The first portion of this review will contain some general thoughts about season three of The Bear. The second portion will have spoiler-filled, specific thoughts on what worked and what didn’t about this season. But fear not! There will be a clear delineation between the two sections, just in case you haven’t finished your binge yet.
Despite the plethora of awards The Bear has picked up in the past year, this show is not the best comedy on television. That’s because The Bear is unequivocally not a comedy.* It never has been, although its first season certainly had more comedic elements than its past two – and season three really lacks humor at all. It is, however, an interesting dramatic series, particularly with its third season which leans into the things that worked well in its second season – offering two episodes tightly focused on a single supporting (aka non-Carmy or Sydney) character – while also getting a bit too in the weeds when it comes to artistic license with several of the episodes. After two strong outings, the third season of The Bear fails to live up to its earlier greatness overall, but it’s still worth a watch for fans of the series.
*FX, the network behind The Bear, has managed to pull off a heck of a category coup for this year’s Emmy Awards. In addition to The Bear competing in the Comedy category (for its second season, as all episodes of a series must air by May 31st of the current year to be eligible for that year’s Emmys – and season two of the series dropped last summer, after that date, while season three will be eligible for next year’s Emmy ceremony), Shogun – presumed to be a limited series – will be competing in the Drama categories, allowing Fargo to have a much better chance at scoring their long hoped for first Emmy in the Best Limited Series category. A masterful case of category fraud.
I suspect this season of The Bear will be polarizing for fans and critics alike. On the one hand, there are several truly wonderful moments throughout the season where this talented – and incredibly deep – cast shine. And there are two episodes – “Napkins,” a spotlight episode for Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), and “Ice Chips,” a spotlight for Sugar/Natalie (Abby Elliot, the season’s MVP in my book) – that capture the magic that has made The Bear one of television’s best series. But the season lacks a true narrative arc – everyone is shockingly stagnant from the opening episode (which is a dreamy musical montage – a cool idea on paper, but something that doesn’t work when stretched into 30 minutes) to the finale. No one works on themselves (talking about you, Carmy), no one grows or changes in any discernible way. It’s a season of characters treading water, waiting for something to spur them to action. And even when a character is presented with a choice or a decision that would compel them to act, well, they don’t. And we’re asked to wait until next season to see what choice they might make – assuming they make one at all.
And that’s incredibly frustrating to watch. For every gorgeous dish or fun returning guest star, we’re deprived from seeing our characters do anything over the course of the ten-episode season. Want to see Carmy and Richie butt heads? Great, here’s ten episodes of that. Want to see the Fak brothers offer up some fast-paced, occasionally funny dialogue to provide us a stopgap in the intensity of the episode? Again, another ten episodes of that coming your way. Want to see Syd waffle with every choice in her life, including whether or not she should take steps to force Carmy to get out of his head and realize he has a business he needs to make viable? Ten episodes of that coming your way! Perhaps it’s a commentary on how folks fall into ruts or destructive patterns and can’t find their way out. But whatever it is, it’s not compelling television, even if the dialogue is consistently solid and the performances – tortured as they are – still represent some of the best dramatic acting on TV today. But if you were looking for this season of The Bear to build on the momentum of its past installments, sadly, season three throws the show into neutral and lets it idle for the entire run.
Entering the Spoiler Zone . . .
Now let’s get into some spoiler-ly thoughts. Anyone else spend the bulk of the season yelling at both Sydney and Claire to run as far away from Carmy as humanly possible? Because, boy, when a series opts to have a season that encompasses almost zero forward momentum for the story and its characters, it’s awfully hard to want to see these two women potentially dragged down because they hitched their wagon to someone as toxic and broken as Carmy has become. Now, I’m not saying that the characterization of Carmy is a bad thing, necessarily. Yes, he needs heaps of actual therapy to get through the massive PTSD and additional life-long traumas he’s dealing with – something that I assume the series will address in the future (at least it’s looks like it heading towards having Carmy truly hit his rock bottom and need to start working his way back above water again) – but I still can’t decide if the series is presenting his continued need to push through the noise and try to launch The Bear as foolhardy or something to admire about him.
And a lot of that confusion comes from how the series presented Carmy this go-round. Last year, he was a tortured genius who wasn’t able to learn how to let people close to him and it meant he lost Claire. This season, it’s the same story – he’s a tortured genius who can’t let people close to him (for all the comments about how he needs to apologize to Claire, he really needed to apologize to Richie a hell of a lot more), and it’s put him on a path to potentially lose not only Syd but also Richie. I had hoped that at some point this season we’d get to see him start to put the pieces together, but instead, it was more of him pushing everyone around him to meet some unattainable standard (and, to be fair, he also pushes himself twice as hard as everyone else – which isn’t a good thing, but it does mean he practices what he preaches), and we saw nothing of the fallout from that management style. We don’t get to see the Chicago Tribune review (although, considering both Cicero and The Computer are calling, that doesn’t seem like a good thing) and we don’t get to see Syd’s choice (personally, I think the series becomes richer if she leaves – so much was made this season of how a restaurant’s alumni take pieces of that restaurant out with them into the world, and it would be interesting to watch that process play out on the series). So, we get to see Carmy continue to be a mess with no consequences this season. It just felt like a waste to rehash the same story a second time.
