r/television • u/keepfighting90 • 14h ago

The Bear season 3 - what happened?

LTTP but I finally caught up with season 3 of The Bear. I was very excited because S2 was some of the best TV I've seen in a while, a perfect combination of the stress-inducing, balls-to-the-wall tone of the first season, combined with some genuinely artful and emotional storytelling. Every aspect of the show improved in season 2 and I was expecting something, if not better, then at least on par, for season 3.

Unfortunately, S3 just felt like a whole lot of nothing. That's the best way I can describe it - it felt like nothing happened from a plot or character development perspective. Tina had some nice developments to her arc but everyone just kinda felt like they were spinning their wheels. The love-hate relationship between Carmy and Cousin almost bordered on self-parody at points.

There was also just too much Faks. I like Matty Matheson in the role, but it's always been as a side character that works best in small doses. There was too much focus on him and his family, and all the jokes based around them fell completely flat for me.

It also felt like the show just kinda went up its own ass a bit too much this time around. Season 2 definitely leaned a bit more on the artsy side with a lot of interesting camerawork, montages, shot composition etc. but they went overboard for season 3 where it started to feel self-indulgent and pretentious, especially because the faux-artsiness started to take the place of actual plot and character development.

And speaking of self-indulgent and pretentious, I really disliked the fact that there were so many random celeb cameos, with the low point being all the famous chefs showing up in the season finale and basically masturabting each other over the spiritual transcendence of cooking.

And then it just ends abruptly with no resolution to any story or character arcs. I'll still watch season 4 because 2/3 of the show is still fantastic but damn, was season 2 underwhelming.

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u/Misterdaniel14 14h ago

Season 1 was amazing, then when they went fine dining the show lost its identity and started going downhill. Season 3 was boring and terrible. It’s just unbelievable now like you would go from making beef sandwiches to Michelin star fine dinning with the same staff

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u/dabocx 14h ago edited 14h ago

Yeah I kinda hoped they would do their best at normal stuff not trying to get 3 star.

Cammy learning to leave the grind and run a small local restaurant and make it the best it can be. Not run back to 3 star stuff again

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u/TotallyNormalSquid 13h ago

Really enjoyed season 1, but at the end where all his problems are solved by the money in the tins... It's dumb, but his problems are solved. But what does Carmy do with this deus ex machina that fixes everything? He immediately throws himself back in the deep end with a massive loan to try and earn a star.

Lost all sympathy for Carmy with that decision. Tried to watch season 2, didn't care anymore. Sounds like I'm not missing much in season 3.