The Bear on FX: aka HEARD! aka YES CHEF! aka Ketamine Gene Wilder cooks for u

Ketamine Gene Wilder frequents the pizza place my nephew works and i just missed seeing him there by like 5 mins one time.

Just watched the first episode of season 2, so glad to have this show back. We had just finished season 1 of Succession, and it's wild to veer from a show where i don't give a shit about what happens to anyone and I want them all to fail to a show where I care about everyone and want them all to succeed.

Hell yah. Great music choices too. The Hornsby opener, transcendental blues by Steve Earle into New Noise to close it out.

if no one has seen Matty Matheson’s cooking videos I’d recommend because those are wild fun.

pure chaotic energy, highly recommend

in other news:

password is “speedboatmojito” all one word

just watched the first couple of episodes, going to savor the rest over the weekend. the never-ending chaos was anxiety-inducing in the first season, but the show's rhythms are kinda comforting now heh

the Marcus episode is a really lovely little break of pace

xpost "gofastboatsmojito" !!!!

oh fuck i knew i screwed it up lol thankyou

That made me laugh really hard. Of course that guy would have been a huge fan of the Miami Vice movie...

He and every other sensible person.

i'm a fiend for italian beef

In the Ever/Alinea-restaurant episode, I love how a) it's Ritchie who gets sent into that 3-Michelin star world and how he dials up the Chicago accent when presenting the deep-dish canapés. Also, having Olivia Coleman as the chef keeps it credibly as someone very privileged without having it be a dude at the top. And her warmth and unintimidating manner seemed very credible as the kind of person who is nearly impossible to reach one-on-one and with tough underlings, but face-to-face can be incredibly friendly.

What a series. Again.
PS I adored the little omelette scene. Just process and reaction; making something with love and seeing it received with love.

oh damn, I put this off after Star Trek last night because I thought it was week to week and wanted to save up episodes

i watched through ep 5 last night, hoping to finish today but ep 6 is weirdly over an hour long?

god help me i could look at ketamine gene wilder all day

I have managed to convince the husband to watch this, which means I will be going in on season one again before season two. A treat for me!

big fan of shortish episodes too

i have read elsewhere that S2 not quite as safdi-esque insane?

We've seen five of the new season so far, and while there is still plenty of hectic screaming, it's in service of something productive. The characters, acting, music cues, use of the city, all top notch.

made it up to half-way through the guest-star packed christmas episode last night.

i got up early & watched 2 eps while eating breakfast

brb going to copenhagen

the scenes w carmy & claire are so good, the way they talk about random shit & stare morse code to each other is v good

omg that “can’t hardly wait” needledrop

literally a …

(are you ready)

.. CHEFS KISS

youre welcome

THIS GODDAMN GORGEOUS BEAUTIFUL SHOW WTF WTF

#gofastboatsmojitos obviously unassailable but the stuff with Carmy and the alarm is also A+++.

i have read elsewhere that S2 not quite as safdi-esque insane?

NCIS: Lake Michigan

well buckle up for the christmas episode fuckos

Haha was gonna say….

real talk

the family stuff at the heart of this is so real.

like, i don’t even have a 10th of that level of craziness in my own family, i don’t know chicago from shit, etc etc

but the way when you have a family w ~history~ to a level that you are a telepathic air traffic controller waving each other away from the hazards

the way when you visit after being away that at it’s worst the house itself is like a vice that is constantly squeezing you down to your smallest denominator… the way you are always, ALWAYS the person you were when you were 10, the way you start feeling like you’re 10 just being around it too long
… the way you expand & become alive when you go away and you contract & sort of die a little when you return…
the way the love is so crystallized & so real but so small you can hold it; the way it lifts you up so quickly but the way all that bad is just always there, hanging, unsaid, in the air like a poison gas that only becomes toxic if you acknowledge it

sorry tl:dr

this christmas episode really got me feeling some type of way

ok i finished the series & christ
anyone who says this season is more laid back can come tell me why i’m STILL crying

guys

this show should come with meds that final episode was like fuckin psychological kidney punches

floored by the scene in FORKS where they drop Diamond Diary by Tangerine Dream (in Hi-Fi) after only ever hearing it in the movie Thief. Fucking bravo

yeah the music this season was consistently kinda perfect

not margie’s candies putting up a “if you’re here cuz you just watched the bear, fuck off” sign

— ashley ray is ON TOUR (@theashleyray) June 25, 2023

idgi, did Margie's put up a sign?

that sundae looked fucking incredible

The editing on this series is impeccable. How you do it, folks.

I love this show so much, "ketamine GW" is jokes. But there's a lot of Philip Glass in there too, esp circa Chuck Close's 1969 portrait.

