‘The Bear’: A decadent second course
Since the blistering heat of last summer, enthusiasm for “The Bear” on Hulu has only grown. Whether it’s been measured by the rise in sales of Italian beef sandwiches or in the increasing awards show hype for the talented cast and snappy editing, “The Bear” has quickly become the “Succession” of Italian American comedy-drama television.
With the much-anticipated release of season two on June 22, it seemed unlikely that it would be able to provide more of that second-hand stress that obsessive fine-dining chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) and his passionate sous, Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) supplied in spades last season.
Subverting every expectation, season two chooses to break down the walls of The Original Beef of Chicagoland — the scrappy restaurant Carmy’s addict brother, Michael (Jon Bernthal), left behind after committing suicide. This expansion beyond the kitchen and into its chefs’ personal lives completely changes the pace and motivations of the previous season.
Though, in season one, the kitchen staff, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), were hell-bent on resisting Carmy’s attempts to modernize the eatery, season two has a much more united and optimistic group striving to set up a completely new restaurant.
To keep the series fresh, the creators had to focus on the internal battles between cooks, sometimes dedicating episodes to minor characters’ arcs and dramatically shifting the focus away from Carmy. Episode four, “Honeydew,” details gentle pastry chef Marcus’ (Lionel Boyce) arc while episode seven, “Forks,” completely stuns in a captivating storyline of Richie finding some semblance of purpose in a life lived without his best friend, Michael.
“The Bear,” like a lot of food-centric media, has always placed an emphasis on what it means to cook for other people and the love born out of it.
In season one, this was a lot more subtle, as the stress of getting the restaurant back on its feet was in the foreground. Season two, on the other hand, is completely focused on it, choosing to blur the lines between food and love, family and the kitchen. An incredibly vulnerable scene late in the season is when Sydney cooks a simple omelette for Natalie Berzatto (Abby Elliott), Carmy’s overworked sister. It’s a raw insight into Sydney and what it means to her to provide and how desperately she wants her food to be loved outside of all the tension and politics of working in a restaurant. Edebiri plays Sydney with her heart entirely on her sleeve, and this simple nurturing joy from her is one of the most memorable moments of the show.
The second season of “The Bear” also examines the flipside — food as a reminder of distress and damage. In “Fishes,” a flashback episode halfway through the season, a cameo-studded dysfunctional Berzatto family prepare a Christmas dinner with Carmy’s mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) at the helm of all the tension. It plays for a tight 66 minutes, the longest of the series, and explains much of the family’s twisted relationship with food without having to say it aloud.
The show has also understood the power of an exceptional cameo, with A-Listers Curtis, Bob Odenkirk and, later, a staggering Olivia Colman playing throwaway characters with extraordinary depth. Matty Matheson, playing Neil Fak, has also been upped to a regular and is almost exclusively the reason that this season is a lot more comedic than the last.
Another new character is Claire, depicted by Molly Gordon, an actor who is as charming as the script lets her be but is definitely the weakest point of the season. In Carmy’s renewed romantic interest in high-school classmate Claire, the writers bring a certain one-dimensionality to his storyline that is more sentimental than expected.
Altogether, it’s clear with season two that creator Christopher Storer is uninterested in making “The Bear” fall into a predictable rhythm. With this change in tone and content, the show continues to wow with its fast-paced editing, performances and outstanding soundtrack. For fans of the first season who were unsure about whether the second one lives up, rest assured that all you have to do is come hungry and open to a richer, more complex meal.