Famous Don Draper quote from Mad Men: "You know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay." The arc of the characters in season two of The Bear is their journey to knowing they are OK. All except one.
There are so many things I admire about The Bear that it's going to be an effort to list and organize them.
The characters we're already incredibly well drawn, but this season we get a deeper dive into all of them. This is valuable because the show is so character driven -- a rare thing in itself. Like all of us, these characters are driven by their fears and insecurities as much as their more positive passions. The external conflicts are secondary to the internal conflicts they trigger.
The dialogue style is remarkable. Characters talk over the top of each other constantly. In the much discussed episode 6, it seems like the entire first act is two or three conversations going at once. No one lets anyone else finish. No one stops talking until they are out of breath. Simply from a standpoint of dialogue mechanics it is amazing. How does one write and time the talking of the characters to do that? How much is left to improv?
The table stakes of limiting exposition are easily achieved, but even the exposition that remains is oblique and often when a character expresses a direct emotion it's just a smokescreen for something deeper. This engages the viewer very deeply.
There is virtually no societal aspect to the plot. There is nothing ripped from the headlines. There are no great issues of the day on display. It is purely personal, purely human.
There is no fat. Most of the 10 episodes are less than an hour. The acting is terrific. These folks are really pouring themselves into their characters and it shows. Back to episode 6, where heavy hitters were brought in as guest stars, the regulars stood up to them just fine. The direction and editing are well calibrated to keeping the emotional tension high.
It's also great to see what is essentially a workplace drama that reveres the workplace. To my knowledge there are only three shows ever to do that: Mad Men, Halt and Catch Fire, and The Bear. It is clear the showrunners have a deep understanding of the sorts of personalities that devote themselves to restaurant work and to service as a career in general.
The Bear provisionally enters the Pantheon (Deadwood, Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Halt and Catch Fire). It will have to really screw up its next season to get booted out. I'm going to watch this season all over again.
