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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.

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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.

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“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.”

This is exactly the sentiment and these are the words that speak to this aspect of Carmy’s duality and his ability to thrive in chaos and have this dysfunction be his undoing.

Jen, we didn’t even properly dig into Richie…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/16/opinion/the-bear-fx.html

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