10 reasons why 'The Bear' was the best thing I watched in 2022
Better than any movie I watched. Hands down. Here's why.
"I love you, dude. Let it rip."
What if you realized you didn't know your best friend as well as you had thought? He wasn't someone else entirely, but had kept a few things hidden. What if that best friend also happened to be your big brother? Things that were big enough-painkiller addiction and depression among other ailments-can still somehow remain invisible inside a tight knit family. It's addiction (of all kinds) and the clash of responsibility (to yourself and others around you) that helped Hulu's "The Bear" become the best thing I watched this year.
Christopher Storer's love letter to flawed humans, mom and pop sandwich shops, and the chaos that binds them won me over on first watch. Since the eight-episode series debuted on Hulu/FXX back on June 23, I have taken in the whole show at least four times. Authentic in all the best ways, carrying dynamic acting and storytelling, "The Bear" uses a mix of comedy and drama to level you emotionally. And it comes out of nowhere--the authenticity springing from its wise portrayal of mental illness and addiction to the vulgar love that is spread around a working kitchen.
For Carmen Berzatto, the younger brother in that first paragraph equation, the kitchen is a drug so monstrous, it constantly attempts to swallow him whole. Played with a simmering yet earnest intensity by Jeremy Allen White, "Carmy" is the chef of his late brother's Original Beef sandwich shop, one of those sacred neighborhood eateries that brings back all the feels. But Carmen came from the best restaurant in the world, a high class culinary art that he mastered, due to the loss of a sibling he may not have understood.
That's the juice that gets "The Bear" roaring, no pun intended. The relationship between Carmen and his brother shapes the series; it is the two of them that we open the pilot episode with and how we wrap up the final shot of the first season. Consider this no spoiler; the show has been out for six months and Michael's (Jon Bernthal) death happens before the show begins.
Consider these ten reasons why it was the best thing I watched this year, and I'm a film critic! Granted, I watch a lot more television than I used to, but movie reviews are the objective when it comes to writing. But there wasn't a single movie (I watched over 100 new films) that hit me as hard as this show. I can't label a film that was so precise, one that walked a tightrope between laughs and cries so seamlessly.
In around four hours of time, including a frantically terrific "oner" 20-minute episode seven, "The Bear" told a complete story that overwhelms in the best ways. YES CHEF! More please.
10) It gets better with each watch
Simple as it sounds. I have grown to love this series more each time I take a walk through the fictional Chicago restaurant. A place that becomes more ingrained and lived-in every time you watch it in an episode. You'll be amazed at what you pick up, dialogue or a quick camera cut that eluded you before. You will watch a lot of great TV shows in your lifetime, but few will become even greater every time you watch them. I can count on a single hand the number of shows I have re-watched three times within six months. Like a good au jus, the flavor gets better every time you take the tour.
Sorry, I just finished the season and always walk away so hungry.
9) The discovery of Matty Matheson
Playing the jack of all trades for the Beef, Matheson provides comic relief while also displaying a hidden vulnerability of his own. Matheson's Neil Fak is the guy who fixes the mixing machine for the bread, the arcade game in the dining hall, and whatever else is needed. If you want extra Fak, look up him on Facebook and enjoy his mini-cooking shows. You will soon call him the comfort food king.
8) Hello, Ayo Edebiri
The actress had a breakout role on Storer's show, playing the talented yet overly ambitious sous chef, Sydney. Her modern upstart methods of business management and menu expansion clash with Carmen's hybrid style of culinary thought, and she spars well with White's brilliant yet tormented lead chef. Edebiri turns what could have been a well-played yet routine role into something special over the course of the season. Sydney, a journeyman self-employed cook, is the kick in the butt that Carmen needs yet doesn't understand that he needs it at first.
7) Lionel can bake all night long
Lionel Boyce embodies Marcus, the multi-tasking baker of The Beef, to a tee. Marcus doesn't just make fresh baguettes and cakes for customers; he's busy mastering the perfect donut. Boyce gives him that wicked blend of ambitious talent and fragility that pulls you closer to his character. Every character felt real instead of fake on "The Bear.”
6) An ode to local businesses
From the jump, The Berzatto joint is in the red, money wise. Instead of shading or glossing over the trials and tribulations of running a family business, Storer's show ran head on at it, like a chef using a special seasoning to enhance a moral. Among the stellar reviews after its initial release (it holds a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes) were top notch comments from kitchen workers. All I heard was how accurate "The Bear" nailed the temperament and chaotic personality of a kitchen functioning as a business. That gathers steam, like many things, with each watch.
5) A KILLER soundtrack
Attach some great tunes to a story, and a short order (episodes average around 30 minutes in length) shows hits another level. From Radiohead's "Let Go" to David Byrne's "One Fine Day," along with Pearl Jam and John Mayer for good measure, the tunes of "The Bear" matched the evolving vibe of the show. As in, like any made up idea, we are getting to know characters the creator is already family with, but well-chosen music helps paint that picture so much quicker. We find things about them and how they're dealing by the song that is playing.
