We had a tendency to forgive, or at least ignore, those traits, since witnessing Mr. Bourdain’s journeys into the global culinary wonderland, or the spectacle of Guy Fieri racing toward another diner in his convertible through an eternal American summer, created a pervasive sense of excitement around food and all its possibilities. On the plate, if nowhere else, things in America seemed to be getting better.
In recent years there’s been a profound and important shift in public attitudes. “The Bear” is perhaps best appreciated as a kind of real-time metabolizing of the tension between temperament and creation. The show presents us with a tortured genius but it helps us understand why he’s tortured and emphasizes — most importantly to the narrative’s moral scheme — that he wants to get better. Ultimately, the show grapples with the question: Can our love affair with restaurant culture be redeemed?
Carmy’s overlapping emotional struggles are at the core of the action: his struggle to keep the restaurant afloat; the struggle to honor the memory of his brother, an addict who had become emotionally distant and destructive; the struggle to push the boundaries of culinary invention, to keep high standards, to make good food, to be a good boss, to be a good person. Among the most powerful emotional reference points is a flashback to Carmy’s time working as the chef de cuisine at a fine dining restaurant in New York. Played with a pleading droopiness by Jeremy Allen White, Carmy struggles to stay on top of tickets during a service push as the restaurant’s head chef approaches and whispers a string of demoralizing invective in his ear: “You’re terrible at this. You’re no good at it. Go faster,” adding, “you are talentless,” and “you should be dead.”
On one level, Carmy agrees. But the show insists that we keep faith in him, and the pursuit to which he’s dedicated his life. The backbone to the narrative is his quest to renovate his brother’s beloved greasy spoon into an inventive, professional, “elevated” neo-bistro — the type of destination restaurant where the menu includes adventurous wines and savory cannoli, the service exudes casual culinary authority, and a wide variety of staff members refer to each other “chef.” If Season 1 threw us headlong into the chaos of a restaurant on the brink of both obliteration and rebirth, and Season 2 gave us a glimpse into the characters’ back stories and motivations, then Season 3 promises a different kind of progress and even a sense of emotional resolution. The show’s power lies in grappling with the industry’s most important dilemmas — such as whether something better, healthier and more stable can emerge from modern kitchen culture, and whether it’s possible to be artistic, original and aesthetically radical, and produce interesting work — while also maintaining emotional equilibrium.
Through it all, “The Bear” has understood and portrayed the restaurant business in all its ugliness. But it doesn’t ask us to move on from worshiping chefs. It simply asks for better chefs, nicer chefs, chefs who are more in touch with their emotional triggers and blind spots — who win Michelin stars, yes, but who also know when they’ve done something wrong, and have the maturity to apologize afterward.
Aaron Timms
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