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

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.

someone tell those girls they're cookin stupid

otm

had to do a double take when i saw whose review this is. she’s so real for this pic.twitter.com/n5GzLIamuB

— c (@toodamnbright) July 12, 2023

lol
she rules

She's a writer/producer on "What We Do In The Shadows," "Big Mouth" and "Dickinson," isn't she? Must be exhausting to be on strike with so many unions.

The Durutti Column track on episode 3 of season 2 was a jam! How have I never heard Fidelity before... It's like something I wish Slowdive made after Souvlaki

Didn't think this season quite lived up to the first - so many separate episodes and less time with the crew together it was less cohesive. Some of the music cues were overblown (literally, in the mix) but mostly inoffensive.

simultaneously thinking it needed 3-5 more episodes vs. it didn't really need to exist at all because the first season worked so well as a self-contained narrative

Watched the last two episodes last night, and I was consistently amused over this season by how much flak Carmy takes from himself and Sydney over allowing himself to get into a relationship when he has so many people depending on him and so much important shit going on. Meanwhile Claire is being a fucking Chicago ER doctor and still managing to get places on time and get dolled up for her boyfriend's restaurant opening.

Anyway, I loved it, it was all fantastic.

It's funny how we have so many threads about bears that it's easier to search for this one using "ketamine".

lol

It's funny how we have so many threads about bears that it's easier to search for this one using "ketamine".

new borad description

Meanwhile Claire is being a fucking Chicago ER doctor and still managing to get places on time and get dolled up for her boyfriend's restaurant opening.

Yeah, I thought something similar. Funny that she wasn't as high-strung or distracted by her job as he was.

I think that was all intentional, wasn't it? We see everything from Carm's all-in martyr perspective, more or less, but Claire exists to show that there is another way, it is possible to balance a high stress job and life.

Yes, I suppose it must be an intentional comparison. Obviously Claire's profession has some extremely high bars to entry, and you don't get to the point where you are an actual ER doctor unless you've proved that you can handle stress. Whereas we've seen in the show (and some of us have probably a million stories from our real lives) that it doesn't take much to get your foot in the door of food service, and you can be all kinds of fuck-up and still keep making progress. As long as the final decisions are someone else's, you can hide your fuck-upedness for a very long time, too.

Definitely intentional, there were a couple different moments where direct comparisons to their professions were made and where they acknowledged they were both extremely talented, hard working people, but of course, leave it to Carmy, right at his moment of triumph, to utterly tank the relationship despite all his friends constantly reminding him how lucky he is to be with Claire. The Christmas episode makes it clear that they've all experienced some considerable emotional growth in the ensuing years, but Carmy remains closed off and confused about how to relate to other human beings.

Also, am I the only person who finds it strange that Carmy and family refer to each other as Bear, but everyone also calls her Clair Bear. I know that's also intentional, but it's just weird to me.

We finished S2 finally and basically liked it. Mostly for the characters and performances, a lot of the plot points were very "do you see" — especially the last episode, where the guy who's not good at opening up and letting people in spends the whole time literally locked in cooler.

It goes into the burgeoning category I call Therapy Drama — also including Ted Lasso, EEAAO, others I'm not thinking of right now — where the plot is basically "flawed people learn how to process their traumas and forgive themselves/each other."

shout out to Brockmire and You're The Worst for doing the flawed people trauma thing but they just remain terrible people

ketamine say hi to me

xpost while Brockmire himself remained very flawed, the character and the show were hilarious and dark. not really the vibe the bear is going for even if they put themselves in the comedy category.

Also, am I the only person who finds it strange that Carmy and family refer to each other as Bear, but everyone also calls her Clair Bear. I know that's also intentional, but it's just weird to me.

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Wednesday, August 2, 2023 1:35 PM

I thought it was sort of cute. But also he really shouldn't be so surprised that for a million dollars she remembers that it is also the name of the restaurant.

What I found confusing and possibly stilted were characters calling one another "cousin" frequently. Ok, for Richie it makes sense. But normally I see this as signposting to the audience that someone is related to someone somehow (does anyone address their sibling as "brother" or "sister" IRL?) but I just couldn't tell if this is a real thing people are supposed to do.

shout out to Brockmire and You're The Worst for doing the flawed people trauma thing but they just remain terrible people

Hey, who knows, maybe everyone on The Bear will stay their version of terrible. It's far from over yet.

especially the last episode, where the guy who's not good at opening up and letting people in spends the whole time literally locked in cooler.

I chose to find this funny instead of annoying, but you're fundamentally right. I don't think another show could have got away with it even a little bit.

It also turns out that the Clark Kent disguise would work on my husband, since he recognized neither Joel McHale nor John Mulaney without prompting, because they were out of context and wearing glasses.

What I found confusing and possibly stilted were characters calling one another "cousin" frequently. Ok, for Richie it makes sense. But normally I see this as signposting to the audience that someone is related to someone somehow (does anyone address their sibling as "brother" or "sister" IRL?) but I just couldn't tell if this is a real thing people are supposed to do.

I read it as a way of saying "family, or close enough." Maybe not a way "real" people talk but the way these people talk.

where the guy who's not good at opening up and letting people in spends the whole time literally locked in cooler.

the implausibility of them leaving him there and not even giving him updates bothered me

the writers breezily don't worry about implausible plot points (like the rich relative being okay with all the kids at his birthday party getting drugged)

and i'm like, maybe you should worry more