Margie's is an institution, and like many institutions, pretty unremarkable, except for the storied space/seashell sundae dishes. One of the restaurant cameos from the first half of the new season, Lao Peng You, I was actually just at a week or so ago; it's one of the few places to get great Chinese DUMPLINGS! on the north side. Another, Avec, I haven't been to in eons, but it's a linchpin of Chicago casual fine dining, kind of Mediterranean food served in a communal setting, from Paul Kahan's One Off Hospitality group. Another of his places is Publican, whose smaller outpost appeared in an episode this season; their meat guy, Rob Levitt, used to run a place called Butcher & Larder (among other gigs) before getting recruited to Publican.

Anyway, this show really seems to get Chicago, and so far there have been a ton of details it didn't need to get right that it did get right. For example, in an exterior shot montage of the two chefs going back to culinary school, I commented that they were really close to Kendall College, and ... that's where they end up!

When we were watching last I asked my wife if she thought the actor that plays Carm's sister was pregnant in real life, and that they wrote it into the show. She was, like, nah, but I was right! Apparently, she is also the daughter of Chris Elliott. And used to be on SNL?

Man, the whole cast is just perfect, including cameos and one-offs.

yeah otm

also lovvvvved Lisa this season, that episode where she busted out the karaoke was like WOWEEWOW
also borrowing the knife from Carm etc <3

So I'm only a few episodes into the new season but something that I still wonder about is Carmy's stress dream from from first season. What are the numbers that he held out (and that Kevin McHale tries to sabotage him on)?

Man, maybe I spoke too soon, that Christmas episode was full on Safdie. And clearly every actor wants a piece of The Bear. And as always, excellent music cues!

Kinda pissed that the only piece of music that wasn't identified — artist and title — in the subtitles for the Copenhagen episode was the instrumental jazz piece. I would happily have looked up whoever that was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy-v-FgiUD8

iirc

Thanks!

Doing my Monday email admin while listening to 'Scenes From the Southside', the first time I've listened to this record since maybe 1989. Opening the season with 'The Show Goes On' was kinda perfect.

cool little edit

Sydney Adamu the bear edit #thebear #TheBearFX ayo edebiri cook food omelet natalie sugar berzatto carmysyd sydcarmy hulu carmy syd cooking edit pic.twitter.com/WRW7SrKr4s

— villain (@villain_phoenix) June 26, 2023

what a great follow up season!

I thought it was week to week and wanted to save up episodes

I feel like it might benefit from this format though idk

jamie lee curtis barely appearing but just knocking it out of the park

platt is so great

There's that pretty well known adage that the sign of a good ensemble cast is when every character can support their own stand alone episode. I think that's where this show is at (and has for sure demonstrated a few times already). We just saw the Sydney hair episode and it was great, and mostly funny (for once).

yeah that episode was so good. directed by Janicza Bravo who is lowkey kind of a goat imo (ie she did juneteenth ep of Atlanta, hook ep of Pokerface, etc)

i like how much of Ayo we get in this season where you really palpably feel and see her anxiety and emotional blockages at the same level we’ve seen carmy

it really sets the table well for ep9 and 10

The hair ep also written by Ayo and Lionel Boyce (Marcus!).

The hair episode and the wedding episode were my favourites. I did not care for the final episode, with its return to people just shouting at each other. Plus, I feel like I'm being mildly gaslighted by talk of season five. I thought we all agreed this was the final season. I didn't think it was a case of it possibly getting axed, I thought this was the end of the story.

We just saw the wedding episode, which was a bit mawkish but sweet and really played to the show's strengths and themes and deep bench of actors doing good things. I am starting to get mildly annoyed with all the needle drops - constant, relentless - which I find a little lazy, given how much emotional heavy lifting they are doing for the show. And all the close-ups ... once you notice it you can't un-notice it! "I feel like I sat in the front row of the IMAX by mistake" otm.

Wouldn't say the constant background music bothers me but the final episode was striking in its lack of cues. They probably could benefit from cutting the music back some

Catching up with the new season and 4 episodes in, and it's already miles better than last season. They remembered the jokes! Ayo's episode is also fab.

finally watching season 3, about halfway through and i love it. kinda aimless but enjoying the art direction and the mood/texture. not really much more to reveal about these core characters i guess but i still care about what theyre doing and how they do it.

https://i.imgur.com/lH9F163.png

lmao

My fave phone contacts detail is that Carmy still has Pete saved as "Sugar's boyfriend (Pete?)"

A moment to consider the Fak gene pool is broad/deep enough to produce Matty Matheson, John Cena, and Brie Larson.

