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

i am devoted to Matty Matheson’s youtube channel cooking show

i can’t eat half of what he makes but i find it so therapeutic to watch! he’s so relaxed & good vibes, i heart him

his youtube series from maybe 2-3 years ago where he was interacting with his zoned out staffers more was hilarious

i’ve watched some of those too they’re v funny

i’m obsessed with his jetsons microwave drawer, it’s so wild to me

Billy Zane episode is all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahlGT2dVToI

!!!

have now finished both seasons. it's really good. they absolutely whiff the s2 finale though

Hard disagree that they "absolutely whiffed" it.

the stuff with claire and the fridge is just...no. no

as i say, great show, was pleased to see the richie episode is the highest rated on imdb, nothing wrong with feelgood-of-substance

That was a little weak, but the rest of the ep was so good - JLC was perfect, again. And watching Sydney work through her feelings of sheer stress and confidence was great.

okay fairer to say the s2 finale is really good, even while carmy is in the fridge, then it turns out he was there not as symbolic of letting go of being in control but so they could contrive a moment of absurd melodrama where lengthy character arcs are thrown in the fire. him being in the fridge should have been freeing, and claire should have been there as he emerged, euphoric. end of show.

sex education S2 finale another one that totally duffs the ending in order to ruin a romance. it's like these shows create something amazing but then can't refrain from punishing their protagonists. we live in an age of bummer

Tbf most romance ends in bummer so I’d say it’s an era of realism.

since the beginning of time protagonists don’t get what they want, this is normal

yeah but the lengths gone to and the sudden character inconsistencies wrought in order to deny them feel very in vogue. the dea ex machina is now shiva

like, with carmen in the fridge, i thought the pivotal scene would be with tina talking to him, but they somehow cut that off after a few seconds and sent him into the Tailspin which the entire series has been cathartically pulling him out of, it was like his arc was all for nothing

all that said, there have been a lot of satisfying arcs for other characters of course. although marcus' arc is kind of dropped for the last few episodes and then also given a bummer ending. i guess there are a lot of plates to juggle

what i didn’t buy was claire’s immediate rejection of carmy in that situation, despite what he said

Loved the season but thought those scenes didn't quite work. I get why they did it though: Carmy's redemption is the centre of everything and a saved Carmy = no show.

what i didn’t buy was claire’s immediate rejection of carmy in that situation, despite what he said

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 13 March 2024 08:01 (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, this was one of those glaring character inconsistencies i was referring to, the most egregious one

like, carmen's portrayal throughout the show is a really good and realistic presentation of someone who's clearly neurodivergent. in this sense i can easily imagine him going a bit loopy while locked in a fridge. what i can't imagine is someone he's in a relationship with simply not forgiving him after magically overhearing him expressing self-doubt

then again i feel like the kind of loopy he went wasn't quite right either, i feel like Real Carmy would have come up with a new dish while sat in there

or maybe it's not even the rejection i didn't buy, but the manner of it, like she'd just realised some deep incontrovertible truth about him that could never be remedied, rather than like "what?? fuck off carmy i'm outta here"

I wonder if there will be a deeper Carmy and Syd thing happening for the next season.

they had their scene already! oh god i hope they don't fuck up s3

maybe the neurodivergents do belong together though. i wouldn't root against them as an item, too-neat as it might be

also also, i spent most of both seasons reading marcus as gay, so the romantic tension between him and sydney caught me off guard a bit

I did, too, especially whenever his dapper roommate dropped by.

Marcus in general, I could never figure out why they were letting him experiment with molecular gastronomy donuts or whatever in the back of the beef shop. Like, they justify why Sydney is there, and of course we know why Carm is there. But Marcus, even in season 1, he seems to be working toward the goal set up in season 2.

The ‘romantic tension’ between Marcus and Syd was responsible for some of the worst scenes in Series 2.

I think it's essentially a badly written show with some good scenes and good actors.

yeah, as i say marcus had a good arc until it vanished around the time S2 decided to 'get serious' and they kept him involved by working some bullshit romantic intrigue up, it was the biggest failing of the series as a whole imo

i also read his 'roommate' as his partner yeah and that they were making no big deal of it and that this was good

idk i bought it. maybe he was gay. maybe he was bi. who knows. surprising things can happen in high pressure situations.

he'd entertained her to dinner in S1 without the merest hint of a frisson. ach maybe

I didn't care for the breakup either. Claire works in an even more stressful environment, so you'd think she'd recognize that Carmy is just spiraling from stress.

