'The Bear' Season 3 shows off a little too much: Review
Take out your forks and knives for one more order of "The Bear," please.
No show is a better fit for binge-watching than the culinary and emotional feast of FX and Hulu's restaurant-set dramedy (Season 3 now streaming on Hulu, ★★★ out of four). This is a show you devour when new episodes become available. You savor each profane fight between the characters. You chew on the few moments of emotional clarity. You consume the frenzy of a restaurant kitchen, lest that frenzy consume you.
"Bear" returns after winning hefty armfuls of Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe awards this winter, graduating from the buzzy and meme-able show of summers 2022 and 2023 to a bona fide Hollywood heavyweight. Now it seems there is nothing creator Christopher Storer can't pile into the new season of the show, from yet more A-list guest stars to weird experimental episode formats to more expensive Wagyu beef than you might find at Nobu.
Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox
The series is very much the same as it's been for two great seasons: still so stressful it might give you an ulcer while you watch, and still full of acerbic scripts, great performances and more trauma processing than you'll find in a therapist's office. "The Bear" still grabs you and holds you hostage inside its very particular world for 10 episodes. When you get out, you'll be calling your friends "cousin" and shouting "hands!" every time you need someone to hold something. To say it's immersive is an understatement.
Season 3 is also, a little like its head chef Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), a little overinflated and self-important after all the hype and praise. Chefs (fictional and real ones playing themselves) keep talking about how less is more, noting that too many flavors can ruin a dish. Perhaps "The Bear" writers could have taken one or two elements off Season 3's plate.
That's not to say the season is bad – far from it. But this is a show in which the characters demand "everyday excellence." How can I not judge it with the same eye that Carmy might bring to his sous chefs' creations?
The series picks up after the tumultuous Season 2 finale, in which a fairly tame friends and family preview at Carmy and his mentee/partner Sydney's (Ayo Edebiri) new restaurant is rocked by Carmy's temper tantrum when he's stuck inside a freezer.
The aftershocks of that night are big, from further cracks in Carmy's already fragile mental state to a fracture in his relationship with friend and house manager Richie (Ebon Moss-Bacharach) to chaos at the restaurant's nightly service. In addition to the threat of Carmy's nervous breakdown, the restaurant is on precarious financial footing and the Chicago Tribune review is due any day.
So yes, just another nerve-racking day in the neighborhood for our fair chefs.
Amid all the mania of the series' infamous kitchen scenes there are also quieter moments, like in an episode that gives beef-sandwich-line-cook-turned-fancy-schmancy-sous-chef Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) a heart-wrenching backstory and another set far away from the kitchen with a returning guest star. They are powerful and understated, the very best "The Bear" can be.
The show's characters tend to have the deepest conversations of their lives pretty much everyday. Which is fine! The show has never done anything less than take itself as seriously as Carmy takes a plate of ravioli. But a few moments this season cross the line from boldly artistic to pretentious. The season premiere, which Gen Z might describe as simply "vibes," is an extended montage meant to return the viewer to the mind and mood of Carmy. Experimental and cool? Sure! Also a bit self-indulgent? Yes, indeed.
During a few overwrought moments, the series transforms from a story into a thought experiment on the very nature of food and cooking and life. Plot isn't everything, but it does ground a TV show. It's OK to get your head up in the clouds and think Big Thoughts every once in a while, but you have to come back down to Earth at some point. Season 3 sometimes just floats away, particularly in its first and final installments.
There is still a lot of story to tell in this world. Tina got the spotlight this season, but there's more we want to know about Marcus (Lionel Boyce), the Faks (Matty Matheson and Ricky Staffieri), Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) and every other fascinating employee in the kitchen. Richie and Carmy have plenty more to fight over. Sydney is only just starting to realize her full potential. There are more plates to cook. As anyone in the restaurant industry could tell us, the work is never done.
"The Bear" is one of the best shows on TV right now, and it will cement its place on a list of the all-time best if it stays the course and sheds the excesses. No need for frills, trills and soubise foam on top of the meat of the dish. The characters, the kitchen, the relationships and the hardships are what people come back to watch.
Give us what we're hungry for.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'The Bear' Season 3 review: Too self-important?