As for Syd and Richie, the other two prongs of The Bear’s core trident, we got to see how their growth from season two translated into more confidence within the restaurant and more respect from those around them. However, their arcs also felt stagnant in the end. Yes, Syd has a massive choice to make*, but other than that, she was mostly treading water in her story this year. She moved out of her dad’s place and then more or less ignored him for the rest of the season (which was an odd choice that didn’t really make sense – or at least wasn’t revealed to us in such a ways as to make it make sense). But she didn’t seem to have a direction or a purpose. We saw her feel stifled by Carmy – who was so far up his own ass that he couldn’t notice he was essentially doing the same thing his nemesis of a terrible boss did to him (albeit with far fewer awful comments). But, again, that’s it. She’s got the respect of her kitchen, Carmy thinks she’s happy, but she’s really not. And we need to see her make a move of some sort next season. And Richie, well, he made peace with his ex, which was lovely to see. And he has front of house down pat. But, like Syd, what’s the endgame here? Staying at The Bear means he needs to make peace with Carmy (who must be the one to see his mistakes, not Richie), but he also feels like he’s stalled out at as well. It was such a strange season, with all three characters essentially in neutral until we resolve each of their key issues in season four.
*Is there a reason Adam Shapiro singled out Syd for the role at his proposed new restaurant? Like, he’s eaten once at The Bear and spent a bit of time with her in season two, and that’s enough to make him want to hire her on as his CDC? Before she worked at The Bear she had zero experience, and now he wants to poach her to head his new fine dining restaurant (which he presumably wants to get a star ASAP)? I can suspend a lot of disbelief at TV shows, but this plot point struck me as odd.
There were two really wonderful episodes this season: “Napkins” and “Ice Chips,” both of which took the single-character POV route and provided us with some wonderful insight into Tina and Sugar. One of the strengths of The Bear throughout its run has been the depth of its cast. It’s no wonder that actors of the caliber of Olivia Colman and Sarah Paulson are happy to pop in for brief appearances. But shining the light on Abby Elliot’s Sugar and Liza Colón-Zayas’s Tina was a smart move this time around. We’ve seen Colón-Zayas shine before – Tina’s foray into culinary school last season gave her a chance to thrive outside of the confines of the restaurant – but getting a look at her determination and drive was a welcome interlude. And to see how absolutely lovely her husband (played by Colón-Zayas’s actual husband, David Zayas from Dexter among other roles) is? That was the icing on the cake. But it was Elliot who was, for me, the season three MVP. Sugar becoming the backbone of The Bear was not something I saw coming, but I’m here for it. From her continual focus on how to cut costs and raise revenue (the answer is to get Carmy to rein himself in, Sugar, but good luck with that when no one else seems to be able to get through to him) to continuing to work until she’s literally in labor, no one worked harder for that restaurant with little to no reciprocal encouragement than Natalie.
But in “Ice Chips,” getting to watch Sugar confront Donna and try to make her see just how much damage she did to all her children (but especially Sugar, who was willing to make any and all concessions in the name of compromise)? Oof. That was a hard one. Did she really make any headway with Donna? We don’t know, but for a brief moment, Sugar was able to cut through Dee Dee’s bullshit and connect with her on a level I don’t think even she thought was possible. Watching those two listen to that song as Dee Dee reminisced about Sugar’s own birth story? That was such a beautiful moment and encompassed what The Bear is really about: people managing to connect on a deep emotional level through a seemingly simple action. Here, it was listening to a song. Usually, it’s sharing a meal or cooking together. Simple actions that connect us.
Ultimately, season three of The Bear didn’t really work for me. It lacked a cohesive narrative arc, most of its characters spent the entire season stuck in one place, rehashing their issues and unable to move in any direction, and we saw almost no forward momentum in the story. But perhaps its greatest sin was not providing more moments like those in “Napkins” and “Ice Chips,” where our characters have a moment of connection with each other – Mikey and Tina talking about work and getting older and Dee Dee and Sugar talking about Sugar’s birth. Those moments provided more insight into those four characters than anything else this season. I missed those moments of connection this time around more than I missed having a real storyline to follow. Hopefully, season four moves things back into character focused storytelling and away from these more artistic meanderings through time, memory, and anticipation. Trying out a new idea is all well and good, but basing an entire season on something so avant garde? Not the best choice, chef.
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Writing
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Acting
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Direction
