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owlectomyI continue to think The Bear is quite a good show, and even that season 3 was quite a good season. It just made, maybe, two or two-and-a-half missteps. (Edit: five and a half?)
"I would have done it THIS way instead of THIS way" is sort of a useless way of criticizing art, especially when I myself have never done any filmmaking (and just a teeny bit of screenwriting, nonprofessionally) but it's the perspective that's most useful to me in thinking through this sort of thing.
1. Almost everything that's not about Carmy works, and that's a pretty big chunk of the season - Marcus's episode, Natalie's episode, and especially Tina's episode.
2. I think that the central idea of the season - Carmy's perfectionism, insecurity, and ego colliding with both the realities of running a restaurant and his relationships with his coworkers - works, and it's developed well; it's just, we're hitting that button TOO MANY TIMES. You don't need eight scenes to prove your thesis that Carmy's perfectionism, insecurity, and ego are colliding with both the realities of running a restaurant and his relationships with his coworkers. You need maybe half that many.
2a. You cannot rely on the relationship with Claire to do much emotional work when she's such a nonentity. And hey, it's my favorite storyline! "Asshole genius needs woman to fix his trauma"!
3. The last episode was the problem. I would've gone away thinking that was a perfectly good season of television if not for that last episode. And it wasn't even all of the last episode: it was precisely that long section where all the chefs are congratulating themselves about their craft and their dedication.
4. I want to be open-minded about approaches to storytelling that put conflict on the back burner, but that's self-indulgent, that should have been axed. It could have worked if it was ironic - the juxtaposition of smug self-congratulation against the often toxic atmosphere of actually working in a restaurant - but no, it was actually just painfully sincere. Once you have cameos from a bunch of famous chefs you can't avoid the self-indulgence and the self-congratulation about being a haute cuisine chef.
5. Which is a bad look, frankly, when we're talking about a luxury product in an age of extreme income inequality. I am not against haute cuisine, but... if you're going to write a show that's rapturous about haute cuisine and set it in Chicago, and if you're going to write a show about gentrifying a cheap neighborhood sandwich shop,
6. What I think it needed: some clear character change in Carmy that was not just about telling the asshole chef "fuck you." If Chef Terry is our symbol for being a good chef and a good leader, let her say something just a little bit harsh that calls Carmy to realize that the way he's going about things is just replicating the bad ways in which he's been treated by chefs during his career. And let's have Carmy write a new list of non-negotiables: non-negotiables that are kind, reasonable, sustainable (and short!)
A better ending - by which I don't mean a happier ending, but an ending that demonstrates some kind of character growth - would have made this, to me, a great season of TV rather than a medium season of TV with a lot of very bright spots.
I approve of this comment.
3/7/24 17:41 (UTC)We've just watched the first three, which include almost zero meaningful dialogue. Also, very little plot.
I love how competent Sydney is, and I wish she just locked Carmy in the walk-in. Somewhere online mentioned that season 4 is already shot, but it doesn't sound like I'll be hankering for it.
Frankly, I thought the end of season 2 would have been a great stopping point.