The Bear: Innovation Versus Comfort

As a girl who's lived in Chicago for 6 years now, I have THE softest spot for The Bear. The latest season dropped and received mixed reviews, so I wanted to share my thoughts.

(FYI: you have to have watched season 3 of The Bear in order to pick up what I’m about to put down in this post.)

I watched the first season in a day. Aside from the fact that I enjoyed having Jeremy Allen White back on my TV screen after Shameless, I got sucked in by everything else. It was gritty, funny, dirty, creative, and endearing, and it captured some deeper threads about cooking (Hint: cooking is like a symbol in this show).

Season 3 of The Bear begins with an episode-long “Previously, on The Bear,” taking you through Carmy’s past trauma and arduous journey to becoming one of the best chefs and finally getting a shot in the fine-dining world with The Bear. In contrast, the second episode opens with a heartwarming, warm and fuzzy montage of Chicago restaurants, streets, and people while the entirety of “Save It For Later” plays. Why did it make me want to, like, cry happy tears? And then we’re thrown right back into the dysfunctional kitchen life when Carmy greets Syd with nonnegotiables so they can try for a Michelin star.

To me, these are the core pillars of the show: talent and drive in an artistic pursuit versus the beauty and pain of life. These characters are striving artistically for something perfect, but art isn’t made in a vacuum. There’s a tension between chasing the world of art versus cooking for your community. But the show and the restaurant also show us the tension between art and commerce, legacy and tradition, individualism and collaboration.

How will The Bear (the restaurant) handle all of this, and how will The Bear (the show) handle all of this? I can’t be sure yet, but I think we’ll get these answers down the line. I do feel like many people have had problems watching this season because the show is struggling to find a stance on these bigger questions.

Innovation

A Creative’s Catch-22 for Carmy

Carmy is trapped in the quintessential tortured artist spiral. There are countless examples of him in real life, but when I watch this show I think most about Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki is probably the most famous animator around, but his home life is trash. He had such a one-track mind and was so focused on his films and his art, that he was a completely absent father and family member. Carmy is also on this track….so ready to pursue chef greatness at the expense of his personal life.

If you’re someone who’s gone to therapy, I’m sure you agree with me that it’s painful to watch Carmy because you see that he’s making his wounds so much worse by doing this. The man is lonely, to put it nicely. He’s got co-workers, but in this season it seems like he’s lost all human connection after pushing away his girlfriend, yelling at Richie several times, and ignoring Syd’s desires to create good food together. None of this can be good for him after losing his brother and growing up in an alcoholic, toxic family.

But Carmy also has some talent and some points. The restaurant should break down all boxes before throwing them away. Subtracting and pushing the menu is great editing. And changing the menu every day (if done successfully) would show people what The Bear is capable of.

When Life Imitates Art for the Show

This show has pushed creatively in a similar way to Carmy. The first episode of season 3 is proof of that—I’ve never seen a TV episode that works as a synopsis of the show up until now. And everyone who’s watched the show loves the episodes that serve as one, long revved-up shot of service in The Beef and The Bear.

But, like Carmy, the show is also getting ahead of its skis. The long monologue-style close-up shots felt like they took up too much time in this season instead of following along with the progression of the restaurant or other supporting characters. And what worked so well in season 2’s episode, “Seven Fishes,” felt distracting in season 3’s episode, “Ice Chips.” I love a Jamie Lee Curtis appearance, yet it was an unnecessary distraction this time.

Finally, on the topic of Jamie Lee Curtis and other celebrity guest appearances, the show needs to pull back on that a bit…no hate to Jon Cena, but what was he doing in this season. He doesn’t fit the vibe of the show.

The show itself is reaching new heights. All of these actors are known and big now. And I love that for them! These actors and this show are incredible…they deserve their flowers. The show just needs to make sure they don’t get too focused on innovating without seeing the whole picture. This issue doesn’t feel all so different from looking at Carmy trying to create the restaurant of his dreams and ignoring the draining money and lack of harmony between the front of house and back of house.

