The Bear - Season Two’s Strange Currencies
The Bear - Season Two’s Strange Currencies
The second season relays in unflinching detail why the Berzattos are “bears,” and there’s ample screen time for ensemble character development, which bodes well because the cast is stellar.
Let it Rip
Summed up, Season 1 of The Bear (reviewed here in depth) is “hot takes aboard the Berzatto grief, pain and trauma train” following the death of Jon Bernthal’s Michael. It’s also the amuse-bouche or perhaps more fitting, the aperitif to Season 2’s main entree of the “seven fishes,” a popular dish theme in the 10-episode season.
There are many acts in this season and all of them deliver on that delicious backstory of the Berzattos and their extended clan of “cousins” that aren’t biologically related to them, for clarification. It does get really confusing, with everyone calling each other “cousin” to figure out who is a blood relative. This article does a nice job of calling out who is who.
Bears are Aggressive, but Kind and Empathetic
Half-way through Season 2, a season that opens with infectious, renewed energy promising new beginnings (Tina and Ebra get sent to culinary school, Marcus acts as an apprentice under a proper pastry chef in a beautiful Copenhagen episode in which Will Poulter as Chef Luca simmers, and Syd gets schooled in the Coach K method of courage + confidence = decisions), we get an episode that takes place 256 weeks in the past. It’s the fish bowl episode we needed, to truly understand the depths of dysfunction that Carmy and Natalie had to live through to get to the present day and the opening of their new restaurant. The opening of the new restaurant being the milestone moment the entire season leads up to.
In this flash back to Christmas dinner at the Berzattos, “mama bear” Berzatto, matriarch Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) is holed up in the kitchen, making way too much food, operating in a chaotic, mess-infused state mentally and physically, and taking so many huffs on her cigarette in between hurling insults at her kids, that any moment as you hear the timer go off, which if does repeatedly, for no rhyme or reason, you expect her to implode with only a cigarette butt and her magnificent silver coif left in her wake.
As the night progresses, and Sugar asks her for the umpteenth time if her mom’s ok, seeking reassurance from her mom that she will never get, and walking around hiding alcohol bottles, Carmy’s in the kitchen with his mom helping her prepare the meal, on the receiving end of her passive-aggressive flavor of narcissism (“No one helps me. No one lifts a finger. I do everything.” - literally as he’s doing just that!). Michael is off doing drugs just to deal with all of this crazy, telling embellished stories and throwing forks at the one relative no one wants to make an appearance at a holiday meal, “Uncle” Lee (Bob Odenkirk). Hands down the worst guest.
Tension is mounting and references to Donna’s instability and when (not if) she will blow permeate the air. Lee is especially keen to make these jokes. Nevertheless, it’s a foregone conclusion that Donna will lose her shit and everyone is walking on eggshells, so much so, that they are taking digs at one another or trying desperately not to by engaging in silly conversations, just to keep the peace. One topic that’s used as a cooling agent in the growing temperature of the house is “the bear” lore and the inference of the Berzattos’ embodying the spirit of this animal by being people that are “aggressive, sensitive, kind, and empathetic.” Bears also eat humans, btw, so there’s that too.
The bear narrative even finds its way into the grace that poor Stevie (John Mulaney), not a blood relative, is pushed into delivering before the Christmas dinner starts. As an aside, both cousin Michelle (Sarah Paulson), Stevie’s partner, and Stevie are the only sane people at the dinner, both lovely and wholesome, and have you wondering what they did in a past life to deserve a seat at this table. Then again, they both wisely choose to sit at the kiddie table. Michelle may not have any air time the rest of the season, but her mark her is significant. She is the one that pulls Carmy out of this mess.
“Come stay with me Carm in NYC. I see what happens here. I can see how it gets in your head. I don’t want that for you.”
With this offer, Carm’s destiny is sealed. We know he ends up in NYC, where he focuses on becoming a world-renowned chef, away from his Chicago roots, away from Michael and Donna’s negative influences.
Every Second Counts & These Characters Get That
In a show with some really solid beautiful storytelling, the finest episode of the season, entitled “Forks” centers around Richie. As I referenced in my prior post on S1, Richie is hard to take in large quantities so the thought of having him in an entire episode is mind-numbing at first.
