Rating TV-MA, 10 Episodes
Creator: Christopher Storer
Cast: Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Lionel Boyce, Liza Colón-Zayas, Abby Elliot, and Matty Matheson
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Usually, when you hear this phrase, you don’t take it literally. But I guess Christopher Storer, creator of last year’s summer sensation THE BEAR, decided to lean into the expression this second season.
For its first season, the episodes rarely left the backroom of The Original Beef of Chicagoland, a blue-collared sandwich shop trying to make ends meet serving meat between bread and buns to blue-collar Chicagoans. Butting heads were cousins Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) and Richie (Eben Moss-Bachrach). Carmy’s penchant for perfectionism, having worked in a New York Michelin star restaurant, and Richie’s disorderly system in trying to run a hole-in-the-wall spot would lead to combustible situations and a finale where their future apparently went up in smoke.
Characters aren’t prepping their stations or doing the same clowning we grew accustomed to seeing. They can’t. The restaurant is shuttered. Storer is taking a big risk in pivoting from the everyday grind. Yet, he has enough confidence in knowing his audience could substitute the chaos of the kitchen for new possibilities.
Instead of leaning hard into narrative hooks and possibly succumbing to a sophomore slump, THE BEAR stifles the cacophony with a quiet opening inside a dimly lit hospital room. Pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) is visiting his terminally ill mother. He squeezes out some hand lotion, rubs it onto her hands, and whispers assurances. We make the trip with him to work, but the Beef is closed, and it will remain closed for most of the season as it is reinvented as a fine-dining venue.
Having a non-functioning kitchen is a bold stroke in shifting the focus away from the workplace-as-life mentality to the qualities of the staff. (Apple hit TED LASSO had a similar tact in its second season, with the players on AFC Richmond getting more attention.) Between wielding sledgehammers and bad math on pizza boxes in calculating the costs for renovation and an expeditious timetable are the growth spurts as the season roves between characters bettering themselves for the love of their work. The best example is Ritchie, who gains experience at a restaurant that runs like a sports car. The ecosystem of the Beef compared to this Michelin-rated restaurant is like comparing a Ford Pinto to a Ferrari. At first, Ritchie thinks the assignment is Carmy’s means to punish and humiliate him. By the time the week ends, Ritchie has leveled up.
They all have.
THE BEAR is still chaotic, but it’s not barreling at you like a howitzer. The sixth episode (“Fishes”) is the exception. This one is a masterclass in spontaneous combustion with a list of guest stars that will make you sit up and point at the screen like Rick Dalton watching himself on TV.
No, this second season is more ambitious and precise with what it wants to achieve. The quiet and the storm. Slow moments and fast cuts. Long takes and short fuses. Less plot, more character. The direction is amazing, the writing is fantastic, and the ensemble is more than game to flex their chops (acting, not pork) and make each scene special.
Ritchie’s arc may be the best of the season, but Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), the long-tenured line cook moving up to be Sydney’s (Ayo Edebiri) sous chef, also shines. Tina’s hugging embrace when Sydney asks her is a touching moment. A few episodes later, Tina is thriving in a culinary school and joins her much younger classmates for a night of karaoke. Her rendition of Freddy Fender’s “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” is beautiful.
As for Jeremy Allen White, whose Carmy-made dirtbag skeeze chic, well, he’s still battling demons. His tousled hair paired with a tight, sweat-stained white T-shirt gives the impression that he could be a future Taylor Swift song in the making. THE BEAR is still his story. The prodigal son of the Berzatto family coming home to help run the Beef after his older brother commits suicide was daunting at the start and remains as his imposter syndrome persists. His anxiety is no less restrained, though it does get a bit of a reprieve in the form of romance when he bumps into Claire (Molly Gordon), an old flame. OK, the meet-cute story trope is cliché. But knowing Carmy, he’ll do something to muck it up.
It would seem this second season is about taking ownership and evolving. Better yourself and do your best—everyone except Carmy, who can never be happy.
THE BEAR remains a bold dramedy with a boundless pursuit of finding the goodness in others and hoping to end the day with the sweet smell of success.
Grade: A+
