#media commentary

The show provides lots of subtext to support this. Richie and Jess are in S1 Sydcarmy stage, where barely touching each other makes sparks fly. As @sublimepeachtriumph has pointed out as well, this relationship gets more narrative priority than it deserves and was added near the end of the show.

Back to Caramel. As Donna goes through Carmy's black notebooks in this episode, several things become very clear based on how the show intercuts them with the service going on.

For example, when Donna gets to the scallops, it shows Syd making a scallop in the kitchen that is served to the FOH/Audience. Carmy tells Syd, "Beautiful, chef."

There's a progression of Carmy drawing seafood and cream sauces which I've already mentioned, which are erotic, but he draws foods that represent female reproduction over and over again or look like sperm/eggs. I will presume, that despite his family picking on him for being sensitive and artistic, and calling him slurs, this is the show telling us Carmy is straight. The Copenhagen book is particularly erotic like this, and Donna will return to it later so that Carmy can mention the boat he stayed on with the invisible kitty.

But these notebooks connect Carmy and Marcus's legacies and stories.

Carmy had a sexual awakening of a kind in Copenhagen, or at least of his desires, because he comes up with The Bear then. But he sublimated his feelings into food. When Marcus is sent there, he also has a sexual awakening but doesn't sublimate it.

Instead, Marcus leans into his artistic sensitivity and curiosity, then wins a big award.

Donna reads the Ever notebook and it shows scenes of Carmy, Chef Terry, and Luca in flashback as well as a photo with Terry in between them. This is Carmy's first time experiencing something that feels more familial at a fine dining place. Pre-Copenhagen. The start of Carmy seeing the possibility as the restaurant as family and having it all in one place, which is a dream he shares with Syd, but not Mikey.

It also introduces the point that Luca enters the story in an overarching sense.

When Donna gets to the New York book, she comes across the legerdemain pages. Marcus has read all these notebooks forward and back, and Carmy gifts them to him in the end.

Right after the legerdemain pages, it shows the banana split dessert inspiration that Marcus will craft with Luca and serve that night. (Syd is also shown in S2 eating a sundae alone, eating the cherry on top, wink wink.)

The banana is obvious symbolism, as are the colors of the ice cream. (Neil will later make a lengthy joke at the table about bananas being shoved up asses just in case it's not clear).

Immediately after this, Luca and Marcus have the following exchange related to this dessert. While they are speaking, Syd is cooking the scallop dish. It's about how they've run out of brioche. A very soft and cushy bread, btw. But it also alludes to their meetcute way back in Honeydew in S2.

Luca: Chef, we are running low on brioche.

Marcus: Yeah. fսck. Um, can we make more?

Luca: We haven't got time.

Marcus: Yeah. Halve it?

Luca: Have to. Yeah.

This is telling us that Marcus and Luca's storyline got cut in half.

Just as Syd presents her scallop dish, Carmy says:

It's beautiful, Chef. Hands!

Indicating, that Syd and Carmy's story also was cut short.

These are the only two interracial relationships on the show.

When they decided to end the story on S5, because, obviously, they weren't going to be allowed to progress the way they wanted with these two romantic storylines.

Meanwhile, Nat and Pete get to have sex at a dumpster as @whenmemorydies pointed out, and Jess and Richie get to fly away to Japan.

Carmy steps in and whips up a brioche, though, so his son Marcus and his lover Luca can serve their dessert and let Luca at least meet Marcus' dad before he goes back to Copenhagen.

Carmy never gets to meet Emmanuel as it stands. (Although, Syd has as conversation with her dad and it includes both talk about wearing protection and twins.)

And that framing irrationally annoys me. No, you weirdos, they did not "forget" anything, they didn't "make a mistake." They chose to change or leave out that detail. Your next step upon realizing that should be to ask yourself: why? Why would they choose to make that change? Is it to make things fit better with the new medium? To cut down on time? Tighten up the pacing? Maybe they had a philosophical disagreement with the original work and wanted to challenge it, or maybe they're adapting the early chapters of long-running ongoing and the change brings things more thematically in line with the later installments. Maybe they couldn't render the thing due to limits of budget and/or technology so they decided to do something else instead.

There are as many reasons to make changes in adaptation as there are changes to be made and "They didn't mean to do it" is both the least likely and least interesting answer to the question of why.

When that one post that's going around says, "So many people are bad at critique," this is part of what they mean. If you're going to critique something, you will get more out of it if you approach your critique from the perspective that the creators knew what they were doing and created with intention.

Justice is definitely the killer with Vivi as their accomplice.

One of the phrases on the loading screen is "what's your favorite scary movie?" Which is a quote from Scream, a movie with two killers who utilize fake albi and stage a fake attack to throw off suspicion.

Justice being hurt at the party was as fake as the corn starch blood Billy used to fake his own demise at the party in Scream.

Vivi claimed to be talking to Justice when the main character talked to the killer outside the party, so obviously she's the accomplice that helped with the fake albi.

Okay, so I’ve been watching this, and I need to know if anyone else is suffering through these character dynamics or if it's just me.

Quick context if you haven’t seen it: King Darius (the Beast King) loses touch with Jane (a human woman he impregnated) because his terrible mother sent her away to a dangerous area. Darius thinks she’s dead. Years later, he runs into these two kids, Zane and Zoe, on his way to a doctor. They sell him these cheap-looking twin dragon amulets, and he only buys them out of pity. Then, Darius drops a hairpin Jane had given him, Zane steals it, and tries to sell it at a pawn shop. When they catch Zane, they try to whip him, but Zane pulls out a dagger that matches the one Darius has. Darius seizes it and calls the boy a thief. Long story short, drama ensues.

But OH MY GOD, the frustration I have with these characters is boiling over. Let’s break down why this script is driving me insane:

King Darius has zero emotional intelligence.

Why is the King of Beasts so utterly ruthless and unkind to strangers? He refuses to listen to anything anyone has to say! Contrast him with his own mother—when it was her turn to encounter the kids, she wasn't mean, she didn't kick them away, and she actually listened. Because she used her ears, she noticed the resemblance, trusted what they said, and went to find them. Why can't the actual male lead have a fraction of that decency?

Justice for Zane!

Zane’s anger is completely valid, yet the narrative totally sweeps it under the rug. He’s out here spitting facts, saying the Beast King is ruthless and failed to protect their mother. And what does he get? The father just ignores him, and Jane constantly shuts him down, telling him he’s being "rude." Excuse me?? The boy is traumatized and angry! He doesn’t need to be silenced; he needs guidance, a safe space to express his anger, and a father who actually takes accountability.

Zoe and Jane are testing my patience...

Zoe: Why is this little girl constantly begging and running to grab onto strangers' legs? I found it so bizarre and repetitive.

Jane (The Mother): She is so incredibly slow to act. She has zero backbone! She never knows when to stand her ground or when to just pack up and walk away. She’s constantly playing it safe, waiting around for the Beast King to shield her from the world.

Honestly, I am actively choosing to ignore the massive plot holes regarding what exactly happened to Darius during those missing years (or maybe I just rage-blinked and skipped a few episodes, who knows).

But the comment about us getting Daniel's turning in s4 from the Nerdist interview this morning IF we get another season has me especially irritated.