The Bear Season Two (FX)
Written by Christopher Storer, Joanna Calo, Karen Joseph Adcock, Catherine Schetina, Stacy Osei-Kuffour, Alex Russell, Rene Gube, and Kelly Galuska
Directed by Christopher Storer, Joanna Calo, and Ramy Youssef
Ultimately, people don’t want to be in a state of conflict & antagonism. They want to learn, grow, and find ways to work together with others. So much of our world is informed by a media landscape that projects contrived, unnatural division. Reality television, so poorly named, delivers manufactured arguments & clashes intended for us to believe they are the truth. Even scripted narrative content is always about wars or personal contentions that go on and on and on. When do we get to see people heal genuinely or move past petty grievances in an authentic manner that isn’t cloying & artificial? The Bear is not a light show; its themes are weighty & dark. Yet, its characters are brilliantly full of life. They are capable of not living in the same rut their whole lives. Watching them struggle and grow is an absolute delight.
Three episodes stand out to me in this second season of The Bear: “Honeydew,” “Fishes,” and “Forks”. They happen in the middle of the season and bring characters from one place to another while setting up events that will cap off the season.
“Honeydew” focuses most of its time on Marcus (Lionel Boyce), the dessert chef at The Beef, now The Bear. Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) sends Marcus to Copenhagen to work with an old friend while the renovations take months. In this way, Marcus can come back and deliver dishes that meet & surpass the expectations of the new restaurant. It will come as no surprise to regular readers, but I grew up consuming much American media, especially television shows. I feel attuned to the tropes that get used over & over again and delight when a show subverts my expectations. When Marcus comes to the kitchen in Copenhagen for the first time, a stoic Luca (Will Poulter) barely acknowledges him. My media-tuned brain saw this as a conflict in the making; however….showrunner Christopher Storer knows better and doesn’t go that route.
Having made a journey essentially blind from the States to Europe two years ago, I felt much of what Marcus was going through when he arrived. Things look & feel so different in this part of the world when all you know is what America shapes for you. Marcus is staying on a boat with only one responsibility, to keep the cat fed & watered, yet he never sees the cat. Here in the Netherlands, the cats wander, connected to home but not tied down by it; they live lives just like the chefs who wake up in the darkness of the night to begin making what will fuel the rest of us to start our day hours later.
Marcus is a committed person, having dishes put before him that appear daunting, they are! Luca could easily have been a grump, set in his ways and not wanting to be bothered by a novice. However, we see the truth presented on screen. People who have devoted their lives to a craft typically find great joy in sharing & communicating that craft with those eager to learn. As a teacher, it is always easier to teach a willing student than someone forced to be there. Marcus didn’t have to make this journey; he didn’t have to spend time learning to position things just right with a pair of tweezers. The fact that he has chosen this has earned him the respect of Luca, so Luca is happy to share his knowledge.
Marcus is one of the most joyful characters in The Bear. He’s the young guy who thought what he did was one thing. Michael gave him a job, but he never really mentored Marcus. Carmy saw potential in the restaurant and this young chef, so he invested in him. Marcus tears through every culinary book that’s been brought into the restaurant. He experiments with fermentation & new recipes. Staying in one place and doing the same thing isn’t what the man is inclined to do. I enjoy watching him observe, seeing the gears turn as he develops a hunger to try something new.
Through the process of making food, Marcus & Luca share their stories. Luca had been getting in trouble since he was a teen, and restaurant work was just a random bit of luck. He grew arrogant as he got better and believed he was the best. We don’t know who toppled Luca from his pedestal, but he says he worked alongside someone beyond what he could do. It was likely Carmy, but I loved how the show is never that explicit. We learn that Marcus went to college on a D3 football scholarship, but never if he graduated. He worked at McDonald’s, then making bread at The Beef. He didn’t imagine food could become a career, his life. He’s at the opening stages, and everything that lies before him is exciting and new.
I’m still unsure what to make of a scene in this episode. On his walk home, Marcus encounters a Dane who has crashed his bike into a fence; he’s become dangerously entangled in the chainlinks. He could have been lying there for hours, afraid the metal would slice his throat. Marcus can rescue the man who clings to and hugs him for a beat. We never know if the man is drunk or mentally ill; he gets on his bike and pedals off. The episode never returns to this moment, but I feel there’s something critical here, connected to the theme of the whole season and to Marcus’s character development.
We’ll skip “Fishes” for now and go to “Forks.” Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is one of the most infuriating & endearing characters in the show. While others try to find the middle ground, Richie is always so volatile, turning every disagreement into an explosive, destructive battle to the death. We learn in “Fishes” that Richie never saw himself working at The Beef for so long; this was just a favor Michael did for him because he had a kid on the way. As Carmy works to reshape the restaurant into The Bear, Richie feels that there is no place for him anymore. He doesn’t see himself as intelligent or competent, so he expects to walk away. In the meantime, Carmy sends him to learn from one of the top fine-dining restaurants in Chicago.
