Christopher Storer’s The Bear (FX, 2022–) is the most kinetic show on television and somehow also one of the most emotionally precise. Jeremy Allen White plays Carmy Berzatto, a Michelin-trained chef who’s come home to take over The Original Beef of Chicagoland after his brother’s suicide.
The pilot’s kitchen-fight episode is shot in real-time and feels like a documentary. Season 1 was a 30-minute anxiety attack with a beating heart. Season 2’s Forks episode (where Richie does staging at a fine-dining restaurant) is one of the great hours of TV. Season 3 is more contemplative — some viewers loved the patience, others felt it stalled.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Cousin Richie deserves every Emmy he’s won. Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney is the show’s moral center. Liza Colón-Zayas’s Tina is the emotional one.
A show about labor, grief, and trying to be better tomorrow than today.
