This is very good news, because the ensemble cast (five of whom have been nominated in its Emmy slew) is roundly excellent. This new timeline of three months over ten episodes, with each episode introduced by a countdown of weeks before opening night, may be The Bear taking its foot off the gas, but it allows much more time to explore the characters and their many, many hang-ups. If it loses some of the Boiling Point-style shouty-chef mania – the feeling that watching a half-hour episode necessitates an immediate three-hour lie-down – it gains a satisfying, at times profound, depth. Now Carmy and his team have to get the Beef renewed and refurbished in order to open in three months as their dream fine-dining restaurant, to be called The Bear. The ticking clock that propelled season one – counting down the delivery orders to waiting punters every single day is replaced with another, less migraine-inducing deadline. It hurries up then waits, tours Chicago, heads to Copenhagen… but it remains TV’s easiest current recommendation. Terrific acting, super food photography, a just-so soundtrack and a wry wit – the Emmys class The Bear as a comedy – leavened the bread. Most episodes felt like half-hour thumbscrews as things went wrong and then more wrong in a claustrophobic weekly doom spiral. Most of the half-hour episodes were spent cooped up in the Chicago sandwich joint The Original Beef as chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) tried to make a go of the family business that had been dumped in his lap when his big brother (Jon Bernthal, seen in flashback) died by suicide. The first series of The Bear, Disney+’s outstanding restaurant-set drama, was an exercise in tension.
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