Yahoo Movies ‘The Bear’ Season 2 Is Electrifying and Avoids a Sophomore Slump
A very strange thing happened to me early in the second season premiere of FX’s The Bear. An early scene features Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), and the rest of the restaurant dramedy’s colorful group of characters arguing over everything they will need to do and spend in order to transform Carmy’s family’s decaying old sandwich shop into the fine dining establishment of his and Sydney’s dreams. As everyone kept talking and shouting over one another, and as Carmy kept adding to the seemingly endless list of repairs and expenses in his immediate future, I should have gone into a second-hand panic attack like the ones the first season so often gave me.
Instead, I smiled. And laughed. And then smiled some more.
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What in the Windy City was happening here? How could I possibly feel so giddy, and even relaxed, while watching the most stressful scripted show on television?
Part of it was simply that I, like chef Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) and baker Marcus (Lionel Boyce), had grown used to how things worked under Carmy’s leadership, and had learned to embrace the restaurant at its most frantic. I was just happy to be back there, among these people. Mostly, though, it was because The Bear creator Christopher Storer has other things on his mind this year than giving viewers a never-ending case of the sympathy sweats. The new season has its moments, and even whole episodes, that might not be healthy viewing for anyone under a cardiologist’s care, but the tone is often much lighter, and at times plain joyous. It’s also a more frequently funny show(*), where the near-constant series of kitchen calamities are designed to elicit laughter more often than angst — for the audience, at least. Carmy, Sydney, and the gang are still justifiably harried throughout.
(*) The strange Emmy rules about half-hour series versus hour-long ones means that The Bear is probably going to get a lot of nominations — and maybe even some big wins — in the comedy categories for its first season, even though that was almost entirely dramatic. Season Two balances the scales a bit more, even if it’s arguably 70-30 drama-to-comedy, compared to Season One’s 90-10 ratio.
As the new season tracks The Original Beef of Chicagoland’s transformation into The Bear, it explores many of the same conflicts and themes as the first one did. Carmy is still consumed with grief over the suicide of his brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal), and still struggles to take pleasure in anything, least of all his own culinary genius. Sydney’s professional ambition and personal anxiety continue to be at war with each other. Cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) still feels out of place and purposeless in the new world Carmy is creating out of the Beef, Tina and Marcus are still amazed by the way Carmy and Sydney have helped them think about food, Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) is still breathing down Carmy’s neck about the money Mikey owed him(*), and Carmy’s sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) is still struggling to be seen from under the long shadows cast by both her living brother and her dead one.
(*) If you are waiting for a more detailed explanation about how and why Mikey was hiding the cash in the tomato sauce cans, be prepared for disappointment. The subject — the one real weak point of Season One — quickly gets yada-yada’ed in the premiere.
And as our heroes attempt to balance the books on this very risky business venture, the series is running its own kind of cost-benefit analysis about the arts — culinary or otherwise. Season Two continues to expand many horizons, as Tina goes to culinary school, Sydney takes a culinary tour of Chicago, and Marcus spends a charming episode (directed by Ramy Youssef) in Copenhagen, learning about fancy desserts from an old friend of Carmy’s played by Will Poulter (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3). But we see throughout the season that Carmy and Sydney’s talents are both blessing and curse, consuming their every thought even at the expense of the rest of their lives. In one episode, Sydney’s father (played by writer/director Robert Townsend in an increasingly-rare acting role) suggests that a relative could get her a job in another industry, and his motivation seems as much about her emotional health as it is the recognition that most restaurants fail. She and Carmy are making absolutely beautiful food, and again and again we get powerful examples of how just the right dish can give new life to the person enjoying it. But Storer and company (including frequent writer/director Joanna Calo) continue to ask whether that’s worth everything they have to endure and give up in the process.
At one point, an alarm won’t stop blaring while Jimmy visits the restaurant. He’s surprised Carmy is able to casually have a conversation amidst this noise. “I don’t mind it,” Carmy insists, once again pointing out the many things a chef has to get used to that would push more sensible people off the deep end. There are even several moments throughout where Carmy or Sydney become uncomfortable when the restaurant space is too quiet, or when things are going too well. There’s a reason Carmy suggests that their new restaurant should offer a “chaos menu, but thoughtful.” He has eaten and breathed chaos for so long that he can’t relate to anything else, and The Bear — with help from the ongoing spectacular performances by White, Edebiri, Moss-Bachrach, and company — continues to find thoughtful, lively, and intoxicating ways to recreate that chaotic point of view. It’s also even more of an ensemble piece than before, making Natalie much more prominent, giving everyone a few moments in the spotlight, and allowing us to better appreciate the impact, both positive and negative, that comes from being in the orbit of people as brilliant, well-meaning, but fundamentally damaged as Carmy and Sydney.
FX has asked critics not to discuss anything that happens after the fourth episode, which may perhaps give some of you the impression that the fifth episode involves Carmy and Sydney being zapped back to prehistoric times with only their kitchen knives to fend off dinosaurs. I can neither confirm nor deny this, but what I can say is that the later part of the season features moments that made me laugh, ones that made me want to turn off the TV and never call anyone “Chef” ever again, ones that thrilled me, and even a few that just plain made me weep. As before, every emotion the show conjures is a palpable, potent one, so that the lighter scenes create the illusion that you’re standing right next to the characters, while the heavier ones make you experience the pain right along with them.
It remains a magnificent achievement. The ever-so-slight shift in tone most of the time doesn’t change that — especially since The Bear can still make scenes and episodes so nerve-racking, you will question every life choice that led you to watching it. At an Al-Anon meeting, Carmy tells the group, “I have to remind myself to breathe sometimes.” His audience will have to do the same at different points in Season Two. Just not as often as a year ago.
The entire second season of The Bear begins streaming June 22 on Hulu. I’ve seen all 10 episodes.
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