4) TINA! A little Platt and Bernthal go a long way
I haven't watched, or noticed, Liza Colon-Zayas in any show or movie before. That's because I wasn't a frequent viewer of "Law & Order: SVU" or HBO's "In Treatment." That only makes her ferocious yet vulnerable as a potato roux line cook more unique and personable. Missing out on an actor or actress's recent roles only allows the role you're savoring to hit harder. From giving Sydney a tough time to calling White's chef "Jeff" for some reason, Tina is one of a kind.
Oliver Platt can step into any show or movie, and enliven the proceedings. His ability to carve intelligent characters in small serving roles is a gift. The same can be said for the very busy Bernthal. It's the death of his family patriarch in Michael that ignites the series and acts as its underlying drama throughout. Bernthal's "Mikey" hangs over the series like a ghost with a loud voice.
Platt's Uncle Jimmy is the opposite of earnest. He wants the 300K loaned to Michael, for reasons unknown to Carmen or his sister, Sugar (the great Abby Elliott). But Platt gives him a couple layers of humanity that keeps the subplot from becoming cliched.
3) The show's pace resembled a well-trained kitchen
The respect for the culinary arts-I found a new way to pronounce "stage-is shown and filtered throughout the first season. The ruthless profanity, edgy attitude, razor-sharp personalities, and tense vibe was never dropped or altered. In fact, it grew more powerful as the story carried on, exploding in that lightning quick seventh episode, where the restaurant experiences a meltdown. But from the very first scene to the last soulful shot, the pace was fast. Exacting and alive, as Carmen would put it.
2) Ebon-powered Richie madness
Speaking of Mr. Bernthal, aka "The Punisher," it was that second and final season of the Disney Marvel series that I first spotted Ebon Moss-Bachrach. He plays characters like a human being slowly being overtaken by an itch. That continues with his portrayal of Richie, Carmen's cousin who also works at the restaurant. The two men deal with his death in different ways that could be seen as moderately combative. Richie rages against Carmen's top chef kitchen makeover techniques and talks a big game, but is quietly hurting from the loss of his best friend. Moss-Bachrach is a master at showing pain through aggressive denial.
1) Jeremy. Allen. White.
To say he is a revelation wouldn't explain half of it; the show lives and dies on White's ability to convey what Carmen is feeling. The actor's face is a regular Niagara Falls of sadness, something that was showcased well on "Shameless," a show that feels like a cousin to "The Bear." But that was a stage that White shared with many other talented actors, and his character was a second or third name on the cast sheet. Storer's show belongs to him, and runs far due to his versatility.
Brandishing a physical combination of James Dean and a young Sean Penn (especially the hair), White doesn't need a lot of dialogue in order to say a thousand words. He imbues Carmen with a sensibility that characters usually shed in the third or fourth episode. As an audience, we are in the same dark room as Carmen when it comes to what happened to Michael. More importantly, why did that happen to the "magnetic" brother that everyone thought was their best friend?
In an extended monologue in the eighth and final episode of Season One, Carmen spills his guts to a support group for addicts and people who are struggling. It's not until that scene that we find out in more detail what went down between Carmen and Michael. How they were close growing up as young cooks always in the kitchen, and how they had a plan to open their own restaurant. Carmen described the downfall that their relationship took, with Michael shunning him from the restaurant and down that rabbit hole of elite chef torture.
White repeatedly dials his tone up and down throughout the monologue, explaining that it was Michael's dismissal that made him become the best chef in the land. The farther apart they became, the harder he went into cooking. All the while, he wanted what we all want in life--for the person we love the most to look at us and say, "good job!" Or, "let it rip." White was terrifically emotional, letting us inside a brilliant yet tortured soul.
At the end of the day, "The Bear" is about how we build ourselves up, and break ourselves down better than anyone else. How neglect and regret work hand in hand against us at times, but a different kind of brotherhood-like a kitchen-can be the saving grace. How the act of cooking for others is a form of therapy for chefs and cooks. In a perfect world, we wouldn't drag our personal lives into work, but "The Bear" is all about authenticity.
For Carmen, the kitchen is a drug with good and bad side effects-but the sweet is still taller than the bitter for him. Why would the best chef in the world leave New York City's high life, and come back to manage a restaurant his brother (the one who didn't let him work there) left him? The show doesn't pretend to give us all the answers, but digs into real life themes like mental illness and addiction like few others have.
The truth is we all are addicted to something in life. It drives us, yet divides us from others. It can be the root and the poison. But we need it, because it's our identity. Like it or not, what we're good at is a lifelong friend.