Oh right, the roommate in S1 totally read as his partner.

I feel like there's a little bit of "this character's arc didn't go the way I wanted, therefore this is bad actually" going on here, but eh, I guess that seems to be pretty par for TV and film these days.

Marcus in general, I could never figure out why they were letting him experiment with molecular gastronomy donuts or whatever in the back of the beef shop

I kind of accepted that because there’s a really strong theme in the show about the obsessive pursuit of perfection, beyond the needs of a Chicago beef sandwich shop. Carmy relates to Marcus’s obsessive quest, respects it, and allows him the space to pursue it.

That's sort of what I got, too, with Carm the catalyst that prompts Marcus, the former McDonald's employee, to pursue more ambitious culinary goals, and Carm recognizing that, too.

yeah they had one conversation about it but that was it

kinda feel that she wouldn’t have been so quick to leave him after hearing the fridge rant either, I mean seems like part of the reason she’s attracted to him is because he IS a chaotic mess, who has already tried to push her away before. at least call him out on his obvious bullshit or something

― Roz, Tuesday, July 4, 2023 11:46 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mentioned this upthread re: claire's reaction, which I also thought was out of character.

hope syd and carmy isn't gonna be a thing - i much prefer the idea of them as platonic soulmates.

It's one of my least favorite TV contrivances, and something that would never happen in real life. A character does something another character misunderstands or doesn't wait around for clarification on, they have to do the dramatic exit. In real life it just doesn't occur like that. I think the show is pretty gripping but a lot of its elements are artificially heightened in a way that feels a bit theatrically unreal, for all its stylistic overtures in the direction of realistic cinema verite. I still think it's good, the most offensive thing about the whole program is how it's consistently categorized as a comedy in awards season.

ugh no to Syd/Carmy, would betray the fundamentals of their relationship - one of my favourite things about this flawed show is that it shows relationships which are intimate without being romantic/sexual, which is why the Claire thing pissed me off too.

Why are we all so certain that Claire/Carm are "done" done? She's not ruled out and rumored to be a part of Season 3, which doesn't mean things revert back to normal, no, but doesn't rule it out, either.

Have none of you ever had a moment where someone close to you upset you, you initially got upset and overreacted, and reassessed things in the sober light of morning? The episode ended not long after Claire left the restaurant so nobody was really of clear head in that scene

I will change my mind if this turns into the "she's not Rachem" thing from Friends but I never read that scene as a door inherently shutting

Strong agree that Syd/Carmy is a terrible idea. It's such a good depiction of a platonic working relationship, which has it's own kind of non-romantic intimacy. Torpedoing that with some cliche romance shit would put me off the show forever.

I think Claire leaving had such a sense of finality simply because it happened at the end of the season. In any other context it would definitely feel more like a temporary hurdle in the relationship.

Camry not being a toxic chef, as far as sexualizing his workplace, has been so key to the show. Yeah, it’ll turn a corner if that develops.

xpost yeah but tv seasons always have *big events* in the season finale that don't always have permanence.

otm, not hard to imagine season 3 opening a few weeks/months after season 2 ended, as they creep up on the actual opening of the restaurant (guessing some setbacks will pop up to delay the official thing), with Carmy and Claire working on patching things up.

absolutely, if Carmy and Syd get together romantically, it will absolutely ruin the show for me. I hope the creators are smarter than that.

tangentially, scenes are being filmed not terribly far from my house, though I haven't seen much signs of it. the crew (sadly no cast) popped into the local brewery I really dig though.

Hell, if they really want to throw people for a loop, S3 could start right after the closing of the new place, with everyone cleaning their wounds and figuring out what comes next.

just do a timejump 11 years into the future, Carmy has a kid, a wife we've never seen before, and a huge mustache, the restaurant is long gone and destroyed in a fire set by Chicago mobsters, Richie has a reality show about managing restaurants, Syd has her own Michelin-starred restaurant, and there's this new character Jules who has a wacky catch-phrase that he invented in the in-between times and since we're not privy to its origins it doesn't make sense

lol. Or maybe it can start with Carmy's kid on a space station, trying to spruce up the bad space food (which may have been an actual plot line of the most recent season of For All Mankind, unless I imagined it).

haha I love that I can find this thread by searching "ketamine"

so there is gonna be a Season 4 too?!?!

https://www.avclub.com/bear-season-4-renewal-back-to-back-1851337717