Here's Where The Story Ends

The other week, before season three of The Bear started, I had the great idea that I would write a recap of each episode. But I was working long hours and couldn’t binge watch it in any manner to be on the forefront, so, more in step with me, I am behind the times. This show makes me think too much, care too much and it triggers me, both from a professional and personal standpoint. I figured I’d have a tally like how many times I cried, and how many times I was reminded of something horrible in the workplace, or my family, or how many times I felt tight-chested. But that’s not what struck me about season three.

I haven’t read a ton of think pieces on it because this brain wants to do all the work, although the June 28 LA Times piece by Mary McNamara titled “The Bear isn’t about the pressures of fine dining. It’s about the damage alcoholism inflicts” did me in. I haven’t read the piece since it’s behind a paywall, but I’m pretty sure I know what it’s about anyway. I cried just reading the title.

Episode 1 of this season is beautiful and impressionistic moments of Carmy’s travels and work in the most esteemed restaurants in the world. The real-life fancy chefs are so nice, who knew Daniel Boulud was so very hands-on with his one-on-one training of sea bass en paupiette, a signature dish. I tried reading his “Letters to a Young Chef” almost 20 years ago and put it down after the first chapter, knowing he’s kick me out of his kitchen when he laid eyes on my shallot brunoise. This dreamlike segment is disrupted with memories of fictional chef David Fields who is pointed and cruel, and some of Carmy’s mis-steps along the way.

Then the next episode opens with a montage of working people in Chicago! Hey we love you working class city! What a nice gesture, from this show where they take an Italian beef place and make it into a sterile fine dining joint. Listen, the beef window is opening soon, and listen, I’m not going to share all of my thoughts, I’m tired of them too. I’ve got a lot to do today, Richard Simmons died, Dr. Ruth died, Shannen Doherty died, the only terrible shot in Pennsylvania died. Remember Shannen Doherty in Heathers? I saw it in the movie theater—that’s my age flex, I saw it when it was released. I also watched Twin Peaks in real time, at home, on Friday nights because that’s how you had to watch TV. 

Carmy’s list is not that bad or out-of-control, except for its very existence and the idea that these non-negotiables can foster something like commandment number three-”vibrant collaboration.” Carmy’s scared that the team managed to rebound from a disaster and successfully complete their first service while he was stuck in the walk-in. So he must imprint himself more, bringing in what no one else has, experience at this level of dining, the most self-congratulatory thing we don’t need. And he’s got to chase a star, because that’s a never ending thing. Once you get a Michelin star, you need to keep it year after year. That’s a reason to be unreasonable forever.

And speaking of self-congratulatory, that roundtable of chefs and operators at Ever’s last supper was just too much. Hearing Will Guidara, formerly of Make It Nice hospitality group aka Eleven Madison Park and author of “Unreasonable Hospitality”, go on and on about how important restaurants are, if my notes¹ are correct, he says “there’s a nobility to this.” Yes he’s a co-producer on the show.

Some people are sad that the food isn’t more of a star, but restaurants, they’re made of people. “Napkins,” the sixth episode directed by Ayo Edebiri, is about Tina, and what led her to walking into the Beef and meeting Michael. The conversation between the two of them, about dreams, I’d never thought I’d see that on television. Rather, I never thought someone employed as a writer on this show would understand not allowing yourself to have dreams.

I’ve definitely been a person looking for a job, desperate for work. I’ve generally taken every job offered to me, for fear of the offers ending. I’m a woman past my best earning years and any prime of my life according to every graph afforded me, I am well aware of the fear. But I had that fear when I was peaking on all the graphs too. My back-up plan, Plan D, is a job on the third shift at the Arby’s on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I figure I can always get that job.

“Ice Chips” is the next episode, when Natalie finally confronts Donna about, well, all of it, while she’s in labor. It’s so heavy and relentless, there are moments of breakthroughs, and well, not totally. It’s pretty mind-blowing this show can offer these scenes, then, in the next breathe, The Bear is in love with the kind of restaurant and chef we’ve been reading about and talking about for years! that doesn’t work. Yeah, we’ve got fictional mean New York chef who tells Carmy he pushed him to excellence, and we know he is bad. But there’s all the real chefs, Thomas Keller showing Carmy how to truss a chicken and take out the wishbone, another very hands-on moment of a very busy head chef I don’t believe. Then there’s René Redzepi, who has a history of bullying, humiliation and abuse towards staff. Noma has relied so much on free labor that when they decided to start paying interns and stages, like Carmy, it added at least $50,000 to their monthly payroll. This is one of the reasons they are closing this year. Does our love of this show continue to validate these chefs?² Why is fine-dining, with its impossible standards, dependence on free labor, high costs and untenable use of resources still considered to be the pinnacle of dining in 2024? I thought we got over that.

Opening a restaurant is hard.³ Period. It is exhausting and consuming, every waking moment will be spent thinking about it. That is what is required. The restaurant needs tending to, all the time, because everything changes, even if you don’t change the menu everyday. It’s challenging. Challenging, a word I started using about ten years ago instead of “this sucks.” One of the best parts of having a restaurant, for a while, is that it allows you to miss everything else because it’s the only thing that matters. For some of us, being in these places, working like this, allows us to separate ourselves from a world we don’t feel a part of, and the work itself exponentially intensifies this isolation.

I get sad when I watch this show for a lot of reasons, but one of them is just knowing I probably won’t ever get to feel the sense of pride after a great service and the daily camaraderie with my co-workers. Those feelings run deep. That’s why this season is so difficult, intentionally so, I think, this rift in the staff is unsettling.

Here, in no particular order, is a list of some thoughts on this season:

Where did Carmy live in New York? How far away does he live from the restaurant now. How much is his rent? How long is his commute?

Of course Sydney, the Black woman, has to do all the emotional labor with these man-babies.

No better party place than a newly moved-into, almost empty apartment.

The dispenser the blue tape that will give a nice, crisp edge, because torn edges are not ok, but they use scissors instead? I file this under making something more complex, not out of necessity, but because that extra step makes the whole thing *that* much more special.

Carmy needs to watch his tape usage, his pieces are too long. Those rolls are $7.99/each. You change the menu every day and toss a lot of food out. Tighten it up.

I read a recap that stated that as the chef, Carmy cares about food costs and I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. I’ve worked with more chefs who don’t care about cost of goods, especially in the beginning, than naught. Carmy is an artist, you pedestrian fuck. His restaurant is in the review period. His vision is non-negotiable.

Please, let me shell peas. I’ve timed myself. I can be the champion.

Do you know what it’s like to feel like you are nothing, and then see that maybe you can be something? That feeling of possibility, it is like nothing else.

Crossing things off a prep list feels good. Fact.

When Marcus and Tina come in early to get ahead and feel good about service, are they clocking in, or are they working for free? The overtime is already nuts in this place with the nightly cleanings in lieu of a porter.

A lot of spot-on moments in this season from a restaurant and human point of view, including, and especially, Sydney’s panic attack.

That Eddie Vedder cover was bad enough, but then the Counting Crows? Please. No.

1. Text to myself. I watched ever episode once.

2. I’m as tired of writing about this as you are of reading it.

3. I’ve opened 7. I am fucked up.