Is The Bear the Perfect Show?
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes (1009 words)
This post contains spoilers.
It’s not spoiling anything to say that season two of The Bear is better than the first season. In my review of season one I asked the question: if the restaurant is successful, what does success even look like? In season two, released June 22 on Hulu, we receive a partial answer.
The new season follows The Original Beef of Chicagoland crew (Carmy, Sydney, Tina, Marcus, Richie, Sugar, Fak, and the supporting cast) as they try to launch a fine dining restaurant under an accelerated timeline ordered by Cicero to limit the financial damage of a shuttered storefront and a tumultuous economy.
Where season one was focused largely inside the restaurant and familiarizing the audience with the characters, season two takes place much more in the “real world.” (Indeed, I felt like the first season was really an extended pilot episode for what came next). Most episodes tend to have a few scenes flying over Chicago in a film style that is completely new and fresh; there are no boring panoramas or still shots here.
In season two, The Bear focuses its energy on character development. Carmy forms a real, loving, human relationship with childhood girl-next-door Claire (Molly Gordon). Richie’s first scene has him asking about one’s purpose in life — he is a fossil in this new restaurant world and he’s worried the team will cut bait with him when he’s no longer needed. Marcus is dealing with his ailing mother while also refining his pastry game by staging in Copenhagen. Sydney vacillates between menu and restaurant development and questioning her loyalty to Carmy; or, perhaps, his loyalty to her as a business partner. Sugar is pregnant and also working in an unofficial capacity as the restaurant’s project manager. Tina and Ebraheim are enrolled in culinary school at Kendall College. Fak, played very well by Matty Matheson, is Fak.
Season two feels like a humming symphony that reaches a loud, satisfying crescendo in the finale (think 1812 Overture). Each character receives an appropriate amount of attention, sometimes including their own episode, such as when Marcus is profiled staging, which is also the most cinematically excellent episode of the season. No storyline is left unexplored; no character neglected; everything and everyone has a place, and there is a place for them all.
But this is not to say that it’s all smooth sailing. It’s not. Richie is resistant to Carmy’s attempts to integrate him into the project. Even a week of Richie staging at Ever is unsuccessful — until he speaks to head chef Terry (Olivia Colman) on his last day and has a change of heart. Ebraheim drops out of culinary school. Carmy takes his eye off the ball to pursue his relationship with Claire. The renovation runs into problem after problem and delays caused disproportionately by city bureaucracy.
I would be remiss not to include a mention of Episode 6 (Seven Fishes) at this point. It is a flashback episode set about five years in the past, and it is so wonderfully crafted and executed that it feels more like an off-the-rails episode of Intervention than anything in The Bear. My Italian-American barber said it gave him PTSD because of its similarity to his family’s Taylor Street Christmas dinners. I myself had to pause it halfway through to digest it and prepare for the second half. If a show can do that, it’s doing something right.
One of The Bear’s best traits is its show-don’t-tell approach. For the observant viewer, details speak for themselves. For example, Kendall College is not mentioned as the culinary school for Tina and Ebraheim. It is only observed from their uniforms. And again with the cannolis staring back at Carmy at the end of Seven Fishes —they come full circle.
Another observation is the perception of time. A big, red, digital clock appears in the background of a significant number of scenes (I would be curious how the time tracks throughout the season, if anyone wants to calculate that). The renovation calendar is plastered to The Bear’s front windows. Timers and alarm clocks are constantly blaring. Even the official season poster, above, features a clock. By the end, the restaurant’s slogan is “Every Second Counts.” The sense of urgency is palpable, inescapable, and intoxicating.
The finale episode starts off strong — maybe Carmy can break the cycle of being an abusive chef! — before he crumbles like a sand castle at high tide. In that sense, it’s similar to season one’s finale: everything blows up, Carmy goes nuclear, and things are in tatters as the season ends. But this time, everyone seems to keep their cool except Carmy. He gets stuck in the walk-in freezer due to his own negligence, and suddenly the team is on their own. The show gives them, and the audience, a moment to ponder if they will sink or swim. It turns out they can swim, and they swim well.
But by the end of the episode, still stuck in the freezer, Carmy absolutely loses it. And in a plot point only The Bear can pull off, he also manages to alienate Claire and possibly Richie due to his tantrum and toxic introspection. The season ends before he is released from the freezer.
After digesting it all, my critiques are more like quibbles. Adam Shapiro as the Ever chef de cuisine was a minor casting misfire. Carmy’s finale meltdown seemed a little derivative of season one’s ending. The new menu is not showcased very much. But that’s about it. I cannot think of any major criticism of anything that the show could have done better to be better.
The Bear is clearly the best show currently on television. It performs fan service without being indulgent and avoids giving the audience fully what it wants. Its faults are minimal, its sophomore season is better than the original, and it still has room to grow. Which begs the question: is The Bear the perfect television show?