I promise not to work “yes, Chef” into my daily vernacular.

This is my favorite season of television in a while, at least since Station Eleven and maybe I like it more than that. What works here? (SPOILERS ABOUND)

1. The Bear develops its characters, knows them well, and deploys them expertly. A few examples: During Richie’s evolution in episode seven, we never lose who he is. When he starts, he’s gruff, argumentative, and can’t believe he’s shining forks. By the time the episode ends, he’s given a little ground and won everyone over with his personality. But it doesn’t stop there–he’s able to integrate this newfound level of skill with his old personality, and the show takes one scene, where he addresses the new staff as “lizards,” to show you that. It’s fucking masterclass perfection level character development. Or take the scene under the table between Sydney and Carmy (perhaps my favorite scene of the season). It works on so many levels, but ultimately neither of them can fix that table without the other helping. Carmy notices the problem, and Sydney helps him level his side of the table. Then she has to level hers while he holds up the other end. All the while they’re trying to find the way their working relationship will function. The proverbial cherry on top to end the scene is the gift of the chef’s coat to Sydney by Carmy, showing at least some of what she’s been asking for: consideration. Or, finally, when the most hated character on the show, Sugar’s husband Pete (he tried to bring the eight fish!) pleads with Carmy and Sugar’s mom outside the restaurant to come inside and then breaks down at the dinner table right after. It’s this guy we all know, the one who doesn’t get it, the one we love to hate, but the show redeems him in a way that feels authentic. Pete would act like that and cry at the table.
2. It’s well-planned and well-paced: This seems small, that the show knows when to start and stop, but so many shows fuck this up that it’s worth mentioning. I respect that the show spends the whole season trying to get to open the restaurant, and not a moment when the restaurant is actually open (the ending is a soft-open). Lesser shows, less sure of themselves, would rush this. Open halfway through, think they need the chaos to provide momentum. The Bear knows it can take this slow, build its plot and characters, and get there next season. And so we’re left in a perfect place: Sydney throwing up with pressure, Carmy locked in the fridge, his relationship on ice, Marcus missing messages on his phone about his mom, and the audience with no idea if the The Bear will work or not.
3. It is detail-oriented. This show does not miss the little details that make it great: confirming that Carmy was the chef that Luca was chasing by showing a photo of them in episode 7; the delivery of the chocolate banana to Cicero in episode 10, paying off a tossed-away line in episode 6; learning the origin of “every second counts;” the voicemail Claire leaves for Carmy in episode 10 mirroring Carmy’s own reflections about her; that the restaurant does, in fact, run out of forks; the evolution of the clever interplay of “Jeff” and “chef” by Tina; when Carmy finally checks with Sydney when he wants to change something in the restaurant; the heartbreaking moment in episode 6 where Carmy tells Michael he wants to come back and you can see that Michael can’t be with that, and resolves there (or had earlier) to save money and end his own life; the way Richie complains about and then listens to Taylor Swift…and many more that I can’t pull off the top of my head. This is the type of interplay between character development and writing that most shows cannot do and The Bear does expertly. Goddamn. [I had a longer but deleted note about how this show gets right in a workplace comedy what later seasons of Ted Lasso got wrong. But basically, it’s The Bear’s ability to close loops in ways that make sense vs. Ted Lasso’s enjoyable but ultimately aimless meanderings]

Episode Ranking

1. Forks (7)
2. Honeydew (4)
3. Omelette (9)
4. Pasta (2)
5. The Bear (10)
6. Fishes (6)
7. Bolognese (8)
8. Pop (5)
9. Sundae (3)
10. Beef (1)