Spoiler Warning: ‘The Bear’
Christopher Storer’s masterpiece, The Bear, has released its most anticipated third season, but the ten episodes served to us fall short of their predecessors. Following the employees of newly opened restaurant ‘The Bear’, we watch as Carmy begins to butt-heads with Sydney and Richie over the direction of the restaurant. The pace is slower, but instead of continuing season 2’s tight focus, season 3 becomes somewhat disjointed and unsatisfactory. However, it still remains one of the best shows on television, and its third season is most certainly worth a watch for fans of this restaurant drama.
Season 3 boasts less coherent storytelling, reshaping the mostly completed narratives of prior seasons into a cliffhanger ending which leaves you oxymoronically both unsatisfied and content. Whilst season 2 answered most of its questions - Richie finds his purpose, Carmy messes up his relationship with Claire, and Sydney finds her footing as the restaurant's Chef de Cuisine - season 3 opens more questions than it answers. At times, it feels like we’re watching ‘Season 3: Part 1’, as opposed to a finished third course. These ten episodes are the starter and main, and we’re left waiting on dessert. Given a few more episodes - maybe 13 as opposed to 10 - we would have hopefully had a more satisfying conclusion, and a more cohesive narrative overall.
Regardless of its flaws, I still found the show consistently entertaining and beautifully shot. The cinematography of every episode excels, and it's certainly the best the show has looked so far. The characters themselves are never uninteresting, despite a slight overabundance of Fak-induced comedy, and Storer is clearly comfortable enough giving these characters room to breathe and function as their own entities, as they did in season 2. I love the slower pace, even allowing side characters like Sweeps a scene or two to flesh them out, but these moments contribute little to furthering an overarching narrative of the season. Episodes like ‘Napkins’ and ‘Ice Chips’ are emotional powerhouses, standing alone as wonderful pieces of storytelling, independent of the season’s overall plot and themes. Seeing Tina join The Beef and Nat reconcile with her Mother, gave the season some wonderful moments, but they don’t quite land as well as Richie blasting Taylor Swift or Marcus in Copenhagen. Perhaps the season’s slower pace has something to do with that; moments that do land come more from our love and understanding of the characters, and less from a completion of character arcs, unlike season 2.
The show’s main strength still lies in its poignant commentary on trauma, legacy, purpose, and fulfilment of dreams. I will always love this show for how its first two seasons made me feel, whether that be through explorations of anxiety and depression, or inspiring moments of finding purpose. Critics have said this season isn’t really about anything, but more a collection of character moments. Whilst I’m inclined to agree with the latter, I do think this season has an overarching theme - healing. This season’s best moments are in characters being allowed to heal; of their trauma, their scars, and their failures. Smaller moments like Tina being healed of uncertainty, to larger ones like Carmy facing up to his old boss, these are great moments and emblematic of the show’s strengths. However, they fail to contribute to overall character arcs, with the exception of Carmy’s.
In many ways, the season is more about Carmen Berzatto than any other, less concerned with set up or giving characters their own arcs. Carmy is as central as he was in season 1, if not more, focusing the season on his own trauma. However, this leads to the showrunners having their cake and eating it, wanting desperately to give characters their own episodes whilst making the season revolve deeply around questions about the protagonist alone. Sydney’s dilemma about working at The Bear, and signing on as a partner, is less central than Carmy’s own struggles of breaking the cycle of trauma instilled in him by previous bosses. The centrality of Carmy seems intentional - he was lost without Mikey, now he’s lost without Claire, and everyone around him suffers for it. The season offers its characters healing, but recognizes the lengths Carmy has to go, and until he makes changes the cycle of trauma not only affects him but the rest of the cast as well. Syd happens to be at the centre of this, and Marcus’ grief takes a backseat to Carmy’s. The season stagnates purposefully because Carmy has stagnated.
The problem with this, though, is the lack of satisfaction in the season’s ending - we don’t know if the restaurant will close, we don’t know whether Syd will take the job offer - and if more questions were answered, the characters would have felt like they had proper progression. All of these arcs are hinted at, with no real substance behind them by the tenth episode. I mean, what was Marcus’ wizard thing about?
I wonder whether The Bear is suffering from its own success, as Season 2 made such an impression as a cultural phenomenon. Regardless of what the showrunners did for season 3, they had set themselves up a tough act to follow. Even if we saw the fan-favourite ‘SydCarmy’ romance flourish, they would have struggled to land as many memorable scenes and iconic moments as the previous seasons. Season 2 was blessed with such a tight focus and sense of urgency that season 3 feels hollow compared to the previously stressful-but-steady pace. The star-power of the cast is also used to varying degrees of success. Nerds like myself can spot the Noma founder, Rene Redzepi, in ‘Tomorrow’, which feels fitting as Carmy had worked there. However, John Cena’s appearance as a Fak brother is more comedically shocking than well-integrated, and most likely intended to be as such. Despite Cena giving a great performance, the cameo nature of his inclusion leaves a strange taste on the palette.
Again, I welcome change, but the show too often feels like business as usual - not unlike how a restaurant ought to function, often simply going through the motions of what we expect. That isn’t to say the show has failed, and with season 4 in the works we’re sure to see a satisfying conclusion. For now, as Carmy said to Syd, season 3 is not quite there yet, chef.