The Bear

There are only so many times and ways a critic can hail a show for continuing to top itself. To say “The Bear” does not do that in its third season isn’t an indicator of failure, though, but a proposal that we realign our thinking about it to consider the newest episodes as part of a successful continuum.

The Bear‘s brilliant blend of overstimulating mayhem, precision, and catharsis is a special place onto itself. Season 3 grills, sears, then professionally plates your heartstrings, right before cruelly tossing them in the trash, and no matter what becomes of Carmy’s rising Chicago hot spot in the future, the show will leave an enduring legacy on television.

True to the show’s high standards, each episode contains some of the sharpest writing and the best acting (Edebiri’s panic attack almost gave me one) in a regular series.

You know what isn’t ephemeral? The beauty of “The Bear.” Season four can’t get here fast enough.

The show is just as great as it was last season, and that’s just it — as great, no greater. Which is still, all things considered, as good or better than anything else on TV.

The Bear – both the show and the restaurant – is about its people, and series three’s beautiful character work feels like a chef adding top notes to an already excellent recipe, its flavours singing more harmoniously than ever.

As magnificent as television ever gets.

Season 3 of “The Bear” solidifies its standing as one of the finest dramas — OK, drama-comedies — of our time.

The smash sensation is as audacious and assured as ever.

Storer and his cast and crew have locked down the formula of what makes The Bear hum: idiosyncratic needle drops, a visual style indebted to both Chef’s Table and 1970s New Hollywood pictures, and the innate romance of dedicating yourself to a noble cause that might just blow up in your face.

The Beat is a triumph. .... While the cuisine looks great, it really is about the people. [15 Jul - 4 Aug 2024, p.4]

The Bear continues to make viewers laugh, dab tears and watch ravenously as the most lived-in characters on TV ply their trades and shake off setbacks. Whether they’re chatty or contemplative, you won’t be able to take your eyes off this unmatched cast and the gorgeous dishes they prepare.

On an episode-by-episode basis, the third season of The Bear is as good as anything the show has ever done. Possibly better? .... Indecision can be exciting and I found the risks The Bear takes in these 10 episodes to be thrilling. But if you’re hoping to see things progress at an adrenalized rate, this is a season in limbo that reflects its main characters and their respective holding patterns. It all builds to a finale that’s impossibly joyful and impossibly miserable, perhaps as pure an evocation of the rollercoaster of depression as I’ve ever seen on television.

The show’s greatest gambit this time — when it could have embraced an easy and redemptive story, one in which the Bear delivers on its promise to be all things to all people, bringing together the old and the new (honoring Mikey, making space for Syd, and reconciling the regulars and the rich by offering deconstructed mirepoix as well as the OG sandwiches) — is gamely chasing the dysfunction. While still allowing for grace. And growth.

It’s hard to ignore the fact that we don’t get real closure in the finale. Still, as a forward-looking, carefully hopeful, and emotionally mature build-up to what’s to come, it doesn’t get any better than these 10 episodes.

"The Bear" is back, and it remains one of TV's most satisfying, thrilling, and remarkably human stories. Its complexity has not wavered, its humanity has not faded, and its melancholic humor has not dimmed. In short, one of the best shows has not lost a step.

By now you’ll have decided if you like the show, and I love it, greedily gobbling down every episode as if it were a sonnet on a plate. Pop on your napkin (cloth, paper, doesn’t matter) and enjoy.

There are no compromises and no apologies for what is a pace that is occasionally less bear, more snail. You get the sense that, just as with the elite restaurant clientele, this is television for those considered refined enough to appreciate it.

There’s nothing here that quite matches the extraordinary heights of last season’s ‘Fishes’ or ‘Forks’. But when it really sizzles, The Bear is still the best table in town.

The bottom line is that the characters haven’t been magically healed between seasons, as they are on some shows; these folks are still wrestling with the same decisions, with old wounds, with one another, and, when all is said and done, with creating a perfect dining experience.

“Tomorrow” is the season’s weakest episode (and in fairness to creator Christopher Storer, The Bear never loses sight of how self-absorbed its tortured-artist chef can be). .... In Episode 3, “Doors”—a classic half-hour of frenzy in the kitchen—the season hits its stride.

As audaciously adventurous as “The Bear” may get during this so-called season, the audience will likely stick with it—the whole, like a meal, being greater than its ingredients.

There is no doubt that The Bear remains among the very best shows on television, its own non-negotiables – a singular marriage of peace and chaos framed in superb camerawork and terrific performances – are all present and correct. Could it have pushed it more in season three, let it rip, strived ever more for excellence and vibrant collaboration? I know what Carmy would say.

