Sometimes You Watch ‘The Bear’

By ROB PATTERSON

The 2004 Emmy Awards take place on the same day as the publication date of this issue of The Progressive Populist. The Hulu series The Bear set a record this year of the most Emmy nominations as … a comedy. It’s better classified as a dramedy, but that clumsy locution still only encompasses some of the richness to be savored in a series that is in some ways its own beast as far as categories go.

Within what I call the New Golden Age of Television that began in the 1990s as cable TV began a creative surge, there are some shows that occupy the pantheon of series mastery. The Sopranos and The Wire stand tall together atop the pinnacle, with a number of fine and notable works a smidgeon below them that also merit high stature. This honor roll can be subjective; a few of my stand outs of yore would be Mad Men, Oz, Breaking Bad and Six Feet Under.

The Bear slots nicely into such esteemed company as a genuine modern TV masterwork. It boasts a Jeremy Allen White backstory from his portrayal of Lip Gallagher in Shameless, also, like The Bear, set in Chicago. That character has some parallels to his star turn in this show as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto: smart and gifted yet plagued by self doubt. This character and place lineage provides a familiarity for those of us who followed Shameless.

The series begins with Carmy returning to Chicago, where he escaped from to New York City to train, work and win awards as a gourmet chef. His older brother has died and named Carmy as an heir to the family’s Italian beef sandwich restaurant in the Windy City’s downtown. He begins to make moves to upgrade the joint, encountering pushback from the family friends who work there. In a key move for the restaurant and the show, he hires Sydney Adamu, a budding gourmet chef, played in a career-making role by Ayo Edebiri, a 28-year-old actress, comic and TV writer who has already won Emmy and Screen Actors Guild awards for her sublime portrayal.

The first two seasons are another take on the notion of Kitchen Confidential, diving deep into the inner workings of the professional kitchen and restaurant business as Carmy strives to transform the largely take-out sandwich shop called The Beef into a gourmet eatery named The Bear. He struggles with resistance from the staff and must contend with an older building and cookery equipment plagued.

The Chicago lineage is furthered by veteran actor Oliver Platt, also a star of the Dick Wolf-produced series Chicago Med. On The Bear he’s a family friend known as “Uncle” to the Berzatto clan who invests in Carmy’s plan. Another Windy City element that’s personally touching to me was a snippet of radio that opened the first season with DJ Lin Brehmer, a longtime friend whom I worked with in college radio at Colgate University. He went on in that field to become a star air personality and beloved Chicago voice on the city’s top-rated FM rock station WXRT for three decades. Just after the series debuted in 2022, Lin went public with a diagnosis of prostate cancer, from which he died

With season three, which I feel is in many ways the show’s strongest, things do get a bit tricky. After a largely hurly-burly linear storyline in seasons one and two, on the next The Bear breaks a bit out of that mold to bring nuance and some backstory to the characters and mise en scene. Read a few gripes about it on social media and the show dropped from a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critics rating to 85%. But for me, its third season used the tools of long-form TV storytelling to add depth to the characters and tale.

And what a tale it is. A deep dive behind the scrim into a restaurant and its kitchen aiming towards the stars (from Michelin). A look at the genetic families we are born and the proverbial ones we form with friends and at the workplace. A superbly scripted story that feels like real life with characters marvelously played. With fantastic musical choices. And the city of Chicago and its urban essence as a major secondary character. It’s TV at its best, not to be missed.

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TV Documentary: “Brat” – Anyone who came of age during the 1980s teen/young adult movies boom will likely enjoy this exploration of “The Brat Pack” thespians on Max directed by Packer Andrew McCarthy. The term had its effect on all those tagged within it – only some of whom he talks with – and the cultural landscape. But McCarthy’s observations feel like he doth protest a bit too much.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2024

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