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

their chemistry is crazy-good
when they’re not talking the way they look at each other is amazing

Can't believe Richie was the bellhop in Royal Tenenbaums

https://i.ibb.co/12349C2/54d1bd7df2c04-esq-02-double-breasted-royal-tenenbaums-0913-mdn-27447800.jpg

I read an interview with Claire's actor and she made it sound like S2 was kind of a one-off? I saw her resume and she keeps pretty busy.

xpost holy shit

That fridge scene, I hope it's not a tragic end to their affair, because it serves the perfect show-don't-tell realization that Carm *can* have it both ways, or can at least try. Jimmy warns him not to take his eyes off the prize, as it were, but here he is, literally locked away, and the world doesn't end without him.

This is a good show but I keep thinking that the positive reception has a lot to do with how bad most other shows are rn.

what if…hear me out… what if a good thing is just good

"better than everything else" seems like a good reason for praise IMO

show is great on its own merits.

Jordan I have totally thought about this as a breath of cold Chicago air after too much weightless Netflix dreck

If only more shows could be even half as good as this one in any era of TV history. It's amazing.

It's ok! Pretty, pretty good, even!

I’ve seen the last episode twice and on second viewing I didn’t think that what Carmy said was actually so bad that it would be a relationship killer, at least not with anyone who had a good bead in his neuroses which I feel like Claire did. We’ll see.

I can't believe he's still in the freezer

And like they only came back to the freezer to yell at him

Unnecessary

lol did they ever figure out the name of the fridge guy? Was it Tony Toni Tone?

Tina had another name beginning with a T entirely. Not a shortform of Anthony at all.

Think it was Tony, Tim, Terry and something else?

was there a Tom in there. Think there was a somewhat soundalike so with the o vowel.

no an Oakland soul in site

wasn’t it Carmy thought Tony was the fridge guy but then Tina said nah dude the fridge guy is Terry

something like that

^yes that is correct

I think fridge thing goes on for a while maybe even last couple of episodes so everybody has a different take on what his name is.

like its been talked about for a while that it needs to be done and Carmy needs to ring him and sort it out so the events in this episode are just a culmination of his not getting that done. & if it isn't quite everybody that has a different take it seems pretty close to

this show is definitely better than average but i would not say it is (imo) "great"
* i find the music direction mawkish tbh. why spend all that money on popular songs for your teevee show? idgi and it takes me out of the story
* unnecessary romance -- the best part of S1 was 0 romance whatsoever
* I love the workplace stuff and really enjoyed the Richie ep where he understood what makes people dedicated to service. i feel that 100%
* the Christmas ep reminded me of my friend's mom who also used to drink (a lot) while she cooked and once did exactly what the mom in the show did w her car

I LOVE Tina. Also Syd and Marcus but Tina is easily my fave. Loved the scenes where Syd goes around eating everything in the city. I think I only have a couple of eps left in S2. Also love the short runtime. I watch it when I get home from work. At a restaurant.

When Tina smiles after being offered a chance at a new job? <3 <3 <3

when she sings karaoke? <3 <3 <3

Syd's food crawl was super melancholic for me!
All of the stuff with Tina and the knife hit a sentimental sweet spot too.

The number one thing it has going for it that makes it great, imo, is that every character can sustain an episode on their own. Again, the season's payoff was literally locking the ostensible star in a room and letting everyone else run things. But beyond that, the acting, writing and direction is impeccable, so if that's not enough to make a show great (which is not to say perfect), then what is?

The music to me actually brings me into the show, because by and large they're *not* particularly popular songs, but they are by artists that people listen to (or tie in thematically). And when they do drop in the pricey huge pop hit, its context is a personal and emotional character payoff.

* i find the music direction mawkish tbh. why spend all that money on popular songs for your teevee show? idgi and it takes me out of the story

Agree with this 100%. There were like 2 music cues the entire season that I actually liked (when Richie wakes up to the Tangerine Dream music from Thief and the Ethiopian jazz when Marcus was in Copenhagen), but 90% of them were either sad middle aged man indie ballads or some record-collector bullshit where I could practically feel some asshole's elbow in my ribs — "Hey, you like that? [cue 45 minutes of Discogs trivia delivered through a cloud of death breath and BO]". Also, not every scene needs to have a goddamn song playing through it.

I love everything about this show except the music.

