The Bear S4 is definitely validating my feeling that for the last three seasons it's become more and more a self-flatteringly agonized show about being a show runner--a genius beset by people who want something from him, his brilliance and his faults tragically entangled, so good but so flawed, etc.
I think there are a handful of great shows that have that in their DNA (Mad Men, The Sopranos) but are scrupulous about not letting it become dominant. This one feels a little too locked-in-its-own-walk-in-freezer to me, but à chacun son gloom.
Mad Men had fantastic secondary characters that had their own arcs. In The Bear, the cousin had one great episode of his own. But they haven’t found that same balance. .
Sal in Mad Men? I always wanted them to cross paths again!!
True Detective had a version of this problem too, I think. It makes me more appreciative of those show runners who don’t seek to center themselves (but were so successful they could have gotten away with it) like, say, Vince Gilligan or Jesse Armstrong.
I stopped after season 2. Thought it had jumped the shark
😏 (appreciative)
I just started watching Season 4 last night and haven’t caught that vibe yet. Maybe it will emerge more clearly after I watch another couple of episodes. I appreciate your thoughts on the show. It’s nice to read succinct, thoughtful criticism of the shows I watch.
I loved this show. Such a fun, happy accident, so alive and new. Love letter to Chicago. And Ebon M-B is a gift. But boy have they lost their way. Now I yell "Drink!" every time Carmy says he's sorry. Bummer.
Isn't there, like, an entire season about how the protagonist’s inability to delegate or compromise his art jeopardizes both his art and the joy he gets from making art?!
Tbf, this current season is the protagonist realizing that is fucking everything up and he was being a selfish prick
Right: kinda invalidating the OP a bit, especially about this season, huh? (Though maybe interesting thematic turn after what many think was a misstep s3 - especially since the two seasons were shot back-to-back 🤔)
I stopped watching it. It was too stressful! And self-conscious.
I keep mapping it to being in a band, with the genius who writes the songs and is the "star" and then the others who make his vision a reality.
I've now admitted to myself that I'm mainly still watching (haven't yet started S4 but I plan to) because Jeremy Allen White & Ebon Moss-Bachrach are babes & the food looks really good.
I have been a fan, but at this point( I am at mid-season 4), it seems like a later Ramones LP. Something new has got to happen, or we are going in circles.
im rewatching for research and will watch s4 soon. i work in a restaurant and i like the show a lot. the babe factor is in there for me though
For me season 2 was a perfect glide path to resolve the tension of S1. S3 disappointed. I mean how long do they tease the review! But I can't not watch S4.
As they say I could watch Carmy and Cousin Richie read the phone book (sic)😉
Then you'll love S3!
Wherein they actually read the phone book???
That only got me thru season 2
I'm only four episodes in, and *desperate* for Sydney to jump ship so she can finally run her own show.
I had to fast forward through some of S4 E2. Not impressed and not sure I will continue to view this season.
S1 had a great pace & I was stoked for S2, but they started introducing all kinds of drama. The acting was fantastic, but I was watching for the food, the Sorkin-esque patter, quirky characters & to escape. Now when I watch I feel traumatized & can't sleep. I'm basic & that's ok.
Love that he’s dating her irl ❤️
"The Bear" was my new, go to, favorite show, until it turned into, who can say the "f" word the most. Never finished the third season, but plan to before I die. Just not today.
Never thought of it like that, but yes. Confluence of the two endeavors--running a restaurant/being a chef and being a "showrunner"--that pop culture has inundated us with for the last decade or so as the height of achievement in Western civilization, and thus worth All The Struggle.
But that's what makes it such an outstanding comedy.
Every episode now (we’re only four into new season) I just keep saying “they’re STILL changing the menu every night?” Despite the learning curve, the chaos, budget mess, burn-out, and being literal hours from failure, they’re just … still doing that. Got it. What a conflict!
Ice Chips is a stand alone episode. You don’t have to know anything before or after. It is storytelling brilliance both in written form and in the tremendous physical and cinematic execution.
I felt S3 burst the bubble on that by de-romanticizing Carmy and turning him into a bit of a prick, and *spoiler* by S4 he's kind of the 2nd banana to Syd.
The basically could have ended the show in the walk in....which showed they could do it without him.
Yeah, but the wedding episode!
They lost me in Season 3. So much pompous navel gazing.
So the second act of Sunday in the Park, pretty much?
Anything you do Let it come from you Then it will be new Give us more to eat
ha ha ha!
I think you are projecting here, because as someone who worked 15 years in hospitality, have met ALL of these characters in real life, have BEEN all of these characters in real life, and been and DONE what Carmy did in the final episode, this show is clearly a love letter to restaurants and hospo.
This interpretation is what you bring to the show. Flattering? No. Agonized. With rare moments of redemption. It has broadened to include more detailed portraits of the rest of the staff and families. It is far less about Carm than that season that delighted you.
It's mad men but they make sandwiches.
I stopped watching the middle of last season. The only emotions I felt were anxiety and boredom. Also, pretentious bougie food is so uninteresting to me.
A wankfest? How surprising.
I’ve been catching bits and pieces as my wife watches S4 and it just feels so indulgent. There’s style for days and the actors are incredible but man, how many needle drops can you go to the same well for over and over again? How much more can you wring from the same tired emotional beats?
We bailed on "The Bear" but for me, this is every Sorkin show (and most explicitly and hilariously "Studio 60".)
From "Sports Night" onward the theme of his work is "a genius is told he should say 'please' and 'thank you'."
And yet who ever says thank you to the genius? It's tragic, really.
I think in his heart of hearts he thinks the only problem with Col. Nathan Jessup is, he didn't do something *really* important, like write the screenplay for "Malice".
I eat breakfast 300 yards from 4000 Cubans who are trained to kill me... and I'm never ever sick at sea. (I'm aware I'm combining 'AFGM' and his multiple rips from Gilbert & Sullivan)
Hardly ever!
He definitely cribbed “sick at sea” at least twice, but when it’s PSH and 90’s Alec Baldwin saying it you kinda buy it
Well, you are watching season 4 so … sounds accurate?
😬 Also someone who (for better and worse) wants to see the workplace as a family. I’m still invested but it does seem to be treading water on this theme.