Polishing forks. Day in, day out. That’s what Richie is told to do, and he makes it clear from day one he hates it. His supervisor, Garrett, tells Richie he can leave if he doesn’t, but Richie stays. He notices the restaurant has a waiting list of 5,000 people, which sparks something. He wants to know why people want to come here so badly. Richie witnesses how the establishment learns as much as it can about a guest so that anyone who walks through those doors with a reservation never has to ask. Social media becomes a tool where the front of the house learns about the dreams of these people. One tourist laments they never got a chance to have a deep-dish pizza, so Richie hauls ass across town to grab one and bring it to the kitchen, where one of the chefs transforms it into an incredible work of art. The patron is astonished and so grateful.
At one point, the staff is alerted that a married couple of public school teachers have scrimped & saved and will be dining with them soon. These pending guests don’t know that the head chef/owner is comping the entire meal; they will not be asked to pay a dime. This strikes a chord with Richie and sends home what this cuisine is about. If only for a few hours, people come to this place to live inside a dream. The staff’s goal is to ensure the dream feels as real & tangible as possible.
Richie’s view of fine dining was bafflement initially. He didn’t get why anyone would go here, not just to a corner place and pick up something greasy. There’s nothing wrong with the greasy food from the corner store. But what happens here is a different experience. It is a magic trick. There’s another heart-to-heart chat that is like Marcus & Luca’s. Richie learns a lot about the people who work here and how they come from backgrounds of struggle like himself. Many are practicing sobriety, and with that comes “acts of service.” This really clicks something in place for Richie, and he transforms into a whole new person. Of course, he has to meet the head chef, a fantastic one-scene guest spot by an incredible Academy Award-winning actress.
“Fishes” is the crown jewel at the center of this season, one of the best single episodes of television I have ever seen. It works perfectly as a standalone short film, but our knowledge of these characters adds to the experience. Set five years prior, we witness an infamous Christmas for the Berzattos. Everyone is gathered at the matriarch Donna’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) house to celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes. We see familiar faces and extended family (played by Sarah Paulson, John Mulaney, Bob Odenkirk, and Jilian Jacobs) in conversation throughout the house. Donna toils in the kitchen, torturing herself for the sake of the family’s revelry. Did anyone ask her to go to all this trouble? Not really. But she imagines they expect it, and if she doesn’t deliver the best fucking meal of their lives, they will say awful things about her when she’s not around. Donna is clearly not mentally well. Michael & Carmy keep their distance, but sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) wants to help, only to be shit all over by her unbalanced mother.
“Fishes” has some of the best comedic highs of the season but also moments that feel like utter horror. An interviewer said in passing to Curtis recently that they thought this was the best performance of her career. Curtis thought about that and quickly agreed that she also believed it was the best work she’d ever done. I have to agree with them both; it really is. Every second of this episode is a ratcheting of tension. There’s so much history between these people, minor slights that have blossomed into significant hatred. Odenkirk, in particular, playing a business partner of the late Mr. Berzatto & now on-again-off-again boyfriend to Donna is that scowling uncle who wants the holiday table to be the place where he decides to chastise Donna’s adult kids, especially Michael. These people have never had positive conflict resolution modeled for them, so it’s all about awkward silence and explosions of curses.
While the other two episodes I’ve spotlighted are about people coming to a state of harmony, this one is chock full of dissonance. What resonates so much about Curtis’ performance is the authenticity of emotion. She is participating in a generational ritual of all the mothers who have come before her, the martyrdom of the mother. Her kids intuitively know it, warning people to not ask her if she is “okay” because that will lead to something horrible. Of course, someone does, providing Curtis the space to deliver an emotionally heartbreaking yet terrifying monologue. It also highlights how women are expected to give all of themselves in exchange for very little during these stressful periods. Donna wants to do this for her family but despises every second because it takes everything out of her. Her mental health is in decline, and alcohol has become the easiest of crutches.
Donna is paralleled by Michael, her son, who will follow her down the road of alcohol abuse. He clearly has mental health challenges that aren’t being addressed. The dinner table fight between him, and Odenkirk is so tense it reminds me of some rough moments in my childhood, and I expect it to do the same with many of my readers. Michael is not a saint, though; he antagonizes Carmy by talking about seeing Claire (Molly Gordon), a woman with whom Carmy is developing a relationship in the present day. Everyone is so angry & seething, with surprisingly Richie and his girlfriend coming the closest to having a genuinely tender moment amongst all this chaos.
The first season of The Bear didn’t wow me into the latter half. The second season had me hooked from moment one. I love that we have a show featuring people with authentic problems; they struggle with things so many of us do. Yet, they are working toward solutions in a way that is also realistic. Mistakes are going to happen, people are going to slip up. The key is that we have empathy for each other; we don’t immediately jump on someone because they fucked up. We all do. Every performance in this show, from regular cast to guest, is done thoughtfully and adds to the spider web of connections and relationships. Life is not an individual journey; it is composed of countless intersections & interactions. How we handle those affects the next step we take. I’m so excited to discover where these characters go as the series continues and what they will be for each other when the final episode comes.
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