Like a lot of food lovers, I've devoured all three seasons of The Bear. I enjoyed the first two seasons (with a notable, one-episode exception* in Season 2), particularly because of the compelling characters, all expertly portrayed through exquisite acting. It's also beautifully rendered through the lens, and, of course, the storyline and character development worked well enough. Season 3, though, has given me no shortage of agita. And it has everything to do with the focus on fine dining.
The first commentary I ever offered on any dining experience was this story about my deeply disappointing meal at Per Se back in 2011. Since that time, and especially over the last few years when food writing has emerged as my primary form of journalism, I've had many other fine dining opportunities.
While I have often been impressed with the creativity and quality at such establishments (especially the restaurants of Massimo Bottura, which I wrote about here), I've never been crazy about the overall experience in general. My complaint is that we as diners are more of an audience for the chef and staff as opposed to cherished guests. I go out to eat, first and foremost, to enjoy the company of with whomever I am dining; obviously, enjoying the food and drink together is a major part of this equation (which is why we don't go to the movies), but fine dining interrupts the company-aspect with multiple-courses in a parade of detailed explanations of tiny portions, pairings, removal of plates and cutlery and glasses, replacement of said items, and so forth. It's often fraught and phony, as if I have to have an orgasm with every tiny plate or I somehow am missing the magic. It just ain't fun.
And that's my beef with this season of The Bear. It just ain't fun. Getting to know Carmy and company in the first season was enjoyable; watching them turn The Beef into The Bear in Season 2 had great dramatic tension (wait for the aforementioned exception*), but now that The Bear is up and running, and we get an inside look at the back of the house, it's painful. The new approach and requisite execution bring out the worst in every main character, from Carmy's self-destructive spiral to Sydney's inability to stand up for herself (though she is, by far, my favorite character) to Richie somehow becoming even more of a douchebag than he was previously. And this show is billed as a comedy?
Adding to the agita is all that "Yes, Chef," bullshit parroted relentlessly in the super-serious training sequences with all the cameos from famous chefs. This is not the military; it's fucking cooking instruction. It's food. You are feeding people, and feeding people is supposed to be fun. Perseverating over the placement of a single pea on a precious plate is not fun. Nor is it fun to watch someone act as if they are performing something akin to surgery.
Please, going forward, forget all those sojourns to the staid lands of serious chefs. I think Season 4 of The Bear should be a pilgrimage by Carmy (if not the whole damn team) to visit Dario Cecchini in his Tuscan auspices, to meet a man whose passion for food is matched by the immense joy he derives from his life's work. And this begs my final question, one that occurs to me as often as the repetition of "Yes, Chef" and "Fuck You" throughout each episode of Season 3: How can characters in the imitation of real life endure such tortured conditions?
Now, to that asterisk: I'm pretty sure I first started to turn on The Bear in season 2 with "The Fishes" episode. I've never witnessed such a despicable group of human beings in one setting, spearheaded by Jaime Lee Curtis' cartoon-horror depiction of the hammered, maudlin, mean-ass matriarch. I mean, come on. Could family dysfunction, nearly across the board, ever reach such heights?
It seems like this approach, this embrace of the awful in people, dominated the narrative in Season 3. I'd love to see some joy in Bear-ville in Season 4.
