‘The Bear’ returns at the slow-cooked pace of a show simmered in praise
A posted sign in a kitchen reads “Every Second Counts,” but “The Bear” is clearly in no hurry during its third season, proceeding at the slow-cooked pace of a show simmered in accolades and Emmys. Granted, the awards have come in a category in which the Hulu series doesn’t really belong, but it remains TV’s version of fine dining: big white plates with small but mouth-watering dollops of food on them.
As noted, labeling the FX-produced program a comedy has more to do with award politicking than content, since the show merits that categorical designation less than almost any of the acclaimed series submitted on comedy ballots for award purposes, shows like “Barry” and “Nurse Jackie” among them.
Like the last streaming comedy awards darling, “Ted Lasso,” “The Bear” also manages to be very good and still feel a touch over-praised, perhaps in part because the adjectives thrown around to describe it understandably seek to match the volume of coverage devoted to it.
The latest season’s first episode nicely sets the table for the nine episodes to come, playing almost like a visual poem while reintroducing the characters.
At Hulu’s request, any spoiler-ish specifics need to be scarce, but series creator Christopher Storer (who directed seven of the new season’s 10 installments) has the luxury of playing the long game, indulging in episodes devoted to individual players, while teasing out various threads without feeling compelled to pay everything off.
The season’s theme centers on the pursuit of dreams, both for chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his able right hand Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), as they continue the process of transforming the restaurant into a fine-dining destination. Woven into that, given the recurring ghosts from Carmy’s past, is the question of whether one must become a jerk to succeed in this business, contemplating distinctions between leading employees with a firm rein and a suffocating, soul-crushing one.
The cast remains splendid and the storytelling moody and lyrical, in a way that both challenges the audience and rewards them for paying attention to small details.
What “The Bear” has lost is the element of surprise that greeted its arrival. By now there’s less novelty in its fly-on-the-wall access to what goes on inside a kitchen, and once your leading man has become a marquee Calvin Klein model and high-level celebrity cameos (some new, others familiar) start piling up, it’s harder to position the show as a plucky underdog.
The world occupied by “The Bear” is also a place where reviews matter very much, an attribute the Michelin-star-obsessed business of high-end restaurants shares with the awards-chasing strategies of streaming.
At this point, though, the series has surely become review-proof, having earned the loyal patronage of those viewers happy to watch Storer and company spin plates, even during those meticulously prepared stretches, narratively speaking, when “The Bear” is just spinning its wheels.
“The Bear” launched its third season June 26 on Hulu.
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