Effects The bear has returned with season three, which dropped in its entirety on the streamer on June 27. The stunning cooking drama starring Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri was one of the best things on TV in recent years, an indulgent feast of spectacular camerawork and acting. Unfortunately, the season three premiere takes that indulgence to the extreme, resulting in an episode that works well on its own and would have been fine had it landed in the middle of the season, but fails as a reintroduction to the show.
To recap: In the premiere, Carmy is seen alone the morning after his restaurant opens (as seen in the season 2 finale), looking back on his entire life as he creates a new menu and a list of non-negotiables that will help the restaurant get a Michelin star. It’s an introspective clip show that offers a glimpse into White’s mind as he tries to start the next chapter of his career. Unlike the often stressful episodes full of long character interactions highlighted by superbly written and humorous dialogue, the premiere is a fairly quiet affair that focuses solely on Carmy. While we do see brief sequences from the past with other characters, nothing that goes beyond a few lines of dialogue. It’s all about the visual trip down memory lane.
It comes across as a greatest hits recap of why he’s working so hard on the restaurant in the first place, but lacks meaningful additions to how the audience perceives Carmy as a person. In contrast, the season 2 premiere centers on the relationship between Carmy and Edebir is Sydney and their shared focus on the mission of creating a menu for the restaurant, ending with both resolving to open in three months. It sets the perfect stage for everything that follows, while touching on the core pillars of character interactions and beautiful food that the show thrives on.
A season premiere should function like an amuse-bouche, the first thing a chef serves in a restaurant to prepare guests for the meal to come. The season three premiere forgoes that by diving straight into Carmy’s past without even giving the rest of the season a chance to really get going.
The core problem is that the placement of the episode feels wrong. The bear has often used its unconventional storytelling methods to great effect in recent seasons. The third episode of the second season, “Sundae,” is similarly a loosely structured character study of Sydney, told through a day-long tour of Chicago’s culinary world. Like the third season premiere, it’s meant to show the characters recommitting to their goals, but “Sundae” works much better because it comes after a few episodes that set the tone for the season it’s in. Many of the best episodes of the second season are visually spectacular character studies that feel unconventional in the way they fit into the larger story arc of the season (“Fishes” and “Forks,” the sixth and seventh episodes of the second season, also fall into this category). While it felt like all of these episodes were serving the show’s larger story arc and the established mission to open the restaurant by the second season finale, the third season premiere feels detached from the rest of the world.
The bookends of a solid premiere and a finale that rewards the beautiful detours that happen in the rest of a season make The bear The risks work. The season three premiere doesn’t work as such a conclusion. It’s not that I think it’s bad as an episode, but as a season premiere. It relies too much on the audience having watched two seasons and being ready for the next one. An amuse-bouche should sum up what the show is about, and this premiere feels like a main course in the middle of a larger meal. It’s an extended recap that brings nothing new to the table, which would be fine for the first five minutes or so of a premiere, but twenty minutes in, I was already thinking about skipping to the next episode.
Honestly, I think most viewers should. The second episode of the season is a fantastic reintroduction to the series, setting the stage for the upcoming season while bringing back everything you love about The bear. In fact, I think you could watch the premiere second and find that it works much better in the context of the second episode. The benefit of all the episodes being released at once is that fans don’t have to sit through a whole week of that premiere, but can jump right into something better, which helps cover up some of its flaws but shouldn’t excuse them. After the premiere, I was just tired, but after the second episode, I was excited to find out what else Season 3 had to offer.
The bear Season 3 is now streaming on Hulu And Disney+.
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