[SPOILERS!]
[Are these post-pod discussion threads even a thing any more?]
It’s going to be a challenge to write this post in a way that doesn’t sound like a criticism. I very much do not want it to be read in that way, even though it’s being written in sort of a hasty-take fashion. But here goes –
I don’t want to discount the bulk of the discussion that was had on the pod - like DJ & Tron, I spent enough years of my misspent youth serving tables and tending bar to where I very much identified with the restaurant industry aspect of the show. Extraordinarily well done on that front.
But I was truly surprised to listen to our three hosts (all of whose opinions on media/TV/creative arts I greatly respect!) discuss The Bear for an hour and a half and only give a passing mention to what I thought was the primary theme of the entire season: coping with grief.
It explains why Carmy is the way he is early in the season. He’s clearly engaging in a brand of avoidance behavior, desperately trying to exert control over the chaos he’s inherited, trying to imprint answers about his brother’s death in a place/headspace where only questions exist. And by the end of the season, once receives some of those answers, his entire outlook changes and the avoidance behavior abruptly ends. He’s been given Michael’s permission to move on.
Sugar - far and away the most well-adjusted individual in the entire show (as evidenced by her marriage to a total square, the complete polar opposite of all the other men in her life), and the one who seems to have come to terms with Michael’s death the soonest - sees all this and confronts him about it. It’s not the missing tax papers that are most worrisome to her - it’s that she knows that Carmy’s approach isn’t a healthy one. Maybe AA can help? She’s not sure, but she knows that working around the clock at the godforsaken restaurant won’t. And at the family table at the end of the season, we see on her face that that worry is all gone. She sees that Carmy has finally turned to face his grief.
It also explains so much of the staff’s reaction to Sydney. We’re still mourning the loss of our friend and boss and who the hell is this new person who doesn’t know this place, doesn’t know how things run, didn’t know Mikey, looks like she’s about 16 years old - who is she to start fucking up our program? It’s one thing for Carmy to invade their “delicate ecosystem” but Syd has no cred in that kitchen and no sense of its past. She walks in the door with an 0-2 count.
Carmy and Syd ultimately come apart because, unburdened by Mikey’s passing, Syd’s focus is actually on the future of the restaurant, whereas Carmy is focusing on the restaurant’s present because it’s convenient, familiar … and because it helps him avoid focusing on the restaurant’s past.
Which brings us to the other big surprise of the pod - where’s the Richie talk???
I haven’t seen a single episode of Girls, so Ebon Moss-Bachrach was a total revelation for me. His Richie character is so vividly drawn, his mere presence alone fills in much of the season’s non-narrative backstory. From the flashback with Mikey, it’s obvious that those two were thick as thieves, and about three seconds of screen time in the latter part of the season - where the doors are unlocked and Richie greets the first customer with “There he is, the man with the Golden Dick!” - shows Richie in his element, working in his truest medium - talking shit. You see why he’s at that counter; he’s as big of a reason why people come to The Beef as the sandwiches. And somehow, the viewer knows that Mikey was the same way.
But then the lights go down, and there are no beers to be had with Mikey any more, no one to complain about his ex-wife to any more, you see that Richie is reeeeeling. His marriage is over, his kid is finding out he’s kind of a deadbeat, his best friend is dead by suicide, he’s dealing cocaine out of the back of a sandwich shop, his neighborhood is gentrifying, he’s not sure what to make of his new boss or why he’s even here in the first place, and - worst - he knows there’s nowhere else for him to go. The walls are closing in fast. If Sugar is the most well-adjusted individual on the show, Richie is the least. And he’s getting more mal-adjusted every day, destined to be the last one to realize it, at least until the bachelor party incident and its aftermath. He’s doing the worst job of any of them coping with Michael’s death because of how it piles on top of everything else that he feels is slipping away. I can’t be the only one to have watched this that thought that Richie was struggling with near-constant suicidal thoughts of his own.
Anyhow, I watched The Bear and saw Richie as the show’s soul, and in many ways the main character, a stand-in for Thoreau’s “most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Outside of The Beef, Carmy and the others have prospects; as the guys did note on the pod, Richie really doesn’t.
Again, I don’t want these gripes to be taken the wrong way, more that I felt compelled to add on to the conversation. Go watch The Bear, chefs.
Great episode.
The audio levels however…truly despicable. TC…speak up.
