The Bear on Hulu. Fast-paced, dealing with Cuisine and Grief. Great actors.
Eight, half hour episodes so it doesn't take long to stream through. Lots of accomplished actors, starting with Jeremy Allen White,("Lip" from Shameless. He plays the role of Carmy in the Bear.). Carmy is the youngest in a family of three brothers. He returns to the family homestead in Chicago, after his eldest brother commits suicide. This older brother, Mikey, was running the family sandwich shop in Chicago, and in his will, left the shop to his younger brother. Carmy has been in absentia for several years, working on his culinary skills in a famous five star restaurant. He returns to Chicago to take the challenge of continuing the family business.
You would think that with his culinary skills this would be an easy transition, but working a restaurant comes with tremendous anxiety and stress, which is the subject of many of the episodes. Lots of clashes in the kitchen as the existing employees transition from short-order cooks to learning complicated French restaurant strategies, meant to speed up the cooking process. These cooks are just ordinary people, but there is a culinary Chef in each one of them, just crying to take it to the next level.
Though it is called a comedy-drama, the first season is mostly drama. Not only is Carmy struggling with a restaurant that is in arrears to the neighborhood mob boss, but he's dealing with the grief from the loss of his brother. These struggles are piled on to his own feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Each episode is a peek into this pressure cooker environment and the effect it has on Carmy. Each failure piles on, until Carmy is forced to come to terms with the most pressing emotional issue: the loss of his brother. And this is where Jeremy Allen White gets to deliver one hell of a monologue that I hope will result in an Emmy.
In the final minutes of the final episode, a twist presents itself, which promises that the second season will return with a lightness and new direction that will capitalize on the comedy part of a comedy-drama.
I highly recommend it.
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