In this episode, however, we see the transformation of a 45-year-old man going from someone without purpose and lacking confidence to a man excited to go to work, making a difference, and working as a highly effective member of a team at a job he takes very seriously. Richie finally learns the meaning of the Stanislavski quote, “There are no small roles, only small actors.” From the art of maintaining streak-less forks and smudge-less plates, to making a run to Pequod’s Pizza because a customer talks about a hankering for pizza, he gets the importance of quality service and making people’s day.
He emerges from the week’s experience as a man who “wears suits.” He earns the respect of everyone at the high-end restaurant where he apprentices for the week and notably, shares a very personal conversation with the immensely talented and understated Chef Terry (Olivia Colman) in the best cameo of the season.
In addition to Richie’s growth, we see several characters go after their destinies and work at personal and professional goals.
Syd’s embracing her leadership role, sampling from the finest restaurants for menu inspo, and voraciously reading and quoting from Coach K, legendary Duke basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski’s “Leading with the Heart.”
In the realm of middle aged female powerhouses, Tina’s arc this season has me wanting to see more of Liza Colón-Zayas. This season, she becomes a sous-chef, goes to culinary school, opens up to much younger people at the school and ends up doing karaoke with them where she belts out a beautiful rendition of Freddy Fender's “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” and everyone fangirls over Tina. She shows up at every turn and is thankful to continue to grow, embracing all the good opportunities.
Seeing more of Natalie/Sugar (Abby Elliott) coming into her own as the COO of the restaurant and owning the operations of it from fork to hires was a win this season as well. Last season, I had a nagging feeling of why they hired such a dynamo in Elliott if they weren’t really using her. This season paid off the investment for me. I also really was riveted by her reconciliation with an apologetic “suits-wearing” Richie, and her loving relationship with another really good actor, who pulled off some amazing theatrical work in that tearful dinner scene in the finale, in which all of the Berzatto dysfunction and toxicity hits his face like a ton of bricks. Yes, I’m talking about you, Pete (Chris Witaske) of Progressive commercials and lots of other good stuff.
The Jewish Lightning Reference is Problematic
In the first episode of the season, “Beef,” there’s a scene where Syd falls through the wall in the office and Richie employs the term, “Jewish Lightning,” in reference to this. This term, is defined by the American Jewish Committee, as “a derogatory phrase describing the act of burning down a home or institution in order to collect the insurance money.”
You can thus see why such a slur would be offensive and how it’s perpetuating a form of ethnic hate. Such types of insidious forms of antisemitism were also used by the Nazis and in recent pop history, Kanye West, who went on his own viral tirade against Jews, and that guy has 18.3 million followers that listen to his drivel and soak it in. In short, you can see why injecting antisemitic tropes into stories and specifically shows with a big following and critical praise, need to be handled with a lot of intention and thought.
Per JTA, published in The Times of Israel, author Stephen Silver, mentions how no column on The Bear wants to touch this topic:
“Most found the reference funny but didn’t want to touch it. A Vulture critic wrote,” I’m not even going to go into what ‘Jewish Lightning’ is.”
The thing is though, we need to talk about it and analyze is and not just have people laugh nervously, unaware of if they should or shouldn’t be laughing. Silver does a competent job getting at the complexity and nuance of how The Bear is going about using this derogatory phrase to show character growth, specifically Richie’s, from the beginning of the season to the end.
He says:
The “Bear” characters acknowledge that “Jewish lightning” is a problematic term.
“I think the explanation of Jewish lightning does cement it as something that we shouldn’t say,” says sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), who adds that she would like to “add it to the list” of terms not to be said in the restaurant.
In the penultimate episode of the season, Richie takes his learning and pays it forward as Fak, attempting to solve a gas problem in the restaurant has a breakthrough ah-ha moment and uses the term again. He interrupts the newly transformed Richie in the middle of his meeting with the restaurant staff and repeats this word to which Richie replies, “Let’s just take a quick break while I go address this problematic individual.”
Roll the Credits & Shower Love
Aya Lisogorsky, designer of the beautiful “Bear” customized email banner. Note: You must be a subscriber to see this banner as it’s available via email header only and not via website post. Aya also did the footer art and may soon do a BEVP rebrand, as I hear I need one.
