I don’t hate season 2 or anything but it’s reached “the signs were right in front of us” status for me at least.
And it’s crazy how little actually happens in that third season. It’s so self indulgent. In the episode Napkins the flashback thing really got to me especially. I like Jon Bernthal too but what, they just have him on retainer to be a cool guy once a year? The hell is that all about. He’s dead, let him be dead. We already know everyone loved him despite his DEMONS
Also, way too many Faks. What on earth were they thinking.
Mannn I just watched the first episode of season three. Why’d they open with a glorified mid-season anime recap episode?? I thought it was a joke when it cut to credits
Come on, The Bear totally reps Chicago, there’s a Malort billboard! They ride the L and stuff! I think Carmy or Fak says something about the cubs at some point, and the family is all BEARS. Get it? Like the football team. yeah…
I’m a shameless enjoyer of The Bear. The cast is charming enough and I like food. The critiques in this thread are super valid, but I still like looking at Jeremy Allen White’s face and bad fake tattoos for the time being. But to echo @Bbtone ,the first episode was mastubatory and dragged as a result.
My wife showed me a tweet by someone saying that if a lunch spot that you could get a sandwich and a drink for like $8.75 was replaced by a Michelin star restaurant, they’d be pissed.
I agree, and in fairness, I’ll say that I feel like the Michelin star is going to prove to be a false dream. In order to get past all the trauma, I think Carmy is going to have to synthesize all the different versions of the restaurant. The beef has to be part of it, not just hidden in a weird corner where one man does a job previously done by 10. Instead of being a star it’ll be like high end family style. At least that’s what I’d think if I was 100% sure this show wasn’t just a weird ad for the importance of fine dining.
Finished season 3, and it was… Fine. It felt like a filler season, which is frustrating. There were so many montages and flashbacks. There had to of been like 20+ minutes this season of Carmy just sorta grinning in a garden SNAPCUT TO Joel McHale calling him a talentless fuck that should die.
I want things to move forward. Some things did, but boy howdy, there were a lot of checkov’s guns this season that never fire.
Marcus’ dessert that’s all of his grief for his dead mom. Is it good? Is it finished? What’s up with Syd? Are the Faks being haunted??? And the biggest, which was the cliffhanger from last season: Will Carmy reach out to Claire? That last one really grinds my gears because they just sorta sat on it for 10 episodes. Not cool.
I read the book and so I had an idea of what I was in for but they took what was already a very dark book and turned it pitch black. Incredibly bleak. This isn’t a knock against it though - it hit so right for me. I’m not sure had I watched it a month earlier or a month later that I’d like it as much but for right now I was game for it and the tone really worked for me.
I think I somewhat wrote it off a few years ago. I loved Big Little Lies (the first season) and after that show wrapped HBO seemed to be positioning Sharp Objects as something for Big Little Lies fans but in a super lazy way. It was like “hi gay. you like slay queen actresses going at each other? try Sharp Objects!” and that really undersells what they have here. Both series have the same director (Jean-Marc Vallee, RIP, whose visuals are so lush yet sharp and haunting) and I don’t even remember that being mentioned in any of the marketing.
I started Peaky Blinders tonight. Seems pretty up my alley so far. I came for Cillian Murphy but I didn’t know Sam Freaking Neill was in here too, Hell yeah
re: the bear it’s hard for me not to appreciate a show that can capture the emotional landscape of food service even if it does lean so heavily on building pathos for teeth-grinding Burden Of Genius shit that would cause flashbacks for anybody who’s spent more than a month on a brigade-style line. the show’s perspective is unbelievably bourgeois (gentrifying a neighbourhood is ;-; so hard… ;-; ) but, uh, i recognize these characters, i see a lot of myself in them. it’s true, everyone in fine dining really is that self-involved.
anyway I watched up to the end of the second season when it became clear that Toyota Carmy was about to hurt his very sweet girlfriend and I couldn’t bear to witness it because reasons
I just found out about the edit of the tv series lost that has been edited into chronological order. I just acquired it and I can’t imagine that I’ll watch it all but this is the kind of nonsense that I"m here for.
I’m a screenwriter who sells a pilot every year or so. I love working in television; I just no longer love watching it.
If the goal of streamers once seemed to be prioritizing and supporting great series from a diverse group of interesting creators, that goal seems to have shifted from making better shows to just … making more of them. As viewers, we’re being flattened by a fire hose of programming — and the experience of watching TV feels like a ritual of submission, passively accepting a slush of shows served up by a streaming service’s algorithm.
I’m not the only one who feels this way, apparently. How else to explain the surprising success of Tubi, a free streaming service that’s supported by ads and offers few prestige shows or buzzy hits yet set a new high for average monthly viewers earlier this year, beating out the average numbers for high-profile rivals like Disney+, Peacock and Max?
