Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Richard 'Richie' Jerimovich in season two of FX’s The Bear.Courtesy of FX/FX
If you read any U.S. news media, you’ve maybe already read a review or two of the second season of The Bear, which premiered in the States on FX almost a full month ahead of its Canadian debut on Disney+ this week. If so, you already know that the show’s sixth episode – an hour-long, cameo-heavy tour de force ripped straight out of the Uncut Gems extended universe of cinematic anxiety – is the series’ standout. If not, here’s a little taste: The episode, called Fishes, is the best thing you’ll see on TV this year. And yeah, I watched Succession.
It’s also a good encapsulation of The Bear’s sophomore run in general: The action takes place in the kitchen, sure – in this case, in the Berzatto home kitchen on Christmas Eve, as family matriarch Donna (played with blistering, throat-catching intensity by Jamie Lee Curtis) prepares a feast of the seven fishes with escalating chaos – and involves food and eating as the conduit to human connection. But the human connection really has nothing to do with what’s going on in the kitchen. The kitchen is incidental to the humanity of it all.
It’s a smart pivot for the show, which could have easily fallen into the (bear) trap of becoming a highly meme-able workplace dramedy, forever swimming against the tide of hot takes debating whether the FX series was just another course in the Kitchen Confidential school of romanticizing the uglier side of hospitality work in general, and back-of-house labour in particular.
Not that those takes weren’t warranted – in 2023, anyone with any level of involvement in restaurant work or food culture will be hyper-aware that there is not (and, depending on who you ask, sort of never has been) any romance behind the line, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) struggles between familial obligation to the restaurant and finding a calling and building a life that's all his own.Courtesy of FX/FX
But even after one season, the series, terrific though it already was, was at risk of drowning under the weight of the discourse around it (to say nothing of the hand-wringing over why – why! – viewers were all lusting after Jeremy Allen White’s scruffy line cook. I’ll unpack that for once and for all: it’s because he’s good-looking!).
Season two opens where season one left off: Carmy (White) and sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are preparing to open The Bear, a fine-dining venue born of the ashes of The Beef, the restaurant run by Carmy’s late brother, Michael. Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), its erstwhile cook and present-day floater, pastry chef Marcus and line cook Tina are all working to find their respective places in the coming iteration.
Emmy nominations 2023: HBO dominates as Succession leads with 27 nods
The lead-up to The Bear’s opening night can – across 10 episodes – be viewed from two sides: on one side are Carmy and Sydney, united in their goal of opening a restaurant but not in much else, resulting in a (spoiler alert) opening-night disaster for the two of them; on the other, Richie, Tina and Marcus, exploring their aptitudes and interests, and emerging triumphant. In shifting the spotlight away from its star, The Bear juxtaposes the rich inner lives and growth of its supporting characters with Carmy’s stagnation. Sydney, who’s hitched her wagon to Carmy’s Michelin star, is stuck there with him.
And this is where the show changes course a second time: While Carmy remains the obvious protagonist, in season two, The Bear dedicates considerable time to its supporting players, building thoughtful backstories for a cast of characters who end up in the kitchen for a reason, but who are working to stay there with purpose. That’s the narrative mandate, anyway, laid out cleanly and clearly in its first episode, in a conversation between Richie and Carmy.
Richie, out to sea in the wake of Michael’s death, is worried that, without purpose, he’ll be abandoned by Carmy and the rest of the Berzatto clan; Carmy, meanwhile, has an obligation to the restaurant, but it’s just that: a duty, not a calling. His budding relationship with Claire, a childhood friend turned romantic interest, is framed similarly.
The conflation of a sense of purpose with a sense of duty is a through line here. The former provides fulfillment and enrichment (see: Richie, Marcus), while the latter leads to resentment, burnout and – vague spoiler alert here – repeatedly throwing a fork at Bob Odenkirk’s head. It’s a fine line to walk, especially fine (if not entirely invisible) when family is involved – and when your duty is gaining the approval of your dead brother.
Sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and Carmy start off season two preparing to open The Bear, a fine-dining venue to take the place of The Beef, the restaurant run by Carmy’s late brother, Michael.Courtesy of FX/FX
Which brings us back to episode six, Fishes. It’s a flashback episode, illuminating with LED brightness the exact brand of trauma at the root of Carmy’s sense of duty to his late brother’s restaurant, and at the root of the Berzatto clan and their hangers-on in general.
It’s an episode that will have you at turns holding your breath and wiping your eyes – the latter, notably, may happen during a dinner-table monologue delivered by none other than John Mulaney. But more than that, Fishes is a 66-minute allegory for the impossibly fraught, terrifying high-wire act that is balancing service and love. And if that balancing act means you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen – if there isn’t any purpose to be found therein, no matter what stove you’re cooking over – there’s more than one way out.