let it rip

1. The CDC being an angry little freak who told Garret “Fuck you” after ranting about The Smudge™️

2. Chef Terry in all her placid wisdom talking about how her first restaurant failed (that she was young, talented, and arrogant, and how it was a most public wipeout).

The first time I watched that I wanted to draw a parallel to Sydney, but for them to have placed this episode right after showing us Fishes makes me wonder if I was supposed to take it at face value. For us to have seen the environment Carmen was raised in, and the environment he was trained in, and realize how both of those things shaped who he is currently. Luca gives us more insight into what it was like to work alongside Carmen. How fast and how hard he worked. And since Terry makes it very clear she doesn’t do favors, we can assume she has a lot of respect for Carmen. But, and this is what interests me in retrospect, both Luca and Chef Terry are relatively even keeled people. They’re no nonsense and have high standards, certainly, but we don’t see them get heated. What we do see is Luca telling Marcus not to jump in and be a hero if he’s gonna fuck it up, but patiently waiting for him to figure it out. We hear “Chef Terry is always watching” but we only ever see her patiently peeling mushrooms, and instructing Richie how to do the same — an act she does because it tethers her to what they do and she feels it will make customers appreciate that a real life person spent time on a dish for them.

Carmen has not found this kind of peace yet. For all his surety in his skill and culinary prowess, he still behaves like he has something to prove. Like he’s still someone’s CDC instead of, now in S2, the executive chef of his own restaurant. And that’s hammered upon whenever he hallucinates his old executive chef, or is reminded of the things he used to say to him. (As an aside, I think this is why Sydney’s opening lines had such a profound affect on Carmen. He knew he was amazing but he had someone telling him he wasn’t shit and would never be shit. Then he came back home to a broken restaurant where no one respected him. But Sydney, someone who’s not too shabby herself, well-trained and well-liked, took one look at him and went ‘I know you. I’ve seen what you can do, and you’re amazing. Who clipped your wings?’ And that cracked his asshole-ish exterior juuuuuuust enough to let some pressure out before he metaphorically exploded). Which brings me to my thoughts about Forks S2E7, and this season in general:

A lot of emphasis was placed on how people get stuck in cycles, how change is scary and not everyone can manage, but that it’s also not impossible to break free of the cycle. It’s not impossible to change. It is very obvious that Carmen needs to change, but WHAT will make him change is the question. Both Luca and Terry were humbled, either by realizing they weren’t the best or by losing a whole ass business, and I think that explains at least some of their temperament. Sydney has also already been humbled, the only difference between her and the former two is that the experience is still fresh and she has yet to fully recover. You can argue that Carmen is humbled by returning to his fucked up family restaurant but I don’t think that’s the case. It didn’t force him to change behavior, the only thing that came close was Sydney leaving, but she came back.

the bear | s2e2

DEADLINE: You grew up in Massachusetts. Do you remember what originally inspired in you the desire to act?

As a kid, I was always very much an escapist. I loved my sci-fi books and Flash Gordon and all that kind of stuff. I don’t know how much that played into my acting. I started to get more into it when I went to college. That’s when it became something I felt like I really wanted to do.

DEADLINE: Did you study acting when you were at Columbia University?

I wasn’t in the theater department. I took an acting class my freshman year. That really opened my eyes to the full art, that it’s really a discipline that I could pursue and study with my heart and my soul until the day I dropped dead.

DEADLINE: What was your very first job in Hollywood? Was it the TV movie Murder in a Small Town?

Yeah. My first job was with Gene Wilder. I remember going to the casting director on 53rd Street, maybe 54th Street, and there was Gene Wilder with his beautiful eyes glowing and his curly hair. He was like an angel. He gave me the job in the room while we were talking about something else. It was an OK movie, but it was six weeks where I got to spend every day with Gene Wilder, who was like the most wonderful, generous role model. I didn’t realize even at the time what an amazing gift that was.

DEADLINE: What was your initial reaction to The Bear? What made you want to do it?

It just felt so true to me. Richie definitely reminded me of a few people I’ve known over the years, people who I kind of love who were hilarious and tragic and big babies. I never read anything like that before, the writing was just so good. And Chris Storer had such a keen ear for dialogue and behavior. I didn’t really know much about kitchens, and I don’t really know much about Chicago, so I wasn’t even picking up on those things. It was just about relationships and the way people talk to each other and the things that people intimate but don’t say.

DEADLINE: You’ve said before that what Richie brings to the restaurant is fairly unclear and vague. So why the hell is he still there?

I don’t know. It’s like your grandma’s pot. The soup’s gotta be cooked in that pot, you know? Otherwise, it’s not gonna taste the same. At the same time, you’re like, what the hell? What’s going on with this big pot? It’s ugly and it takes up a lot of room in the kitchen. Richie is very much the soul of the restaurant. He’s the front-facing part. He knows everybody’s name. He’s like community relations.

DEADLINE: The way you guys scream at each other is so funny. How do you remain in character and not bust out laughing?

It happens sometimes, but I’m proud of us. Jeremy’s a pro. He doesn’t laugh too much. And then you’ve got people like Matty Matheson [who plays the role of Neil Fak], who is like a complete liability to have to do scenes with. I have to look away from him, pretend he’s somewhere else. Because if I look at him, we’re just gonna start laughing.