By the end, many of the questions of season two remain, particularly the types that one might expect a TV dramedy to rush to answer: the resolution of ongoing conflicts and the will-they-won’t-they of a romance. In the end, though, it hardly matters, as Storer has managed to keep the center of interest away from such plot-driven considerations.

Subtle episodic arcs and set-ups are enough to hold the season together, even if its overall inertia doesn’t really test those ties. There’s a time to let it rip and a time to let it be. “The Bear” Season 3 doesn’t quite strike the right balance (like the previous season did), but it serves up enough suitable side dishes to satiate diners until things really get cooking again.

The 10 episodes that dropped late Wednesday pretty much say there's nothing to worry about here. In fact, a few of these do gently temporize, and at least one treads water, but there are also four which are flat-out great (more on those in a bit). A pleasure as always if hardly perfect, this balance seems about right for a series that explores the gulf separating craftsmanship from genuine artistry, and whether perfection can bridge it.

If Season 3 doesn’t reach the heights of earlier seasons, the best of it still works remarkably well, especially when it slows down and takes a breath.

The level of excellence established by the first two episodes and the one featuring Tina isn’t quite sustained all season long. But what emerges from the noise is a deeper, more convincing feeling of family throughout the ensemble as Carmy has to confront the light and dark influences that have made him who he is.

"The Bear" still grabs you and holds you hostage inside its very particular world for 10 episodes. .... Season 3 sometimes just floats away, particularly in its first and final installments.

Veracity is tempered by the show’s appetite for contrivance. Barnburner monologues give way to dialogue so repetitive it might as well be a Meisner exercise.. .... The show’s highs remain incredibly, dazzlingly high, and its ability to overwhelm you is thrilling — it’s the front car of the roller coaster for 10 episodes.

In many ways, The Bear’s latest season is the same circus of agita and the beauty of human connection it has always been. .... But The Bear, like the in-show restaurant, is clearly undergoing a transformation, one that may prove that the fans who were perplexed by the show’s inclusion in the comedy awards categories were right. And it’s not an entirely successful transformation.

The cast remains splendid and the storytelling moody and lyrical, in a way that both challenges the audience and rewards them for paying attention to small details.

Despite its season-three missteps, though, The Bear is still one of the most interesting shows on TV. For every bit of preening self-congratulation, there’s another moment that can knock you sideways.

Ultimately, "The Bear" season 3 still offers up a delicious meal, but some of the ingredients are missing.

The Bear is still compulsively watchable, but its third season is frustrating, and creator Christopher Storer's choice to slow the frantic pace of the show's plot and character arcs is jarring and confusing.

“Tomorrow” itself is an odd dish, combining ingredients that don’t quite go together. Though it sometimes feels like a dreamy (and nightmarish) journey through Carmy’s psyche, it often lands with all the artfulness of a clip show, making what should be a stage-setting season premiere feel like a filler episode. Maybe Storer could stand to take his own advice: subtract.

The cast are still exceptional – particularly Moss-Bachrach and Edebiri, elevated to TV’s A-list since the show first aired – but the show is starting to feel repetitious.

At its best, The Bear remains innovative, excellent, and so vividly rendered that it can feel delicious to watch. But the season also feels confusing, overdone, and inconsistent at some points.

At times, the absence of a uniting goal allows Storer and co-showrunner Joanna Calo to continue adding texture to the monotony of restaurant life. .... But not all detours this season are as effective, and without a fixed destination, the main narrative itself can get bogged down with repetition and stunt casting before the season ends with most storylines unresolved.

This is the kind of show that elicits a deep fondness and, even in its flaws, I feel very fond of The Bear. But in truth, this is not The Bear at its best.

“The Bear” is still a watchable show, thanks to the cast, but season three is a disappointment nonetheless. Allen White, Edebiri, and Moss-Bachrach are highly engaging, and the way Matty Matheson’s Neil Fak character steps up is interesting too, but the writing generally underserves them all in a filler, spinning-its-wheels season that feels like a placeholder waiting for season four.

The Bear is loaded with generic conversations about Big Things and plaintive needle drops to the point of self-parody. Only toward the very end of a ten-episode season do we see some true processing of Carmy’s tortured professional psyche—it’s appreciated, but arrives too late.

This bouncing between calm and disorder should feel familiar, but unlike Season 1 and 2, Season 3 feels painfully inconsistent. There is no actual harmony between these moments, and as the show pitter-patters its way through an ocean of plotlines, the season is rendered rudderless, leading to no clear overall arc.