'The Bear' season 3

Season 2 thread.

Jeremy Allen White can squeeze his cheese filling in my cannolli.

I’m still not over the trauma of the Christmas episode. Great series, though.

I don't think JAW will age well.

That's back sooner than I thought it would be! Such a good show. It's fun when something actually lives up to the hype. Though, I hope they don't overdo the celebrity stunt casting like they did with his extended family.

Why is this show considered good? How can anyone make it past all the arguing?

All the arguing. Most dramatic restaurant show I've ever seen. No way everyone who's ever owned a restaurant actually like this. This would drive people to drink and suicide.

Did SNL parody it yet? Everything is... SUCH.... A.... DISASTER!!

This show stinks.

I know! I don't understand the acclaim.

I love this show. Yes, that Christmas episode was traumatic, but I am here for season 3. It's the characters. I love them all. Great ensemble. I want to see which big shot actors will claw their way to a cameo.

I mean in general there's always some kitchen drama in an unbelievable sense.

Hated, hated the Christmas episode. 50% whispering, 50% screaming. That said, I thought I would hate the stunt casting and celebrity cameos, but they were all good EXCEPT the one I thought I didn’t have a problem with, Jon Bernthal. He’s a great actor but not in this.

I’m rewatching s1 and s2 in preparation for the new season. I find Carmy so hot but Jeremy Allen White on the red carpet etc, not so much.

Love this show. Good acting and writing. Richie is my favorite. I will binge this, then rewatch, as I did with the first two seasons.

I really disliked Ritchie in S1, but what a character arc in S2! I adore him now. I hope they don't screw him up in S3.

I do know a lot of people who couldn't make it past the first couple of episodes because of the constant fighting. I have zero idea how this show gets nominated anywhere as a comedy.

What is attractive about it, however, and this becomes most apparent in the episode "Forks" where Richie interns at the classy restaurant, is that it is about how people's lives can turn around when they find something to do that has genuine meaning for them. The others learn earlier than Richie, but by the time the restaurant opens in Season 2 everybody is caught up in the enthusiasm and will do anything to make the thing a success, even without Carmy.

Based on the trailers, there is a lot of arguing and yelling and sweat. I assume there is cocaine being abused in the kitchen, which is fairly common in the restaurant industry. I'll try watching, but it does look annoying. We get it, restaurants are stressful.

[quote] I assume there is cocaine being abused in the kitchen

Obliquely but not really. Two characters were dealing, and a tweaker sous chef was fired for disappearing midservice.

If a restaurant is really like that I can see why one would be done.

I’m looking forward to more Tina. I know her presence is relatively minor compared to some of the other characters, but she’s one of my favourite characters in any television programme.

JAmie Leigh Curtis is dying to return for an episode or two...or three. She will claw her way back and I would not put it past her to threaten the lives of the producers and directors. She is desperate to graduate from cameo and featured guest, to regular.The only way I want to see her is in a one episode arc where she has a stroke and they have to turn off the machines.

^^Christopher Guest

I’m so excited

Richie's character arc in season 2 was pretty damn amazing.

Oliver Platt is doing some of the best work of his career as Uncle Jimmy.

Tina's character arc has been pretty great too. HATED her character in the beginning of season one, liked her by the end of that season, and LOVED her through season 2.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tended to avoid shows with constant drama and arguments. I don’t mind tension as it exists in series such as White Lotus or Big Little Lies, but when it’s as overt as it is in The Bear, it adds more anxiety than I need in my current state of mind. Then again, so does House Hunters. By the way, how was this show ever classified as a comedy?

It's definitely a drama. The swearing and anger is so constant is carries little weight. It's not shocking anymore because they go ballistic over the littlest thing, like not enough tuna fish or whatever. I guess copying from Gordon Ramsey anger but everyone in this show is unpleasant when they are unhinged.

I think astronauts and brain surgeons under pressure show more restraint.

"All the arguing. Most dramatic restaurant show I've ever seen. No way everyone who's ever owned a restaurant actually like this. This would drive people to drink and suicide."

Restaurant kitchens are notoriously toxic, dysfunctional places, often at the most high end places. I thought this was common knowledge.

R26 Yes, it's common knowledge.. I was eating out last Sunday and our meal was interrupted by swearing from the kitchen. Later we read the chef committed suicide in the parking lot, allegedly depressed over a delayed arrival of chicken. This happens all the time.

More Claire, and she’s still terribly written. In a show in which every character, small and large, is so real, poor Molly Gordon is saddled with this shit.

[quote]the chef committed suicide in the parking lot, allegedly depressed over a delayed arrival of chicken. This happens all the time.

Sure, blame the chicken.

[quote]By the way, how was this show ever classified as a comedy?

This is the question for the ages. It's not a comedy. Not by any stretch of the imagination or definition. WTF is this bullshittery?

That hour-long Christmas episode ("Seven Fishes") from last season was the most stressful thing I think I've ever watched. My god. It was brilliantly done, but I never ever want to see that episode again.

It took me six months to finish the first season.

I just finished episode 3 of the second. Not sure I'll go back.

I swear it's almost a parody of one of those most dramatically nothing videos. People freaking out over nothing. I can't get over it's lack of self control.

[quote] By the way, how was this show ever classified as a comedy?

To not compete against SUCCESSION. Which was past its s2 peak by the time THE BEAR started.

R31, post-that-christmas-episode, the show is really good.

Honestly, besides some of the utterly brilliant acting in that episode, it's pretty skippable. It's a flashback. It does have some repercussions that later episodes touch on (the finale episode especially), but I don't think it's necessary, and if it stresses you out too much, you can certainly just ignore this episode and move on. Honestly, I loved the episode immediately following that one.

R33, that seems like cheating.

You can't just SAY something is a comedy, when it's absolutely not a comedy. That shouldn't be allowed.

[Quote] By the way, how was this show ever classified as a comedy?

Wasn’t it something to do with the fact that most of the episodes are 30 minutes or less, and that award bodies only recognise something as dramas if it’s an hour-long? So it isn’t that the The Bear is considered a comedy because it’s funny, but rather it’s considered a comedy because the episodes are too short to be dramas.

But it’s still a silly reason.

It really is stupid.

R35 the awards bodies allow the shows and actors to submit themselves into whichever categories they wish. So they allow it.

Actually, they need to normalise the half hour drama. Apart from soap operas.

[quote]Oliver Platt is doing some of the best work of his career as Uncle Jimmy.

I like that character too; he started out as kind of a stock villain - you owe me $$ - but he's often the voice of sanity & common sense. In season 1 when he warns Carmie away from the restaurant, the initial impression is that he wants to take it from him, but later it seems more like that he cares about Carmie and doesn't want to see him self-destruct. At time he seems like he's the only adult in the room.