The Bear - Season 2

When you consume a lot of TV and film, it's very easy for it all to kind of merge together. In the endless content sea, which seems to be ever expanding with often forgettable or too familiar projects, there's a lot to pick through and more often than not, it's easy to miss genuine brilliance. The Bear is a show you should not miss.

The series revolves around the young chef, Carmy, as he looks to rebuild and bring his late brother's hugely problematic restaurant into the modern day. It features a cast of largely unfamiliar stars and tells a tale that is thrilling, nail-biting, and overflowing with the kind of stress and anxiety that must be commonplace in top class kitchens around the world. It's chaotic and loud, yet personal and charming, and features one of the best performances I've ever come across by a collective cast.

Leading the fray however is Jeremy Allen White's Carmy. In this role, White never fails to be the star of any scene he's in, commanding the attention of the viewer be it during the stressful kitchen moments or the more slowly-paced character development periods that really bring out the flaws in Carmy's persona, something that is bolstered with the newly introduced character of Molly Gordon's Claire. White was excellent in Season 1 of The Bear, and in Season 2 he has become even more comfortable and understanding of who Carmy is and what makes him tick, and this makes for an even more impressive and striking performance.

Adding to this are Ayo Edebiri's Sydney, Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Richie, Abby Elliott's Sugar, Lionel Boyce's Marcus, Liza Colón-Zayas' Tina, Matty Matheson's Neil, and more. Each one of the cast members and their characters doesn't just fit into The Bear, but now, in Season 2, they feel absolutely vital to it. There's no one character that you look at and think of as the ugly duckling, if you will, and Season 2 goes to great lengths to prove that by dedicating entire episodes towards the character development of some of these supporting stars.

Seeing Marcus head to Denmark to learn from Will Poulter's Luca is such a wonderful and charming 20 minutes that doesn't overstay its welcome, nor miss a beat. It's a perfectly paced moment that draws your attention away from the typical busy Chicago setting. Then to contradict this, perhaps the best episode in Season 2 is the almost Avengers-level cast team up that is in the Christmas episode, an episode that left me feeling hopelessly anxious. Jamie Lee Curtis, Bob Odenkirk, Jon Bernthal, Gillian Jacobs, Oliver Platt, John Mulaney, Sarah Paulson, and the typical cast of Carmy, Richie, and Sugar, all come together to create an hour-long epic that never eases up and never at one moment gives your heart rate a chance to settle. The point is, The Bear is a master of pacing, and in Season 2, showrunner Christopher Storer and Co. has turned this level of brilliance up a notch, making for some of the best TV currently out there.

Before moving on from the performances, I want to bring up Moss-Bachrach's Richie once again, because to me, he was the star of Season 2. The development arc that Richie takes turns him from being one of the most insufferable members of the team (which is also down to Moss-Bachrach's fantastic acting) into an absolute delight. Whenever Richie is on screen, you know you're in for a great moment as he brings out the best of the rest of the characters and the cast, and leads the way when White's Carmy isn't present.

But it's not just the performances and the writing that excels in The Bear. The set design is fantastic and the choreography and the way the series is filmed all make you feel like you are right there, in the restaurant, working the line, being shouted at by Carmy for being three seconds late on a component of a dish. While it is a dramatised take on the world of culinary arts, there's no doubting that this series has done its homework and created something that feels authentic and real, and in Season 2 this is only even more obvious, as Carmy and the crew transition from grimy fast food shop to upper-class restaurant.

Whether you've already heard of The Bear or not, and regardless of whether cooking programmes are up your street, this series is one that you cannot afford to miss. Season 1 was excellent, but Season 2 just steps up its game and offers up some of the best TV I have ever seen. Period. The pessimist in me wants to ask how the team will manage to keep this level of quality up for a third season, but seeing how well the show has transitioned between its first and second outing, I'm sure that the inevitable third season will just look to go above and beyond again.