The primary season of “The Bear” opens with an invite to chaos, earlier than tossing you into the anarchic social gathering itself. Carm (Jeremy Allen White) is asleep, dreaming that he’s on a bridge within the Chicago loop, the place he opens a bear cage to launch, what else, a dwell, snarling, considerably perturbed brown bear. When he wakes up, it’s time to cook dinner. The restaurant he inherited from his late brother Michael (Jon Bernthal) beckons, and Carm has to serve up the signature beef whereas placing out figurative and literal fires left and proper. It’s chaos compounded with chaos, or to make use of a cooking metaphor: He’s out of the frying pan and into the hearth.
“The Bear” Season 2 opens in silence. Properly, close to silence. Reasonably than the click of a fuel range flickering to life, there’s the methodical beep of a coronary heart monitor. Marcus (Lionel Boyce) is trying over his mom, as she lays peacefully asleep in her mattress. He gently applies lotion to her palms and drapes a washcloth on her brow, earlier than heading exterior to scrape ice off his windshield and head into work. Marcus just isn’t in a rush. He’s not pressured. He’s chilly, in all probability drained, however he doesn’t present it, and when the pastry chef arrives at The Beef, he’s all smiles.
“The Bear” doesn’t keep this tempo. How might it? Christopher Storer’s FX manufacturing grew to become a sleeper summer season hit for Hulu final 12 months by capturing the extraordinary essence of a working kitchen. Everybody referred to as everybody “Chef.” Everybody shouted at everybody — whether or not it was “chef” or “nook” or “behind” or one other well timed, extra exact request — they usually needed to shout simply to be heard over the clatter of pots and pans, shuffling ft and different voices. With tight half-hour episodes, endearing quips from blue-collar characters, and near-constant ahead momentum, “The Bear” carved an area for itself in a crowded TV market, very similar to The Beef did in Chicago’s aggressive sandwich scene.
However now The Beef is gone. As a substitute, Carm and Sydney (a superb Ayo Edebiri) hope to open The Bear — a fine-dining, Michelin-level restaurant worthy of their skills. Season 2 depicts this transformation, changing the each day grind of working an eatery with the each day grind of opening one, whereas embracing an evolution all its personal. Gone are the blunt surrealistic additions (like dreaming up a bear or appearing out a sitcom nightmare). Solely what’s actual stays, and what stays is stronger and richer by itself. The depth returns earlier than the premiere episode wraps, as “each second counts” turns into the brand new store’s mantra. However the change of routine, in addition to a number of twists of destiny, pressure Carm and his crew to contemplate why they’re placing their coronary heart and soul right into a harmful, oft-destructive endeavor. What introduced them right here? What makes them devoted to this explicit pursuit? What drives them to be of service?
This has been “The Bear’s” central query since the beginning — why do it? — however Season 2 does precisely what second seasons are alleged to do: It fine-tunes the storytelling, amplifies what’s working, and digs deeper: each into who these persons are and what lures them to this life. If Season 1 checked out how kitchens might turn out to be vomit-inducing worry factories because of egomaniacal cooks with abusive work habits, then Season 2 asks what would draw somebody to such a starting point with. (Trace: It’s not simply the meals!) The ten-episode new season pushes past discovering a functioning compromise between household ties and particular person passions, into what happiness even means while you’re an inventive careerist trapped in a capitalistic society.
Many of those themes existed already, however how “The Bear” tackles them in Season 2 is as riveting as earlier than with added dashes of confidence, consequence, and consideration. Silence is golden, even when it solely lasts a minute.
That being mentioned: “The Bear” nonetheless rips. Consistent with its modus operandi, Season 2 picks up shortly after Carmy finds $300,000 stuffed inside dozens of tomato cans, a shock present from Michael, who had borrowed the cash from their Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt). Price estimates are excessive and getting greater. There’s new tools to purchase, new menus to create, and new workers to rent — to not point out transforming work and an infinite listing of requisite permits. The clock, as at all times, is ticking.
It will be comparatively straightforward for the sequence to slide again into acquainted patterns, and the preliminary episodes ensure that to produce the favorites. Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) makes a number of off-color jokes. Gary (Corey Hendrix) and Fak (Matty Matheson) entertain with ineptitude, through a good-humored teardown montage. Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) and Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) bond as outdated teammates on completely different tracks. Natalie (Abby Elliott), Carm’s sister who’s serving to out with paperwork and planning, outlines the numerous hurdles they’ll have to beat to get this new enterprise up and working, which spurs heated debates over one of the simplest ways to proceed, whether or not they can get all of it accomplished, and who must be doing what.
“The Bear” by no means feels gradual, however it does decelerate. Carm will get a glimpse of what life might be like exterior the restaurant (and outdoors his household) with the reappearance of an outdated flame. Sydney, in a strikingly stunning tour of Chicago, seeks inspiration for brand spanking new dishes among the many Windy Metropolis’s most interesting kitchens (together with a well-deserved shout-out to the world’s biggest breakfast sandwich at Kasama). Richie confronts his personal function.
No, actually, let me say that once more: Richie, the oft-overwhelming chatterbox from Season 1, goes on a journey of self-reflection in Season 2, and getting that man to convincingly look inward could also be one of many new season’s biggest accomplishments. Beforehand, his oft-overwhelming ass-holery might take a look at our endurance with a personality who didn’t at all times earn the empathy Moss-Bachrach was so expert at evoking. However within the new season, Richie is a spotlight — and with out betraying who he was earlier than.
Season 2 evolves with comparable dexterity. Alongside Sydney’s self-selected Style of Chicago, she not solely eats a stomach-stretching variety of delectable dishes; she additionally retains working into closed retailers, farewell messages, and dusty assist needed indicators. “The Bear” acknowledges the difficulties dealing with eating places proper now, even in a season that’s extra character-based than issue-driven (and even when The Bear’s workers skates by a number of of these issues in later episodes). Carm’s sudden crush additionally pulls double responsibility. He’s by no means been distracted from his job earlier than, and balancing his commitments creates unavoidable points (at work and at dwelling) which can be not often explored with so few clichés and a lot nuance.
FX has (rightly) requested opinions revealed previous to the premiere abstain from sure particulars within the season’s second half, so all I’ll say (for now) is that they put their price range to good use. Properly earlier than “Ted Lasso” made it a well-liked joke, too many half-hour exhibits (of any style) stretched their runtimes to slot in each thought they may, normally to the present’s detriment. “The Bear” indulges right here and there, together with an hourlong entry, however it is aware of precisely why it’s doing so, and the ensuing episodes by no means really feel their size. Carried by magnetic turns from White, Edebiri, and Moss-Bachrach (together with an astutely assembled ensemble by Jeanie Bacharach) and a resolute sense of function, “The Bear” flies by as soon as once more. Solely this time, you’ll be even higher satiated.
Grade: A-
“The Bear” Season 2 premieres all 10 episodes Thursday, June 22 on Hulu.
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