(Warning: Some spoilers are ahead.)
In case anyone doubted that The Bear was TV’s most artistically daring and electric series, the third season of Chris Storer’s acclaimed FX on Hulu hit, premiering July 26, comes out of the gate with an absolute knockout.
Upending expectations with a tone-poem memory piece that contextualizes Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) turmoil via fragmentary recollections of the formative good, bad, and ugly experiences that made him who he is—and left him in such dire straits—it’s a small-scale masterpiece that eschews the show’s typical frenzy for quiet, empathetic, warts-and-all contemplation. A mosaic of seminal pain and pleasure, triumph and failure, which is united by the sight of Carmy stroking a scar on his hand and interspersed with glimpses of the aftermath of last year’s traumatic finale, it’s proof that the smash sensation is as audacious and assured as ever.
As demonstrated by its superb premiere, The Bear is about food only as it relates to its characters and to life, and that notion courses throughout its excellent return engagement. Following its opener (directed by Storer), the series leaps back into the fray for the sort of adrenalized madness that’s made it one of television’s most celebrated, finding tensions intensely high at The Bear in the wake of Carmy burning bridges with both girlfriend Claire (Molly Gordon) and right-hand man Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) while locked in a fridge during the establishment’s soft opening night.
As usual, Carmy and Richie are like rabid dogs at each other’s throats, and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) is caught in the middle trying to maintain order and sanity. The fever-pitch mania that ensues is so detached from the prior installment’s placid melancholy that, were it not so familiar, it would be whiplash-style destabilizing.
The Bear is a story of warring forces: then and now; the peaceful and the chaotic; the sublime and the repulsive; the meticulous and the messy. The fight for togetherness is at the heart of its latest run, with everyone estranged, lonely, and desperate for stability, and if the show begins by locating the roots of Carmy’s perfectionism, insecurities, ambition, and sadness, it soon mires itself in his tumultuous attempts to right his (and The Bear’s) wayward course.
Alas, though Carmy’s prior catastrophe was the byproduct of his obsessiveness (which led to calamitous carelessness), his response is to double down on fastidiousness, writing up a non-negotiables list of new standards and protocols that rankles the entire staff—none more so than his announcement that, in order to pursue a Michelin star, the restaurant will change its menu on a nightly basis.
This is part and parcel of Carmy’s hair-splitting ethos, bred in him by myriad chefs (including Joel McHale’s demeaning prick), and it’s the engine that drives The Bear’s current anxiety. Nonetheless, there are plenty of other sources of tension in its thrilling third season. Having moved into her own apartment, Sydney is pressured by Carmy and Natalie (Abby Elliott) to put her virtual John Hancock on a DocuSign agreement to become a part owner of The Bear—a seemingly great turn of events that’s complicated by Carmy’s volatile unreliability, as well as a secret offer to head up another fledgling restaurant. For Sydney, owning a piece of this place is both a dream and a nightmare, and her deliberation over this monumental decision adds an extra layer of stress to a tale that finds few reprieves from angst.
No matter their physical proximity to each other, everyone is as alone as ever in The Bear. Carmy is lost without Claire and unwilling to face or rectify it, Marcus is grieving the death of his mother, and Richie—who hangs a Zen garden picture in the office as a reminder about human remoteness—is grappling with his ex Tiffany’s (Gillian Jacobs) remarriage and its ramifications on his relationship with his daughter.
As before, the show dedicates entire episodes to individual characters, so that Tina’s (Liza Colón-Zayas) pre-The Beef hardships, Natalie’s contemporary pregnancy fears (and their connections to her unstable mother), and Jimmy’s (Oliver Platt’s) financial concerns all receive standout consideration. By isolating their plights in this way, Storer highlights their unhappy solitude. Yet he also counterbalances that separation by routinely immersing viewers in the combativeness of the kitchen and the mayhem of group arguments, crisis, and solutions, where forging bonds is a tough but vital process for survival and success.
Storer’s alternately frazzled and poised form is an expression of his content, and that goes for his loving fixation on the culinary arts. In The Bear, food and cooking are intrinsically intertwined with family and home, and thus Carmy and his compatriots’ struggle to create flawless dishes is part of their quest for kinship that might alleviate their lonesomeness. Nothing comes easy in this world, however, and the search for harmony—within themselves, with each other, and between the front and back of the restaurant—proves arduous, especially since it often demands hard reconciliations. Storer’s drama originates from his characters’ mixed-up conditions, which are the byproducts of accumulated disappointments, victories, and desires, and he laces it with routine humor, most of it coming courtesy of clownish Neil Fak (Matty Matheson) and his brother Theodore (Ricky Staffieri), whose wacko preoccupation with “haunts” provides welcome comedic relief.
The Bear once again boasts multiple cameos (some predictable, some surprising), turbulent editing, a soundtrack featuring Pearl Jam, Radiohead, and REM (among others), one overt cinema-godfather shout-out, and performances that are off-the-charts accomplished, this time led by White’s turn as the coiled-to-the-point-of-snapping Carmy. Eventually, things mount to almost unbearable levels, as multiple interconnected factors throw the future of The Bear into doubt. Storer isn’t foolish enough to concoct comforting resolutions for his many dilemmas; all his protagonists remain, to the end, on the precipice of a doom at least partially of their own making. Even so, there’s as much joy as sorrow in this third season, with hope—however fleeting and tenuous—always within grasp.
Positing pandemonium and tranquility as two sides of the same creative coin, The Bear’s serene downtime is as gripping and moving as its demented delirium. Echoing the mantra preached by Olivia Colman’s Chef Terry, whose own restaurant’s fate figures into this season’s story, it makes every second count.
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