The Copenhagen episode reminded me a little of the Ted Lasso episode, “Sunflowers” from S3E6 and its ode to Amsterdam. For a fantastic recap of that, check out
post below.Other Substack posts on The Bear that I have enjoyed. Dig in.
Why does Tina call “Carmy” - Jeff or Jeffrey? I hope it’s better than the origin of Sugar’s nickname. She used sugar instead of salt in some dish? WTH, chef family.
Shipping a Carmy + Syd Coupling? I will tell you why I’m not. If they were same-sex partners, would we be shipping them? I feel like this is a good litmus test for whether there needs to be romantic entanglement here. I like the idea of these two being really strong business partners and friends. I don’t think either of them, especially Carmy though, is ready for any relationship.
Richie’s calling Carmy ‘Donna’ after he breaks Claire’s heart - Is this intentional? And also is Carmy like his mom? I gotta say this had me thinking that Carmy’s cosmic inability to love himself and let love in, and see and embrace the good in his life, has him going down Donna funnel and that’s no good.
Favorite song on the playlist this season? Mine was REM’s Strange Currencies, duh.
Season 3 predictions - Will Josh (SNL’s Alex Moffat), Chef Crack, be back? Will Carmy continue to go down a bad spiral of denial, shame and anger? The Donna cocktail? Will we get to see Tiff’s fiance and will be be played by Sam Rockwell?
Uncle Jimmy (Cicero) - I didn’t talk about him here, but he’s one of my favorite characters. The more I watch him, the more I like this dude. Any favorite Cicero quotes? That inspiring game talk he gives Carmy about the Cubbies and the optics of the fall guy:
“And everyone wants to kill little Stevie Bartman. But Alex Gonzalez's fuckup, trust me, is the real fuckup, right? Led to eight other fuckups. But then all of a sudden, all those fuckups are a wash 'cause of Steven Bartman, 'cause everybody and their mother wants to blame this fսcking guy instead of the actual fսckin' mοtherfսckin' fuckups who fսckеd it up.” (Pardon the swears, This show has a shit ton of them)
Finally finished the season last night so now I can talk about it. I loved Richie’s episode! What a sweet guy! I love seeing him gain confidence and win everyone else over with it.
I do think Alex Moffat will be back next season. First of all, his character was the only new-hire kitchen staff given a name to us, and secondly, the storyline needs a new fuck-up to reform now that Richie has matured.
The discussion in our home after watching this was about the great opportunity these characters were given to be educated and mentored in their craft. Aside from Syd, who went to culinary school, everyone else was working fast food, basically. Carmy’s loyalty and generosity opened the door for them to have experiences and learn things they might not otherwise been able to do.
I work in nonprofit with vulnerable populations, and I see what people are capable of accomplishing if they can get a boost, an opportunity, something to get them over a hump.
I’ve only made it to the Christmas dinner scene so I haven’t read your whole post. This was one of the greatest episodes of television I’ve seen in a long time. I love how we are dropped into a slice of life without any neatly explained descriptions of how everyone is related or what is going on. Even as the scene opened I was like WHY IS SHE SMOKING WHILE PREGNANT?
I miss television like this that doesn’t coddle the viewer by spoon feeding everything. We had to WORK at understanding the dynamic and making connections. Aaron Sorkin writes like this. Most current shows do not have writing like this.
I was also struck by the different reactions to the family dynamic from outsiders. Stevie was genuinely grateful to be included -- entertained and amused, but also appreciative. It made me wonder what kind of buttoned-up household her was from that made him appreciate the chaos so much.
Whereas Lee was a jackass who didn’t appreciate the hyperbole and free spirit nature of the chaos and traditional storytelling. He was not compassionate and shamed the negative dark side of the family.
Two outsiders with opposing views of the dysfunction.
You definitely get the origin story of Carmy’s chaos in the kitchen. It’s both served him well as a professional but also is slowly killing him. And the chaotic scene in an earlier episode where Claire visits the restaurant as everyone is yelling at each other in the kitchen -- we now know just how familiar this is to her and everyone in the Berzano orbit.
What a great episode.