. Edebiri was provoking Moss-Bachrach when he was trying to drop his attitude to help, stabbed him and just went into a corner giggling - plus she was at fault for not turning off the preorder form that started the whole catastophe, and still found the time to keep bothering Bear about her dish and behavior that violated chain of command with the very impatience he already gave her feedback to work on... Boyce had to prepare like a hundred cakes, had four ready and came in tone-deaf to show Bear his latest perfect creation he took his sweet time preparing. I found it frustrating that Bear had to apologize to them, they were allowed to call him a bitch, and the show took their side without demanding a perspective of reciprocity. It's especially irritating when Bear had immediately promoted Edebiri to give her opportunities she never received (or would have received so quickly) elsewhere, and had supported Boyce even when his own myopic obsessive behavior caused a power outage sparking a crisis in a past episode. Cut the guy some slack if he yells at you when you jerk around on site when the mood is at a code red, or.. for not doing your job when you really need to do your job.

[therewillbeblus]

Bob Odenkirk joins the cast for the second season of The Bear

[therewillbeblus]

I liked the first season fine, but season two of The Bear earns the accolades the first unanimously received. It slowly transforms into a wonderful chaos menu of messy family dynamics, overwhelming fears isolating us from our social world, and the necessity of welcoming supports to fuel our own nonlinear rehabilitation. It’s a great recovery show, universalIzing experiences with as much humility and vulnerability as it expects from its characters, actors, and audiences. Also, don’t look at the cast list for this season - there’s a lot of big-name cameos, with one episode in particular stack-full of fun guests (I admittedly looked at the wiki page in advance, but I really wish I hadn’t spoiled it).

Forget Roy Kent, Cousin Richie blows that (superficially similarly-conceived) character out of the water, with rich textures of humanity that make him the most compelling supporting performance on TV right now

[Murdoch]

I liked the first season fine, but season two of The Bear earns the accolades the first unanimously received. It slowly transforms into a wonderful chaos menu of messy family dynamics, overwhelming fears isolating us from our social world, and the necessity of welcoming supports to fuel our own nonlinear rehabilitation. It’s a great recovery show, universalIzing experiences with as much humility and vulnerability as it expects from its characters, actors, and audiences. Also, don’t look at the cast list for this season - there’s a lot of big-name cameos, with one episode in particular stack-full of fun guests (I admittedly looked at the wiki page in advance, but I really wish I hadn’t spoiled it).

Forget Roy Kent, Cousin Richie blows that (superficially similarly-conceived) character out of the water, with rich textures of humanity that make him the most compelling supporting performance on TV right now

I liked it a lot but still hold the first season in higher regard, mainly for the kitchen meltdown episode and how claustrophobic that felt. For season two, I thought Claire's character felt undeveloped and her sole trait seemed to be that she loves Carmi. The show used a few too many generic indie rock songs toward the end instead of just letting the emotions of the scenes speak for themselves (one brief cutaway of Claire in scrubs rushing through the hospital to a song reminiscent of the Frey was a bit too Grey's Anatomy for me).

But the seven fishes dinner was great, even if I got distracted by how many cameos they crammed in. Jamie Lee Curtis deserves an Emmy for her performance, which felt very genuine in how she's internalized so much anxiety and trauma. It's fascinating to me how you can see it pervade the family, especially in Carmi toward the end of the season.

[therewillbeblus]

I still felt like the show utilizes admirable restraint, and the relationship with Claire works for that reason. We aren't cued into all the intricacies of anyone's life, like we would with a normal show, but we're trusted to fill in the elisions and see the effects in real time later on. I can understand how people would feel things are 'rushed' in this regard (each character getting a solo ep to help them self-actualize and then suddenly they're putting that into practice/juggling life stressors) but the show isn't saying 'see, he did x so now he's all good' - it's giving us slices of significant experiences and then weaving it together in the milieu that puts this stuff to the test. Claire can be seen as a MPDG in many ways, but I think she works if you view the show as a series of acute moments. Carmy having flashbacks to these little memories is pretty realistic, and we don't need to be there for all the development to relate to that. I felt those montages were familiar of our own rich reflections - though we are taught cinematically to identify when we've been surrogates along for more of the ride of a relationship's rich development, so it's certainly an ask.

That chaotic ep in S1 was very good, but they replicated the chaos throughout this season, and that situation in particular again in the finale - arguably even more effectively. They did use "Strange Currencies" at least three different times though!

[Matt]

I’m only on episode 8, so maybe it changes, but every dish on the proposed menu sounds disgusting. Frozen grapes with hot beef broth poured over them at the table? Savory cannoli with mortadella cream, parmesan shell, pistachio, and mostarda? Marinated radicchio with burnt grapefruit and fresh rosemary? I enjoy fine dining as much as the next food snob, but give me a well-made Italian beef sandwich over any of these Michelin stomach-churners.

