The bear (season 3)

The polarizing third season of The Bear very much feels like a microcosm of the frustrations of the streaming era, and the current state of television as a whole. The culinary FX/Hulu series - which follows renowned chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) as he returns home to Chicago to take over his family’s sandwich shop in the wake of his brother’s suicide - became an immediate breakout hit… mostly because it fed people’s insatiable appetite for characters screaming over one another in a chaotic, pressure-cooker environment (and fed it generously). But the landscape shifted after the highly addictive first season, as Carmy elected to reinvent “The Original Beef” as a fine-dining establishment called “The Bear”… and it feels like the show has been listing sideways ever since.

Those hoping to revel in the emotional wreckage of the restaurant’s “friends and family” test run (in which Carmy ended up trapped in the walk-in and inadvertently torpedoed his relationship with Claire (Molly Gordon)) will no doubt be frustrated. Season premiere “Tomorrow” is the most obnoxious sort of prestige TV throat-clearing… a non-episode that wanders preciously through flashbacks of Carmy’s culinary upbringing in various five-star kitchens. But things only marginally improve from there, as series creator Christoper Storer defiantly - almost vindictively - embraces dramatic inertia. The kitchen settles into the highs and lows of the daily service grind. Carmy initiates an absurdly misguided “daily menu” protocol he hopes will eventually fetch a Michelin star (which puts added strain on the staff - and the restaurant’s financial margins). Sydney (the ever-gifted Ayo Edebiri) contemplates her future as Carmy’s sous chef - particularly after receiving a competing offer. Sugar (Abby Elliott) nears childbirth while trying to keep the entire venture from going off the rails. Pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) looks for inspiration in magic and violets. Richie (the increasingly indispensable Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Carmy get on each other’s nerves (what else is new?). Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) frets over skyrocketing expenses. Claire remains AWOL. Jamie Lee Curtis makes another showy bid for a Guest Emmy, while the likes of Josh Hartnett and John Cena are (distractingly) added to the show’s roster of high-profile guest stars.    

This would likely feel intolerable if not for the fact that The Bear still produces individual scenes that are as well-written and well-acted as anything on television. Watching the show now feels akin to hunting for those precious truffles, those insulated pockets of delicately observed grace between two characters (such as Richie sitting with his ex Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs) as they watch their daughter on the playground, their interaction lubricated with the comfortable ease of two people who’ve known each other their entire lives). If there’s one episode that perfectly encapsulates everything enthralling yet maddening about this season, it’s “Napkins” - a much-welcome showcase for Tina (newly-minted Emmy winner Liza Colón-Zayas) that needlessly chronicles how she first came to work at The Beef. The episode’s extended sequence between her and Jon Bernthal’s Mikey is like exquisite chamber music - every note sweet and true (once again one has to wonder why the magnetic Bernthal isn’t a mega-star… if he broke through in the 70s, he’d almost certainly have had De Niro’s career) - but even though it’s arguably the single best scene The Bear has ever produced, does it actually illuminate anything about Tina’s character that isn’t already self-evident? Not particularly.    ​

What exactly do we even want from television? The frequently exhausting, 22-episode plot churn of network TV is rightfully mocked, but as others have asked - is waiting almost three years for eight new episodes of Severance really so much better? There has to be a happy medium. Television was built on the simple and reliable comforts of hanging out on a weekly basis with characters we actively look forward to spending time with… but these days it’s more akin to The Bear’s fussy artisanal fare, micro-portions meticulously plated and garnished as if with Carmy’s trademark tweezers. In that sense, The Bear is a show that seemingly operates on meta levels both consciously and unconsciously. The thematic undercurrent of the season is whether the ideal of greatness that Carmy is relentlessly chasing is actually a summit worth reaching… the fact he was willing to jettison Claire - the one thing in his life that actually made him happy - just so he could dedicate himself more fully to his tortured, self-flagellating craft speaks volumes. Offhand references to the beef sandwich take-out window being the only consistent moneymaker (it’s basically keeping The Bear afloat) hammers home the notion that Carmy’s gastronomic self-aggrandizement is mostly servicing a non-existent demand - and that the Original Beef, dysfunctional cesspit though it often was, had carved itself a genuine niche within Chicago’s culinary ecosystem. But so too does The Bear itself now feel like a show paralyzed by its own prestige - dispensing its drama in oblique dollops of foam… when most people still crave (not to belabor the obvious metaphor) that overstuffed meatiness of the first season. In that sense, it’s rather fitting that the series and Carmy’s restaurant bear the same name, because the two have essentially become indivisible. Sydney’s wistful look at a press clipping for the Original Beef in the closing moments of the season finale suggest the characters are beginning to recognize what they’re missing; it remains to be seen if the show’s creators will as well.