The episode 8 meeting monologue from Jeremy Allen White was so so good. And I thought the ending was less of Mike telling Carmy to move on, and more showing that he truly did love him. The big thing Carmen was struggling with through his grief was whether or not his brother loved him. Michael was so charismatic that Carmy couldn’t tell for sure if it was just part of the “act”. The message at the end showed that Michael never stopped thinking about Carmen when he was away.
Agree 100%. “Given Michael’s permission to move on” is inartfully put by me.
Don’t think I’ve been that stressed out watching something since seeing Mother! in theatres. Glad I stuck with it though, really came together after the initial chaos.
Confirmed that New Noise will always make me want to run through a brick wall.
Did the monologue at the end give anyone else Gene Wilder vibes?
My thumb got a good workout this morning adjusting the volume between Tron whispering across the room from the mic and KVV & DJ speaking at a normal level.
was a great podcast except for the fact that @djpie kept saying “oner” a hundred times, wish they would do more of these.
I think it heard it being played in stadium during the Jags/Raiders game last night but I couldn’t tell.
Just got done rewatching the series last night and braciole is on the menu for Sunday as of now.
@djpie shout out CCP
I was blown away by The Bear. Can’t wait for the next season. All of the food prep scenes are awesome and looked delicious. I need a chicken piccata like right now.
@Tron speaking of soul dying. I was in Wisc Dells with my wife’s family a few years ago and on our way out of town I had a great breakfast place all planned out that was slightly out of the way.
We ended up going to Cracker Barrel right next to the highway. The food was absolutely meh and the service was not great. I still bring that up with my wife to this day.
Rewatch… just remembered the can of tomatoes he threw in the trash at the end of ep 1 
Got interrupted listening to this today, but also loved The Bear, although as a Chicago and Chicago-adjacent guy, there are some minor nits I’m sure drive everyone who lives in a very specific place crazy where creative license is taken to portray it on screen.
The location they filmed this is the infamous Mr. Beef in River North. This was a regular lunch spot of ours for years, my office for two different jobs was right around the corner. For a long stretch of my career I seemingly couldn’t escape this neighborhood.
It was definitely weird to see it positioned as it was, and sometimes that was distracting because I couldn’t separate this place I’ve been in a million times from this fictional restaurant. (Hand up: “Nerd from Rockford.” s/o @djpie and the Northern IL hinterlands.)
I thought Oliver Platt was great. Loved the birthday party dosing. The cousin (can’t be bothered to look him up) was over the top cartoon Chicago. I’m not saying dose guys over dere don’t exist, but it was a bit much.
Looking forward to the second season. Great characters.
Haven’t listened to the pod but I spent 10 years in restaurants bartending (and occasionally serving tables) and now I work from home alone every single day. I identified with The Bear so much. It was like watching my own flashbacks and that 7th episode? That was every Saturday night at our place.
I don’t miss working in the industry when it comes to paying my bills or having healthcare or job security but I’ll be damned if I don’t miss the chaos.
Great points here and well-said @TheRedMenace.
The Bear was one of the best shows I’ve seen in and I enjoyed the discussion on the pod. I’ll be honest, I didn’t notice the “oner” at the time because I was too rapt.
One thing I keep coming back to: as much as I’m very excited for a second season, part of me thinks they should have just left it at the 8 episodes. Sure, there are questions left to be answered, but I think it’s okay to leave them unanswered to some degree and let the viewer draw their own conclusions. It ends on an uplifting note with the new restaurant which I think tied a nice bow on what would be a fantastic, restrained mini-series.
Also, has anyone seen the movie Boiling Point? Another excellent restaurant-based piece that delivers all the stress of The Bear (if not more) and is shot in an incredible way – one shot. Apparently they filmed the movie in four-ish takes and used the best one.
Apologies. Recorded a couple days after moving into our new house and was struggling with internet and having to tether to my phone and sit in a corner to get it to work. Thanks Comcast, but should be fixed moving forward 
Evergreen
Moreso than cooking, my rewatch inspired me to go at my stove with a toothbrush and some comet. It’s never been cleaner and it felt pretty good.
You mean like an establishing shot (and green screen) of Carmy and Richie driving north on JBPDSLSD). “Why are you on the Kennedy? You need to take the Edens” (neither of which are LSD). “We’re going to Naperville” (you wouldn’t take the Kennedy to Naperville). “He moved to Wilmette.”
I haven’t been in Chicago long and it was so egregious bc it’s such an easy dialogue fix. Ugh.