The Bear (Season 2)

Well, now that I'm done with Precure, we're back to our regularly scheduled programming. It's time for The Bear.

As unintuitive as it sounds, I feel that writing a good first season of your show isn't the hard part. Season 1s are usually when a show's premise is at its most pure, and I'm usually willing to look past some growing pains if the premise is inherently interesting. It's when you have to write a second season, expand on that initial premise, and prove your show has legs that's the hard part for me. I've seen plenty of shows that I dropped or nearly dropped because its second season refused to expand and grow. That's why Season 1 tends to either be the best season or one of the worst, typically dependent on how its followed up on. With that being said, Season 2 of The Bear is an example of what a second season can and should be.

Season 2 of The Bear follows up from where the first season left off. Carmy closes The Beef and he and the rest of the cast try to open up a new restaurant called The Bear to get a fresh start. I was kind of expecting the new restaurant to open right away but nope, almost all of Season 2 is focused on the cast putting together The Bear by a tight deadline, with episode starting with a Majora's Mask-esque timecard showing how many weeks they have left. It's actually quite an interesting change of pace because it means we get far less of those chaotic cooking sequences that defined the first season and far more character drama. Season 2 does a good job of pushing the characters even further with plenty of really strong subplots like Marcus going to Copenhagen to learn with the surprise highlight Will Poulter, Tina and Ebra's differing experiences in culinary school, and Carmy's sister Natalie taking a larger role as project manager while also (unsuccessfully) trying to hide her pregnancy. Outside of two episodes in particular, I found this to be a far more light-hearted season than the first, with the pointed banter between the cast being more comedic than dramatic, but I think it works great in this context. With how focused Season 1 was, I think we needed a breather like this to really explore all of its characters and ideas.

But what I love most about The Bear's second season is how much more it's willing to experiment and take advantage of its status as a TV show. Season 1 was good, but it did feel like the type of "six-hour movies" I'm so disillusioned with nowadays, mostly being build up for that one admittedly amazing climax. Season 2 also builds up to a pretty big ending, but a large chunk of it is composed of these more focused episodes centered around a single character. These range from flashbacks to characters going on trips to bottle episodes, and they're great. There are so many more memorable episodes here! This is also a slightly longer season, both in terms of episode length and episode count, and its all the better for it. Season 2 of The Bear simply feels more free, free to tell whatever kinds of stories it wanted. However, not every story works for me because my one big issue is that Carmy is kinda boring this time, spending much of the season in a relationship with the really dull Claire. While it's definitely a good thing that the rest of the cast was strong enough to carry the series, it's a real shame that Jeremy Allen White didn't get as much to do considering how much he carried last season.

Highlights:

Fishes: While this season was pretty light on the tense cooking, it did still have one of the most uncomfortable family dinners I've ever seen in a TV show. Fishes feels like it explains everything, and not through any textual explanations, but just by watching the family interact. Fishes is filled with notable guest stars acting their hearts out as the tension within the house slowly reaches a boiling point, culminating in the actual dinner that left me on the edge of my seat. This is exactly the type of episode I wanted to see because it's entirely a flashback disconnected from the main plot, but it's also the best episode of the show to date and The Bear would be a lesser series if it didn't exist. Also, poor, poor Natalie.

Forks: I hated Richie in season one, but this was some good character development. I expected him to suffer at his staging job, but he ended up charming the rest of the chefs there and ends up genuinely happy... at least until he has to go back to The Bear at the end. We also get Richie belting out Taylor Swift which was absolutely hysterical.

The Bear: I criticized this season for not having Carmy do much and I stand by that, but this finale also confirms that this was entirely intentional. Season 2 is about everyone developing and growing... except for Carmy. He gets a girlfriend, sure, but he has not changed, and when he gets himself stuck in a fridge all episode, it's the rest of the cast that has to carry the restaurant. Compared to the low-key denouement of last season, this is a far more explosive finale, between Carmy screwing everything up and an full-on cliffhanger with Marcus.

Overall, Season 2 of The Bear is exactly what a second season should be. It's not directionless, or a copy of the first, instead it gives itself room to breathe, experiment, and explore the characters in some truly unique ways. Not everything it tries fully works, but it's that willingness to take some shots in the dark and not rest on its laurels that led to some of its greatest moments.

4/5 Stars

The Bear (Season 1)

Call it superficial, but I watched The Bear entirely because people told me it had a great episode-long one take. What can I say, I like my long takes, but was the rest of the show good too?

The Bear is a show about a fine dining chef named Carmen (usually shortened to Carmy) returning to Chicago to run his family's sandwich shop after his brother who had ran it previously died. It's a great concept and Carmy trying to run what is essentially a diner like a high class restaurant is that perfect blend of drama and black comedy. But what I think really made The Bear work is the fact that it didn't go the easy way out of having Carmy be this whirlwind who storms in and destroys the sandwich shop, rather the show puts in the work to develop every character and articulate why they just weren't compatible. Carmy has his issues, for sure, but there's also Sydney's impatience, Marcus focusing on mastering his deserts over actually serving people, and Richie's devotion to the status quo. The Bear is a bit of a slow burn, building up to a phenomenal penultimate episode where all of the characters collide, though that does mean the first three-fourths of the show doesn't nearly reach those heights (and neither does the finale, but I'll get that).

The Bear is at its best when it is stressing you the hell out. When tensions are high in the kitchen and everyone is screaming at each other and the camera is shaking like mad is when I am most engrossed, mostly because of how on-point every single aspect of the production is during these scenes. The cast is already fantastic, especially Jeremy Allen White as Carmy, but their best moments are during these sequences of chaos. Similarly, the cinematography and editing is particular great in these scenes, further heightening that feeling of urgency. Unfortunately, it kind of leads to the issue where when things aren't tense in The Bear, things get a bit less interesting for me. Another thing I didn't love about The Bear was how unsubtle it got at times. Some of the needle drops felt way too on the nose (that one where Sydney and Tina bond, for example), and the growling bear sounds in the first episode made me laugh at how absurd it got. I also wasn't a huge fan of the finale, but once again, I'll get there.

Highlights:

Review: Ah, the infamous long take episode. I was always going to like Review for the novelty alone, but even outside of the technical stuff, Review was the absolute culmination of everything The Bear was trying to be, twenty minutes straight of pure kitchen mayhem made even better by the unbroken shot. It's the most stressful episode I've seen since the Severance finale, and had me laughing in nervousness by the end. Plot-wise, it's the climax of the series, all of the tensions that have been building up for the last six episodes finally come to a head as Richie gets stabbed, Sydney and Marcus leave, and Carmy completely snaps. Despite being the shortest episode by far, Review was also the most jam-packed with plot.

Braciole: Okay, time to talk about the finale. Braciole was an underwhelming ending to the season because it felt unrealistically neat and tidy. It was as if nothing that happened in Review actually stuck. Richie's stab wound? Barely mentioned. Marcus and Sydney quitting? They're back by the finale's end. The lunch rush having any sort of negative consequences on The Bear? Nope, and while it does end up closing, it's because Carmy closes it on his own terms. Braciole took the easy way out in pretty much every way. The only reason why it's still in the highlights section is because the first ten-or-so minutes were absolutely phenomenal, with the one-two punch of the dream sequence and Carmy's monologue being easily the most emotionally impactful moment of the show.

Overall, The Bear was a solid series, with a great premise, a fleshed-out cast of characters, a strong sense of chaos, fantastic performances and cinematography, and an all-time episode of TV in Review. However, none of the other episodes could really reach the heights of Review, and weak points like a lack of subtlety and very lackluster finale did bring down the show a bit.

3/5 Stars