That The Bear is a comedy is a difficult idea to defend. Thematically, the first season dealt with grief, anxiety, and depression. The script was not structured around jokes but rather a growing tension, which portrayed the stress in the kitchen of Carmen (Jeremy Allen White), who had inherited her brother’s sandwich bar after his suicide, in addition to the crisis cook’s existential
But since the thirty-minute format is often associated with comedy on television, the Disney-owned content platform Hulu sold its production to the awards as comedy, directly competing with more honest examples of the genre like Abbott College, Just Murders. in the building and Ted Lasso. In this way, now the series can be nominated for the Emmys as the best comedy on television with 13 nominees, including script, direction and leading actor.
And, waiting for the Emmy Awards to be held late in January because of the actors’ and writers’ strike, Disney returns on Wednesday with a second season with a challenge: to prove that the quality of the initial season was not a lucky break.
The creator Christopher Storer resists his work being compared to other television productions, including The Bear itself. Change the tone. From the screams due to the pressure to get the sandwiches out of the kitchen on time to the noise of construction work at the premises, which Carmen wants to turn into a Michelin-star restaurant with the help of Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), her right-hand man. The hammer blows, however, alternate with moments of calm introspection.
Sydney is inspired by the streets of Chicago and tasting dishes from other establishments. Carmen reconnects with Claire (Molly Gordon), her crush from her high school. Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), a formerly cranky, returns to cooking school to advance at work, happy to receive an opportunity when she least expected it. And Marcus (Lionel Boyce), whose mother is ill with him, moves to Copenhagen for a few weeks to expand his mind as a pastry chef. The maneuver, which has a nineties accent due to a nostalgic soundtrack, is risky: evolution is not always appreciated on television, where the viewer is a creature of habit.
The Bear’s status as a critically admired series is palpable. This is the only way to explain the level of the guest actors: the Oscar winners Olivia Colman (The Favourite) and Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything at the same time everywhere), the comedian John Mulaney or performers like Sarah Paulson (American horror story), Bob Odenkirk (Better call Saul) or Will Poulter (Dopesick) who on television opt for leading roles and not to participate in a couple or three scenes.
Poulter, in fact, acknowledged to Obsessed that he “begged” Storer for a part and, when he got the role as Marcus’s mentor, he took the job with a great sense of responsibility: he prepared himself at the restaurants Black Ax Mangal, St. JOHN and Teal in London. If Oliver Platt and Jon Bernthal are added, who repeat in sporadic roles, here may be the Emmy nominees for next year’s best guest actors, waiting for Platt and Bernthal, candidates in this edition, to see if they take the statuette.
Those viewers who are looking for stimulation and conversation will also have material to process and comment on. If the first season offered Review, an episode with a 17-minute sequence shot that placed the viewer in irrespirable tension, the second has a controversial experiment: the family dinner at Fishes, the sixth episode, which features Curtis, Odenkirk, Mulaney and Paulson and that tries to convey the tension in a cumulative way. A brilliant exercise or an unbearable excess? Let the discussion begin on Wednesday, when the ten episodes are released on the platform.
