There is fast food TV and there is The Bear, Disney’s dreamy, dissociative meditation on life, loss and the trials of running an expensive restaurant. When the show debuted two years ago, it seemed too refined to breakthrough in a mainstream way. High-end dining isn’t for everyone, and nor, it felt, was a woozy character study about a former kitchen hotshot (Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy) who returns to the family diner in Chicago after the death of his brother.
The Bear’s first two seasons were all about the textures rather than the substance. That remains so as series three (Disney+, from Thursday) opens with a 35-minute montage of Carmy’s life as a chef, soundtracked with a droning piano suite by Nine Inch Nails’ duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Hopping the timelines from Carmy’s years in an abusive New York kitchen, to his experiences working under Olivia Colman’s super-chef Andrea Terry, to his memories of living in Chicago, this is fuzzy, free-jazz television that leaps about and gives the viewers little to hold on to. It’s not for everyone. If anything, it feels calculated to weed out the newbies drawn to The Bear by reputation alone.
Things settle down by episode two, as Carmy tries to make sense of the disastrous opening night of his new restaurant, The Bear (a wink to the family surname, Berzatto). He had accidentally broken up with his girlfriend Claire (Molly Gordon) after becoming trapped in a freezer and having a meltdown.
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But foremost on Carmy’s mind is his new mission to achieve a Michelin star. To do so, he vows to change the menu every day. That comes as a shock to his sister Natalie (Abby Elliott), who has joined as manager, his backer Cicero (Oliver Platt) and his sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), who is insulted at not being consulted on this creative gearshift.
Going into the new season, it was confirmed that, while Carmy and Syd are close, their relationship would remain platonic. It’s nice to know The Bear hasn’t taken the bait and tried to impose an icky romance on to the dynamic between White and Edebiri, whose friendship chemistry is sweet and moreish.
But if The Bear gets its characters right, there are things it gets wrong. There isn’t much plot – just random happenings that appear to pop up to interrupt Carmy’s reverie. And while it seems churlish to complain that a show about high-end dining is obsessed with high-end dining, the storytelling serves up pretty bare morsels for those who might regard food as a utility rather than an art form.
Then, that unwillingness to compromise is what makes the series so special. The Bear is esoteric and surfs largely on vibes. If that’s your jam, you’ll want to devour these new episodes in a single sitting.
