When did The Bear become this boring?
The signs were there in the last season , the third, which often dragged but managed to pull things out of the bag with a couple of megawatt episodes, whenever Jamie Lee Curtis showed up as Carmy’s mum basically.
But now, here we are back at The Bear and nothing much is changing. After the high emotional drama that made the first season a masterpiece - it was about a scrappy working class family reuniting around a sandwich joint called The Beef after the suicide of the elder brother, Mikey - and the deepening of the characters in season two, season three saw the re-launch of The Beef as a posh restaurant called The Bear, and now season four sees the running of that restaurant.
The problem is, the running of restaurants is not that exciting. Stressful, yes, but not exciting. Lots of admin.
To fill in the lack of action, The Bear begins (this review is based on the first three episodes) with long scenes of moping and soul-searching by the all characters over bills and menu changes and having a messy workstation. It’s like sitting in on a long group therapy session where you learn over the course of a few hours that nothing is particularly wrong with anybody.
The show’s creator, Christopher Storrer, has realised this but the attempts to bring in peril are a tad laughable. The cliffhanger at the end of last season was about a review of the new restaurant being printed. Carmy’s Uncle Jimmy, who funds the thing, basically said if it’s not a good review, the restaurant is doomed. Well it’s not much of a spoiler to say the review isn’t great, but it’s not terrible. The main criticism is that the restaurant is chaotic.
There is urgency here though, look! Carmy’s uncle and his accountant pal Computer are saying in the wake of the review in the Chicago Tribune review (look I hate to mention it, but are paper reviews the be all and end all these days? Isn’t Trip Advisor more important? Moving swiftly on...) they are definitely closing the restaurant and for some reason they’re putting a countdown clock into the kitchen to mark the time left. As a theatrical device its crushingly dumb. Why not just shut it down now and save everyone - including us - all this trouble.
Carmy has an idea to get a Michelin star in that time to save the restaurant. Cue him slipping into another mood as he ponders whether he can do this. And ponders over leaving his ex-Claire Bear, and the usual stuff.
‘Guilt is a motherfucker,” he says at one point. Yeah but unless we’re in the hands of Hitchcock, it’s not dramatic.
Meanwhile Sydney is still deciding whether to move to that other restaurant she’s been offered a job at. Still! It feels like she’s been mulling that over for years.
There are attempts to ramp up the tension. But in one sequence in episode one, with the clock ticking and one of the show’s trademark super-fast montages begins, a cheesy synth motivational tune starts up and the show starts to resemble Rocky 3. And then a robot turns up to seal the deal! It’s a delivery robot but recalls Sico the bot that helps around Rocky’s house. If only this were as much fun as Rocky 3.
The major problem we have here is Carmy as a lead character. He was once compelling, the little kid of the family trying to establish himself, a fuck up in a family of fuck ups but one with raw talent and a sensitive nature. Now, with Cousin Richie remote to him, no sign of Claire Bear and him mostly getting into funks for very minor restaurant reasons, he comes across as shallow.
His trite therapy speak - all this ‘I’m working on it’ - is now more stultifying indulgence rather than a search for meaning and an escape from trauma. He hasn’t been to see his sister Natali’s baby and yes, it’s because he’s under pressure but that just seems a bit stupid. Not a result of inner torture.
This should be a good opportunity to have a man suffering in silence and finding his way out of it. But in the context of the show, where it’s all raw and explosive and verbose, it just doesn’t figure. He’s not in a hostile male environment. Everyone likes him.
He has lost his spark, he is distanced. Fallen into depression. But the show now fails to help us empathise with Carmy and his struggles, he is going nowhere, and its just tedious for us.
I’m also finding the literalness of the music annoying. As Sweeps and Ebraheim study the restaurant trade, Talk Talk’s Life’s What You Make It plays. When Richie is talking to his ex-wife on the phone and they start finally getting along, The Ronettes’ plays, with the lyric, ‘The best part of breakin’ up, is making up...’
Thanks for the assist with the music, we wouldn’t have understood what’s going on without it.
The very best American shows say something about America. While initially The Bear hit upon working-class struggle in a way that hadn’t been on screens for a long time - when shows like Succession have their cake and eat it by damning the rich but also pornify their lifestyle - but that has now gone. With this posh restaurant at the heart of things, what was formerly about the clash of classes, now simply feels middle class - and morose. Again, where is the peril?
In episode three, there is a standout moment, where a girl in recovery from cancer visits the restaurant with her family. Richie arranges for her to taste one of the original Beef sandwiches, and because she has never seen snow in Chicago, he also rallies the troops to create a snow machine out the back of the restaurant. The girl is blown away, spinning in it and entranced. It shows what joy putting in extra effort for another human can create. And finally all the team smile.
Carmy finally goes to see Claire Bear as a result. But rather than get together, they discuss how ‘the noise in his head’ stops him communicating. And Claire talks of her own trait of blowing up good things. And she says, “I thought if we could push past how scary it was maybe it could have been incredible.”
And then she goes back inside. This is the uncomfortable truth about depression. It gets depressing for everyone. People - viewers - walk away.
