5 demands for the chef in Season 2 of 'The Bear'
Short and sweet, this returning FXX/Hulu delight was 2022's best TV show, even better than most movies.
Great television shows are like great movies, but with an extra helping or two of content. Christopher Storer’s phenomenal 2022 debut, The Bear, touched all the boxes of rich character development and addictive environment that a new kid on the block needs to do quickly.
Less than five minutes into Storer’s intense yet eternally soulful culinary whiplashing, audiences are thrown headfirst into the chaotic life of Chicago chef Carmen Berzatto (a terrific Jeremy Allen White). Once one of the best up and coming chefs around, leading the finest restaurant in the world at one point, “Carmy” has crash-landed back at his childhood escape spot, The Original Beef.
The pilot fires up days after Michael, Carmen’s older brother and manager of The Beef, takes his own life. Sucked out of the five-star restaurant-running brigade, young Berzatto finds himself overwhelmed by his obnoxious yet loyal cousin (Ebon-Moss Bacharach), pushing back against his higher kitchen class methods. He’s tested by and befriended by Sydney (Ayo Edebiri is so good), an apprentice-type sous chef who cares more about Carmy’s fine dining history than the chef himself.
Storer’s show doesn’t stop there. The supporting cast is filtered with real deal types like the ferocious yet big love factory called Tina (Liza Colon-Reyes), Edwin Lee Gibson’s adorably disconnected Ebraheim, and Corey Hendrix’s Sweeps. The quiet MVP and heart of the show could arguably be the bread man in the house, baker and donut fanatic, Marcus (Lioney Boyce). Those are the misfit toys that permeate throughout Carmy’s kitchen, as the old ways collide with the new, creating one of television show history’s most relentless atmospheres.
The kitchen on “The Bear” feels like an actual kitchen, and not some studio-prepped fantasy. There’s spilled au jus, splattered ketchup, and packs of cigarettes left around the grill-a perfect concoction of real and just enough added-on make believe magic to compel someone like me to binge this first season five times. Like a movie that includes a plot surrounding a sport, The Bear can be misconceived as just another cooking drama.
It’s far more than that. Watch the eight half-hour episodes, and see what I’m talking about. After you do, scroll on and find out what I want from the second season, which hits FX and Hulu subscribers’ accounts tomorrow morning. SPOILERS ahead!
5) MORE MICHAEL, CHEF
Episode six lit up an extra notch when the ground zero spice of the entire show, big brother Mikey, graced the opening five minutes. Maybe it’s the Jon Bernthal fanatic in me, but we get an instant idea of the charisma superpower that Carmy’s idol carried. While preparing a delicious-looking family meal, Michael tells a story about an all-night party that ended at a stock exchange bar inside Ceres, meeting Denis Savard, and a Bill Murray voicemail.
It doesn’t amount to much more than showing off Michael’s personality, harnessed inside a nonstop-thinking mind that was poisoned by drugs. Bernthal stirs up that bittersweet touch in one scene. Give us more of that in round two, Mr. Storer.
4) DON’T TAME RICHIE
Bacharach’s sewer-mouthed family black sheep deprives himself of improvement, casting down any enhancements from Carmy or anyone in his life. He’s a buffoon with a heart, and the actor (who also joined Bernthal on Disney Plus’s The Punisher) knocks the role out of the park.
He’s the guy you take to a party knowing it’s a potential grenade carrying a loose pin. If Season Two tames him, I will be disappointed. Towards the end of last year’s opening season, we saw Richie tearfully confess that his cousin is all he has in this life and try to make amends. That’s fine. But don’t pour too much sugar in this rocket.
It’s the edge that we secretly like. Richie’s for real, like this show.
3) PASS THE SUGAR, CHRISTOPHER
Speaking of the sweet stuff that could quietly stab you, Abby Elliott’s Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto added some extra bite to every scene she was in. While she had a moderate amount of scenes, I’m feeling like Sugar herself in the first season’s story: wanting more out of the center. Elliott brings out the best in White too, creating a brother-sister connection without a ton of screen time.
More please! Give us more flashbacks to how The Original Beef used to look, years before Carmen sets to reopen it as The Bear in Season 2. Give us more of Natalie, Michael, Carmy, Tina, Richie, and the gang. Breadcrumbs. That’s all we need.
2) UNLEASH THE TINA
One of the best attributes of Storer’s creation is the evolution of each character in one season. Playing one of the kitchen’s most veteran cooks, Tina comes off as abrasive and vulgar with Sydney, a front that eventually defrosts to the raw ambition of being a better chef. There’s a tenderness lurking around this fiery yet driven woman, but she doesn’t thaw out overnight.
Few characters can pass over a mood in one look than Colon-Reyes. Bravo. I’m happy to find out Tina and Ebraheim will be testing their chops out at culinary school in the new season.
1) KEEP THE COMEDY COMING
Example: Oliver Platt. Here’s an actor you can plop down in any movie and television show, and find the whole thing just got better. Platt plays another family member of Carmy’s vast Chicagoan circle, the uncle who lent Michael too much money and now hangs that money sign over Allen’s embattled life.
But like a lot of tough luck moments on the show, comedy is filtered in like salt when sauteing veggies. Platt and fellow funny man, Matty Mathison, turn words into laughs and lighten the intense atmosphere.
I trust Christopher Storer and his writing staff.
Why didn’t I mention more Carmy? He’s the center of the show. The rock. Without Allen, the show wouldn’t be what it is today.
