The Bear Season 2 serves familial arcs, from trauma to found family
Maintaining its signature high-intensity and anxiety-inducing storytelling, FX’s culinary masterpiece The Bear, in its second season, delves deeper into established familiar arcs. From chef and owner Carmy’s trauma to the Original Beef of Chicagoland turned The Bear crew’s beefed-up bond.
While Season 1 saw the fairytale-like depiction of Carmy’s struggle in maintaining his deceased brother’s restaurant, drenched in grease, screaming, and a whole lot of canned tomatoes. The new 10-episode season chronicles the construction (and deconstruction) of The Bear, from the venue to its people, in line with his and Sydney’s (his second-in-command) vision of a restaurant worthy of a Michelin star.
The Bear Season 2 serves familial arcs, from trauma to found family
The Bear’s found family
As a central theme, The Bear plays around the cruel reality of a restaurant kitchen setting. Through its remarkable fast cuts and pounding soundtrack, we as viewers, get to experience the pressure, and the sense of claustrophobic urgency back-of-house staff regularly do. Coming from the first season, the relationship between the series’ characters develops into a deeper disposition of community. We see less scheming and more planning amongst them, (not totally but) less screaming and more nurturing, albeit mostly forced. Almost as if Carmy’s arrival turned the Beef’s kitchen upside from an intoxicating workplace to an environment of growth. A true savior moment.
From the get-go, we witnessed the show’s instigation into the concept of found family. Starting with Richie’s introduction as the restaurant’s temperamental manager and the Berzattos’ non-biological cousin; “family by friendship.” In extension, each of the staff of the restaurant this season, though unsaid, became the pieces constituting the Bear family.
Collective growth
In each episode, with The Bear’s renovation as a background narrative, the staff get an education as part of their fresh start. We see Tina, Ebra, Marcus, and even Richie and Sydney undergo their redirections before the new restaurant opens. Much like a true family, they get better together.
Natalie (Carmy’s sister) unofficial-then-officially taking the role of their project manager in the first episode, Beef. By the second episode, Pasta, Tina, and Ebra start their professional training as cooks perpetrated by Sydney. Blew off by Carmy, Sydney ventured on her own in the third episode, Sundae, restaurant-hopping throughout Chicago’s best restaurants. Kasama, the world’s first Filipino Michelin-starred restaurant makes its appearance in Sydeney’s lineup. Marcus (the baker), tasked with creating three desserts for their menu flew to Copenhagen to learn from Luca (Will Poulter) in the fourth episode, Honeydew. While in the seventh episode, Forks, Richie gets his own education cleaning forks in the “best restaurant in the world.” Skeptical and feeling punished at first, Richie resented his cousin. But after truly immersing he grew to love his temporary job learning structure, discipline, and the essence of service.
And by its last episode, we experience the end product. As if a natural system, we see their progress complimenting each other, albeit with a bitter cliffhanger.
Berzattos’ Christmas dinner
Wedged in between the gratifying developments of individual growth is the star-studded 1-hour sixth episode. Fishes, the darkest turn of the season. When Season 1 went deeper with Carmy’s relationship with his brother and former owner of then Then Beef, Mikey (Jon Bernthal), Fishes lets us on the whole dysfunctional dynamic of their family. Dishing the possibility that the main conflicts featured in the show are rooted in their biological familial issues.
In a Christmas dinner set a few years back, we are introduced to Donna (their mother, played by Jaimee Lee Curtis), Uncle Lee (Donna’s boyfriend, played by Bob Odenkirk), and couple Michelle (their biological cousin, played by Sarah Paulson) and Steven (played by John Mulaney).
The episode started with siblings Carmy and Mikey rehearsing with Natalie outside Donna’s house. To refrain from asking their mother if she’s okay, make her conscious, and act differently. Collectively praying “Our Mother of Victory, Pray for us.” A few minutes in, we find ourselves caught in the distraught, shouts, stories, and laughter of the whole family. Including non-biological members Richie, Tiffany (his wife, played by Gillian Jacobs), and the Faks. Alcohol-soaked Donna cooks their dinner, her rendition of the Italian-American tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes. The whole episode spirals down culminating in a physical and verbal fight between Mikey and Lee. Ultimately ending with Natalie finally asking her question and Donna driving a car through their living room.
Opening The Bear
At present, Donna, invited to the opening of The Bear, cannot force herself to go inside. Instead, she witnessed and scrambled on the sideline. Halfway through the season, we begin to understand Carmy way clearer. Between his family, his brother’s death, and the intoxicating nature of his job, his anxieties and episodes are fittingly reasonable.
On the upside, he found people to heal and cope with. A found family, an establishment, and a community to supply him buoyancy. More than his dream for his late brother’s restaurant, he found the people he worked with to be more important.
