Oh dear

Helen Rosner did a review when it first came out and talked about the various professional-kitchen-shibboleths that turn up, honestly even in the episodes that don't work that well those hold it together for me, it's uncannily nostalgic even tho the places I worked were quite different to the bear

like the recurring gag about "jeff" is just so deeply the kind of fuck-you humor that every restaurant has

at toscanini's we had longstanding disagreements about what kind of masking tape and what kind of sharpie ink survived the freezer best; both topics come up repeatedly on this show

the minor hatred of the front-of-house staff from the back-of-house, and vice versa; the small-business, family-owned vibe of "we'll just fix this shit ourselves" for *everything* including things one really should not fix without professional help

omg that moment when they cut to carmy the michelin-starred chef making a pb&j on white bread at home

and I guess most of all how everybody working in the place has some absolutely insane backstory, I just really loved that about the people I worked with in foodservice

I retract my prior tweet it's just the first episode of s2 that is lame, rest of the season is good so far

Sadly all of season 3 was a disappointment. Season 4 was not as strong as s1 and s2 but I thought it was charming and enjoyable again.