[therewillbeblus]

People aren't liking season three of The Bear, and I can't blame them. It's pacing is languorous, it's narratively frustrating, and doesn't have the same kind of cathartic and humorous and romantic (in many meanings) moments as last season, nor the consistency and concentration of the first. And yet, this seems like an inevitable and reflexively-appropriate change of pace for a show attuned to the nonlinearity of growth and coping with trauma, collectively and independently. It makes sense to take a step backwards before forwards, and the show does this in just about every way. The instances of cathartic release are so minute that many will miss them at all, but I teared up more during this season than any other, even if those tears were in short-lived bits within clunky scenes. It's a strong case of a season that both swings for the fences and misses (the bookends: an opener that doesn't pull off the gravitas it intends to, and a finale with the worst possible social climax you could pick from all available on-deck) and also operates with full awareness of its restraint and the effect it'll have on the audience (the third quarter of eps). At least I'm hoping Storer is aware, since seasons three and four were filmed at the same time! If he needs the negative response to this season to enlighten the ping-pong spirit and give us a fourth (and, hopefully, last) focused, pleasing season, we're going to need to go back to the well

[Walter Kurtz]

Episode 6 of The Bear is one of their standalone all-time classics and most of episode 10 was good... but the rest? A total. waste. of. time. Which is frustrating because I care about a bunch of characters and didn't learn anything new about them and they didn't learn anything new about themselves.

[domino harvey]

The show was filming literally down the block from me a few weeks ago. I was impressed/confused that they somehow already edited it all to drop with the season that just released, but hearing they were filming the next season makes more sense. There were a ridiculous amount of security and body guards posted around for it considering the neighborhood. Really glad they had all that muscle out to prevent all the people out walking their dogs from rushing the scene

[therewillbeblus]

I care about a bunch of characters and didn't learn anything new about them and they didn't learn anything new about themselves.

I disagree, though this growth/knowledge definitely slowed down

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Carmie didn't connect with Claire (bummer), but his regression was absolutely capped with an important bit of self-knowledge: After opening night, he went into a frustrating mode of emulating Joel McHale for the season, but he did realize that he was doing this and the generational trauma that was previously defined as familial has now blossomed into a more studious reveal in how our peers, bosses, etc. within our social context have this impact as well. Just see what effect this has had on Sydney et al., and Carmie's revelation is translated into expression in the finale, which is huge for him. It's an interesting moment, because McHale is partly right and it's pretty obvious how and why this was going to play out the way it was, but that's because Carmie's social-emotional parts are underdeveloped and so his expression, while a huge step forward, comes across like a child in terms of tone, style, and scope of perspective. It's pretty brilliant, even if it's annoying to sit through ten episodes of.

I think Richie's growth was tremendous too. It's easy to ride the highs of a moment that motivates you from rags into suits, but it's tougher to sustain it. Richie navigating difficult parenting and co-parenting and personal moments was really tender and cathartic to watch, even if nothing can ever beat what "Forks" did for us because of what it did for him.

And we learned more about Mikey in (I agree) the season's shining episode than we did even in last year's Christmas one

[Walter Kurtz]

You're right about Richie. Carmie? When one undergoes the Full Metal Jacket/Whiplash school of leadership/training one either A) almost immediately understands what's going on and is willing to accept it... or B) whales on the fucker until the ambulance arrives. I've done B. Carmie did neither. Meaning he accepted it but didn't understand it. And at the end he was still extremely slow in understanding it even though the picture was being painted right in front of him.

Don't get me wrong. Do I like that school of leadership? Well... I chose B.

[therewillbeblus]

This is where the difference between "admitting" and "accepting" from 12-step fellowships like Al-Anon (which is basically the model the show follows) fits in. He absolutely admits what is happening is happening, but all of his internal psychological parts have not accepted it - especially emotionally, where he is stunted. The 'child' in him, if you will, is finally coming out to say its piece. So yes, that scene is frustrating because it's no revelation except for the part within Carmie he has just started getting in touch with recently. Someone else's therapy sessions often aren't that interesting most of the time, but I still think it's a step forward for him, regardless of being Good TV or not.

[RPG]

Season 3 is a huge step down from the first 2, though the Tina and Mikey episode was one of the best of the entire series. But there was an entire episode of a woman in labor and for some bizarre reason they decided to increase the profile of the doofus brothers as some sort of attempted comic relief. The only real positive function they served was to try to mend fences between Carmy and Claire. Otherwise they just took up screen time from more interesting characters.

[beamish14]

I’m halfway through, and this is pretty appalling. The scenes with John Cena are infuriatingly bad, and having characters scream “Shut the fuck up” into each others’ faces for five minutes does not make for compelling television.

Was this rushed into production due to the principals’ film commitments?