Had mixed feelings about this season in the end. I feel like it sort of crept away from itself and the characters, and in this season it was like these are the most articulate and open emotionally troubled people of all time, who voice that state of being in great detail very often. It reminded me more than once of Dawson's Creek. It felt like everyone had gone to therapy a lot.

I like the first half of the season more then felt it just sort of slid away as it went on. The final episode was hugely disappointing imo, like just a page of dialogue, when it became clear it wasn't going to move on from that one scene it was a real anticlimax.

In the end it resisted having any of the main characters do anything, besides commitments to future actions. Maybe that's setting up a new season but even worse if so. All the plot, in fact, just completely disappeared despite the fact this season had a lot of quite hard and specific plot points, a literal ticking clock!

I like the show a lot in general but I think it could be so much better if they weren't afraid of making decisions as they have been for two seasons now.

If anything, this entire show has kind of been about fear and anxiety over making decisions.

I'm heading into the finale, and yes, I do agree that the pace in the last few episodes has slowed and kind of tries my patience. (Also the wedding bit under the table was a bit too cute and precious, like the temperamental opposite of DD's family dinner, but without the teeth or car-crash catharsis.)

But OTOH: "He made you a great offer! Go suck his balls."

Ayo

Adjacent to the show, but this story about abuse at Noma reminds me of what was frustrating about this show after season one. Carmy had left this exacting, abusive kitchen to return to Chicago, and take over his brother's humble sandwich shop...but then aspires to turn it into the kind of restaurant that traumatized him. This is fine in itself, but the show became about aspirational and exacting fine dining (with Amex bumper ads) without really going into: is it possible for Carmy to run an exacting kitchen without it becoming toxic? Season One was special, especially coming out of the #MeToo era, in figuring out how this diverse group of people (diverse in experience, temperament, all that) would work together, and it felt like a way of modeling that. After the first season, it just became a kitchen with the authority of EVERY SECOND COUNTS looming over them.

Well, as another story about Trauma (tm), there's that thread of generational abuse, where Carmy is simultaneously attempting to break from his family (depressives, alcoholics, emotionally abusive) while inflicting or at least enabling the same damage on his coworkers. In the past few seasons they've showed glimmers of him Doing the Work, but iirc they haven't really depicted him moving on, emotionally. Probably because the show is fueled by yelling and stress, and eliminating that leaves it with little but shots of prepping fancy food. It would be a bit like watching The Pitt if it was set in a fancy clinic instead of a big city ER.

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/tv-shows/the-bear-gary-episode-explained/

Ahead of “The Bear” Season 5, FX dropped a surprise tie-in episode of its critically-acclaimed darling on Tuesday. The hourlong “Gary” is available to watch now on Hulu.

The installment focuses on Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Mikey (Jon Bernthal) and was written by both Moss-Bachrach and Bernthal. Series creator Christopher Storer directed the episode. Set a few years before the beginning of “The Bear,” Gary follows best friends Richie and Mikey on a work trip.

I hope we finally learn how he became the Bear.

Hell yes. Moss Bacharach & Bernthal could take turns reading the phone book & I’d watch it

In the past few seasons they've showed glimmers of him Doing the Work, but iirc they haven't really depicted him moving on, emotionally. Probably because the show is fueled by yelling and stress, and eliminating that leaves it with little but shots of prepping fancy food. It would be a bit like watching The Pitt if it was set in a fancy clinic instead of a big city ER.

Which is why this show would have been soooo much more transcendent as a shorter 3-4 season arc, with every episode firmly advancing the ensemble's emotional and professional growth rather than playing crap out (Syd's decision, Carm's mother/brother issues, Fak filler). The show needs to just end already, and I'm ecstatic the 5th season will be the final one. Wonder how they're going to handle the passing of Rob Reiner - I adored his role and it was just getting ramped up.

your enjoyment of “Gary” will vary depending on how much you enjoy coked-out conversations jk

It’s a nice showcase of how good these two actors are together, just watching them play in a sandbox for their characters. I dug it.

the ending is kinda “whoah!”

Also I am vey down with Cousin Richie’s road trip cd

*very

This was fucking fantastic imo, Bernthal was just next level good (so was Moss Bacharach but less surprised about his turn). Wondering if I'm not remembering something I should from the main series, but wasn't clear on the timeline for that ending.

also, "Althea when Althea"

I liked that the entire premise of the episode was about doing a mundane thing for Uncle Jimmy, when both the viewers and Richie are always trying to suss out exactly how shady his business dealings are. Just some unspoken tension underlying the entire plot.

mm hmm, how do they feel about ketamine vibes?
https://deadline.com/2026/06/gene-wilder-biopic-dito-montiel-in-works-1236932047/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojjCvICC86c