Next season I want Uncle Jimmy to get his own whole episode just so we can figure out exactly what kind of gangster he is.

glad to see other people bothered by the music cues. they are simply too loud IMO.

when she sings karaoke? <3 <3 <3

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Thursday, July 6, 2023 11:40 AM bookmarkflaglink

I loved that. admittedly got anxious when she showed up because a lot of 'high stakes' TV has gotten to where they cram in unnecessary conflict at every juncture, so I worried that Lisa's co-workers were going to clown her singing or something, so was very happy to see the heartwarming reaction she got to her song.

y'all are nuts, I love the music cues

https://uproxx.com/indie/the-bear-season-two-soundtrack-christopher-storer-josh-senior-interview/

Yeah idk, it just feels like there's a lot of padding around the good and more unique stuff in this show. The dialogue in the Carmy/Claire scenes and some of the Al-Anon monologues is kinda trite, and the montages of people ordering and eating food at restaurants and cafes is nice but could be out of any food/travel show (albeit with more tasteful music here). I really enjoyed the Copenhagen episode, but the random slice of life bits (like the injured cyclist) felt plucked out of other shows like High Maintenance and Atlanta.

I'm enjoying it for sure, just wouldn't describe it as this totally amazing show that everyone needs to watch.

The music feels pandery to me and I strongly dislike being pandered to by someone whose expertise and breadth of knowledge is no better than my own. This might be my inner asshole speaking but she is loud.
It really does take me out of the show, and agree that not every scene needs music. I applaud the support of original soundtrack music vs the mixtape approach.

Idk about objectively “great” but for me if they had thought more expansively/creatively about the music I’d be more likely to personally consider it great.

One of the issues I had with the music in S1 is that it seemed to lean too much on stuff like Wilco and Sufjan Stevens, which bothered me as a Chicagoan because I felt like it was trying to be representative of the city, even though it didn't seem to be connected to what the characters might be into. For the same reason, I also found the audio cameo from Lin Brehmer -- beloved DJ for a local triple-A station -- kind of cringey. There were some odd choices early in S2 (Fine Young Cannibals? Counting Crows?) but I feel like it mostly improved as the season went on.

Way too much REM, but I enjoyed Syd's day off scouting food joints to some lovely mid/late Durutti Column tune and a Martin Rev cue that popped up somewhere iirc.

Way too much REM

rong

record-collector bullshit where I could practically feel some asshole's elbow in my ribs — "Hey, you like that? [cue 45 minutes of Discogs trivia delivered through a cloud of death breath and BO]"

i thought this board was a safe space

mawkishness of the soundtrack was precisely of a piece with the mawkishness many other aspects of the show. quality was all over the place, xmas dinner and richie episode ruled, other parts were like idk gilmore girls but restaurant workers

Nah, I like REM, but I don't need to hear Strange Currencies three times in one season for no real reason.

mawkishness of the soundtrack was precisely of a piece with the mawkishness many other aspects of the show. quality was all over the place, xmas dinner and richie episode ruled, other parts were like idk gilmore girls but restaurant workers

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Thursday, 6 July 2023 23:58 (one minute ago) link

hard agree

richie ep was a cool anime, john mulaney was real good

the bear would be really funny w/ the gilmore girls soundtrack tho

My John Mayer tolerance is much higher than many have, but the bouncy "Last Train Home" ending an S1 episode felt corny especially, as others say of the cues, turned up so loudly.

But still, I had never heard "Oh My Heart" before S1 and now it's one of my favorite R.E.M. songs (have always been a passive listener more than a big fan).

i generally think they do a pretty good job with music on this show but they do way too much of it

Honestly the music barely registers with me, negatively or positively, and usually it's just, "Hey, that sounds like Michael Stipe."

i enjoy the music in the show - especially the music this season compared to s1 which was def v wilco-heavy as noted upthrwad

but also obv its general music preferences, how you prefer to watch things with or w out musuc and what kind

i’m a fan of popular music needledrops, i like when songs i know & enjoy end up in shows, like REM or Replacements or a random late-period Pearl Jam song. But also i absorb a lot of dadrock classic rock normcore music & i regularly think of it in terms of soundtracks, constantly music-supervising my own mental soundtrack i guess idk not that that makes me special lol tl dr

xp same here, Leee!

the music doesn’t really jump out at me, it’s more of a “hey I kind of recognize that” 90% of the time and I feel like it’s almost used as… comfort food?

Finished s2, this is such a weird show. Obviously there's a lot to like, but half the time it feels like watching a WB show. When there's not kitchen yelling happening, it's often cloyingly sentimental with really corny dialogue (just shot in a gritty hand-held close-up that makes it feel arty).

Also can't count how many times they did this non-sequitur dialogue tic:

Person A: "This really important restaurant thing needs to happen, if we don't take care of it we're fucked."

Person B: "Did you know I have a girlfriend?" or "What was your relationship with your mother like?"

So much Eddie Vedder too, definitely felt the music drops got cornier near the end.

The chef in Denmark is unnervingly good looking.

Definitely a glow-up from Midsommar.