Written by Lynette Rice for Deadline.com on June 2, 2023

So, costuming on TV, in a movie always means something even if it’s only a representation of the character. The Bear seems to use that on the next level, too, on the more thematic/symbolic level.

Richie wearing only Beef merchandise is the most obvious use of both these ideas, because it’s not subtle, like Richie is not subtle. His adherence to the Beef dress code shows that his character is tied more to the past than the present/future, and that he’s outside the rest of the group as the kitchen staff dons the new blue aprons. The only exception Richie makes in the present is when he’s on a date. Which says something too. That Richie knows how to fit social expectations. Even how to impress if he keeps his mouth shut.

Clear, color separation is used with Sugar. She wears civvies because she doesn’t work in the kitchen, but she’s in orange, the opposite of blue on the color wheel in the pilot, and pink, a social opposite of blue later when she comes to clean up the shot-out glass and search the office for the tax paperwork. This makes it obvious that she doesn’t work in the restaurant, and she doesn’t like it. In the season 2 trailer, talking to Cicero, she coordinates with Carmy and Sydney, showing that she’s coming around.

There’s a distinct present quality in the blue apron uniform as Mikey’s kitchen staff only adds Carmy’s apron to their usual personalized work wear while Carmy and Sydney wear more personally standardized white tops and black/dark pants that not only are consistent but coordinate with each other, already making them a unit within the unit.

This apron/group dynamic is heightened by it not only being pointed out by Tina, but by Tina going from not wearing the blue apron to Carmy remarking that she looks like Sydney when Tina finally does and Tina in return saying to him she’s “profesh” now. It's interesting that Tina wears a white blouse, like Sydney, before the blue apron. It’s the apron and Carmy she resists not the kitchen uniform, but it hints at the future before she joins the present. And before she sheds her individualism.

This desire for individualism leads to Sydney’s scarves, her show of individualism and how she works the fact that she has to hold her braids back into something distinct and bold within her personal uniform that she likely spent a lot of time working towards as she figured out how stand out as herself in a professional kitchen in a way that could not be argued with. Although she also probably played closer to the rules in an attempt to almost hide, wearing something very discreet until she found a place and acceptance at the Beef with Carmy. She wears a more subtle version of her scarf in episode 1 with it rolled then she does in later episodes with the triangle point showing off more color. I envision her wearing the rolled version while catering and interviews because it’s a little sleeker while still hinting and her boldness.

Carmy keeping to his own version of a very classic chef look shows his insecurity even as he comes into his own. He wants to wear something he’s comfortable in that hints at the denim collection and keeps him close to Mikey, but white tee and black work pants with a blue apron is still very professional kitchen. Carmy shows off on the plate, not in his uniform, which he keeps no matter how he’s working in the restaurant or where he’s cooking. Except at home, which is notable. This is echoed in his off-duty clothes, muted colors, and denim, as opposed Sydney’s prints, stripes and screen tees.

All of this is a very winding way to say that all the costume choices mean something. It’s something that the new girl will have a uniform that matches Sugar’s life outside the Beef/Bear. That Richie has Berf merch hidden in someone’s basement, a further tie to the messed up past. That Tina seems to be doing better in culinary school than Ebra. That Marcus and Fak have their own flair.

(There’s not enough of Marcus in the trailers to really guess at his path forward, just rumors, so I’m going to hold off on him in season 2, but in season 1 he falls between present and past but definitely in action looks to his future. I mean, he’s obsessed with possibility and donuts.)

One of my favorite scenes of Season 1 of The Bear is in Episode 8. The scene is between Tina and Carmen when she goes to see him in the office.

Two things really stick out to me in this scene. By the end, it’s clear how much Tina cares for Carmen. It is also clear how much Carmen now trusts Tina.

She goes to check in on him and asks him if “he’s good.”

She can tell that something’s wrong, that he’s being quiet and subdued since the absolute chaos and mayhem of the prior episode.

Carmen speaks very gently and respectfully in this scene. He says he’s tired but his comfort level with Tina is very palpable and this scene is a beautiful contrast to how their relationship began in Episode One. In this scene, he opens up to Tina by putting himself in the vulnerable position of asking her questions about his own brother’s decisions.

The moment when he says, “hm, sounds like that was his attitude, huh”, and Tina replies, “No, no, I remember because it WASN’T his attitude”, is such a major moment. The unintentional shift in power dynamics is mesmerizing to watch and so well performed by both Actors.

Tina loved Michael, she noticed his behavior, she understood when something felt off or wrong. What’s interesting is that the beginning of this scene reveals that she is also now doing this same thing with Carmen.

Carmen is trying so hard to piece together Michael’s broken system and paperwork but he might as well be reading hieroglyphics. Because he was ostracized by Michael, their connection, brotherhood, and bond were severed. He simply doesn’t understand his decisions. The face Carmen makes when he realizes that in the final days of his life, Tina was closer to, and understood Michael better than him is devastating.

Carmen follows this up by giving Tina the night off, telling her, “I got you.” Tina takes the opportunity to express to Carmen how much she loved his brother.

There are many things I love about this scene but I think the thing I love the most is it shows us how Carmen and Tina have grown in their relationship to one another since episode one. They trust and care for each other. It is an oasis of gentleness and sweetness that is much needed after the prior episode.