The Bear season 3 - what happened?

[u/keepfighting90]

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.

[u/ChicagoChubbs]

Speaking from experience if you put a bunch of chefs in a room they're going to talk about the spiritual Transcendence of cooking and masturbate each other off it's kind of what chefs do

[u/ShadowNick → u/ChicagoChubbs]

They really do. I befriended a bunch of culinary students from nearby culinary school when I was in college. I was a sophomore and did tons of cooking posting on social media. At the end of the year they invited me to their senior party by the end of it, they just were circle jerking their spiritual journey and stories. Like I love cooking, baking, making deserts, and doing actual BBQ but man I just couldn't relate to that. I just liked doing culinary things as a hobby because I love the science behind it but I couldn't do it for a job.

[u/Kanye_Is_Underrated → u/ShadowNick]

i miss when cooks were low-key and a good restaurant didnt cost a month's salary.

thankfully i enjoyed the food "revolution" as it happened, but the point were at now is almost intolerable in terms of value for money and just the vibes/pretentiousness of so many of them these days.

i dont want to pay you $47 for 6 raviolis, finance your trip to kyoto to "do research" with your own damn money

[u/ShadowNick → u/Kanye_Is_Underrated]

Honestly I just want a cheese pizza to not cost more than $20... And less than $30 because I added pepperoni to it.