Season 3 of The Bear is its most intimate. The way it interacts with its characters, the expert mundanity of its compelling dialogue, the artful framing of its scenes; these are windows, and we are pressed up against the glass, our breath fogging them in anticipation. It feels very much like we are there with them in the terrifying moments, in the raw ones, in the happy ones.
Season 3’s focus has been on the nature of measured success. In all facets of its framings, from the actual restaurant to the reconciliations (or lack thereof) for certain characters, to the ruminations of parenthood, the imperfections are themselves the diamonds. There is no shining end goal that doesn’t waver under the weight of its own sustainability. We’re shown that this is a hard industry to break into, that the cutthroat nature of the culinary world is that it favors the ever-innovative, the relentless, and that to fall short of such expectations, both personal and professional, is to fail. To be the best in the world, you have to undergo hardship; to be better than the rest, you have to want it bad enough.
To be genius, you must suffer.
That is the ever-pressing story we tell creatives, of tales of tortured poets and other Carmy-like figures of the world, who make their lodestone that immeasurable monster of acclaim. It comes external and internal. It’s the…