Comfort

Tradition and Community

The Bear started as The Beef in this show. Dirty, gross, dingy, but throughout the first season we see that it also was a home and support system for so many in the community. What’s the only profitable part of The Bear in season 3? The Italian beef window, serving the regulars in the community still.

The best parts of this show are about the community. The community that helps Carmy and Sugar after Mikey dies, the community of coworkers in the kitchen that are there for one another throughout the show. Even as the show has expanded to portray other restaurants that Carmy worked at or that Syd visited in season 2, you could see and connect to those communities as well. These communities prevail because they see the power in connection and heart.

Remember when I said cooking was a metaphor in this show? It’s because cooking is a community activity—one that requires teamwork and is about making something to nourish and feed those you care about. When Marcus is speaking at his mother’s funeral, he talks about how his mom was a good cook and that so much of their bonding happened when they would eat dinner together. In season 2, Syd sees that Sugar is struggling and makes her an omelet. And the best scene in season 3 is when Mikey and Tina connect and he offers her a job while she eats an Italian beef at The Beef.

This brings me back to the central tension of the show. Tina’s flashback episode with Mikey so perfectly captures why people at The Beef like Tina and Richie were so combative against Carmy. Carmy represents this new wave, wanting to break tradition, not seeing the actual value in the people, community, or the way things were done before. That’s why he wants to change the menu every day, tear down The Beef and make The Bear. The Beef before him was a place about heart. And it’s why he and Richie fight like hell so often. Richie values people, connection, tradition, his city, and his people…all of the things that you can see The Beef really was for the community in the “Napkins” episode. Carmy values the art of cooking and creating new.

Food is an experience and maybe it’s the phase I’m at in my life but I want more of the comfort and heart when you take away the beautiful, instagrammable facade. I love going home and eating my parent’s food…if you ask me my favorite meals, it’s my parents food. Because food is an experience, it’s ephemeral, it’s about how it makes you feel. And it’s why Richie and Carmy may never get along…why Mikey and Carmy never were on the same page. Carmy lives in creativity but he’s missing the heart. And maybe part of growing up is seeing that the most meaningful things are things that have heart and soul.

Thinking About This in Chicago

The tension between doing things a new way and keeping with tradition in this show makes me think about how you could take this and apply it to greater general problems within a city like Chicago. What did the community lose when The Beef got replaced by The Bear? What does Chicago lose culturally when a neighborhood gets a Sweetgreen that replaces the local taco spot?

I’m not trying to go too deep into the gentrification topic, and I don’t even know if The Bear is trying to wade too deep into that topic either, but it’s a real-life example of this tension between newness and tradition. And I think it’s a valid point to end on because The Bear is so much about the city of Chicago.

I’ve been to so many Chicago restaurants and I definitely went through a phase where I was always excited to venture to the new ones, the ones that pop up on Instagram…but after doing that during the six years I’ve been here…I realized I got tired of that.

There’s definitely a time and a place when Federales (or whatever your local gentrified bar is) serves a great purpose, but if you sit and think about it like thinking about how The Bear has upended The Beef, it’s an unsettling feeling. It’s especially unsettling to me because, not to state the obvious, but I’m a part of the problem—a gentrifier who moved into the currently-getting-gentrified Chicago neighborhood. In the time I’ve lived here, everything around me has completely changed. The demographic, the shops, the rent, the people, the restaurants.

I know that cities change all the time, but what comfort and tradition are we losing when they change in this way?

I know this whole piece didn’t really present a resolution to the fight between comfort and creative newness or even what the answers to gentrification are, but I’m just a girl and I frankly don’t have the answers to any of this. Yet this season of The Bear really made me sit and think about these big, deep topics, and I’m okay with sitting in the uncomfortable in-between. Just some food for thought.