For many it was the series of the year. Now The Bear faces the most complicated thing: a second season that maintains the level and does not disappoint. The surprise factor, the discovery of the characters, the adrenaline of those sequences in a kitchen that was falling apart and even the tasty meat sandwiches that made us salivate are no longer useful. What will Carmy and company tell us now to keep us hooked?
Released a couple of months ago in the United States, the new episodes finally arrive in Spain from Disney. We have been able to see the first ones to tell you, without spoilers, what to expect from the new The Bear.
“You loved me as a loser and now you’re worried that I might win,” Leonard Cohen sang in Manhattan and Enrique Morente translated into Omega. Although it is true that it sounds like gratuitous pedantry to give certain airs to a television critic, the truth is that it sums up very well the feeling with which one faces the new life of Carmen Berzatto.
After closing Original Beef of Chicagoland, he is now starting The Bear, a fine-dining restaurant. This is the common thread of the second season, which runs like a countdown to the opening of the project. The same chef who traded the stars and the cuisine of one of the best restaurants in the world for the greasy sandwiches of a Chicago neighborhood is now going the opposite way, building a gourmet restaurant from scratch.
And we confess that this entrepreneurial and even optimistic spirit at times, some love -no spoilers, don’t worry-, the introspection and self-improvement work in stager mode of the team, and even certain unexpected changes in iconic characters have made us stir uncomfortably in the armchair. We had bought a loser story, not an inspirational Ted Talk.
The duo formed by Carmy and Sidney is once again one of the most interesting engines of the plot. While he goes back and forth between works, bureaucracy, permits, existential doubts and personal issues, she is the one who assumes command in creating the menu. The creative process I’d give for three more Bullipedia volumes here is a 30-second video clip that’s pretty hungry.
“It’s difficult to ask your father to support you because he doesn’t understand that this job doesn’t pay much, it doesn’t lead to anything and it doesn’t make much sense,” sums up Carmy, taking up that tormented style that so seduced her in the first season.
What did you feel when they called to give the news of the third star?, she asks him at another time. “That I had to keep them. And then there was a table that was going slow”, he replies.
Although meaningless, poorly paid and with the pressure that maintaining the stars entails, that’s what this The Bear is about. Why does he do it? If we say that due to a certain inertia, we are not advancing anything that we do not already know. And if we confirm that Sidney wants a star, neither.
Enough to maintain the level? It takes a bit to overcome the undoubtedly unfair skepticism with which the return of a successful series is received, but in the end they succeed. Above all, thanks to the development of each of the characters who in the first season only accompany the chef, and who here are key to getting us into the story.
By the way, the special Christmas episode (by duration and by time line) will delight those who miss the toxicity and intensity of those eternal and claustrophobic sequences in the kitchen of The Original Beef of Chicagoland.
“I love this city” Carmy claims. It goes without saying, because in the cast of this second season, Chicago is almost one more character. The recurring shots of his iconic elevated subway and, above all, Sandy’s gastronomic walk through real restaurants in the city is one of the most delicious sequences of the season. Yeah, at the end of the third chapter you’ll want to go there too just to have a sundae at Margie’s Candies.
The success of the first season caught many by surprise, but now Disney has worked much harder to promote this return. If at the time Dani García prepared a sandwich emulating the one served in the restaurant, now they have relied on chef Diego Guerrero to create a menu of ten passes in homage to each of the episodes that make up this second season.
A proposal that for a few days turned his restaurant DSPEAK into DBear and that was reserved for fans of the series who got one of the invitations that Disney raffled on their social networks. A good clue to the importance that the series now has for the platform.
But will there be a third season, will the most impatient be asking themselves? FX, the producer of the series, has not commented on the matter, but it seems logical to think so. After all, now we want to know what is eaten at The Bear. And whether or not they get their long-awaited stars.
In fact, we are already salivating when thinking about a possible future chapter dedicated to the gastronomic press that approaches The Bear. Christopher Storer, creator of the series, knows the world of haute cuisine very well and, in fact, his sister Courtney Storer is a chef and gastronomic adviser for the series, so I’m sure they both have some secrets for critics, inspectors and others.
Or perhaps, because of the realism of which the plot boasts, his thing would be to imagine a third season in which the numbers of the gastronomic restaurant have not just come out and it is time to also serve greasy sandwiches again in a parallel business to balance the accounts. You’re welcome for ideas.