Beautiful Chaos

I'm not a huge fan of binge-watching an entire season in one afternoon or night, but found myself doing so with S1 of The Bear. I'll admit, when it came out back in 2022, I only gave it a shot because I used to have a crush on Jeremy Allen-White (and he was very good in Shameless). The show completely exceeded my expectations with the balance of dark humor in such depressing situations, the cast, the overall plot itself.

Seasons 1 and 2 were very fast-paced, and grabs your attention right from the beginning. You can tell right from the mesh of the personalities in the beginning, character development will be an ongoing theme of the two seasons. I would have given it a 9/10, but S3 brought it down. Now, every good show needs a season to plateau so it can catch up to the racing plot lines of its prior seasons. One thing I will say about S3 is that for the most part the show is composed of new or not well-known actors outside of Allen-White and Moss-Bachrach, and the acting was good in S1, but it's dialed up to 100% by S3.

The only issue I have is that this show kind of falls flat with people who aren't familiar with the hospitality industry or Chicago culture (I would even say NYC for that matter, too). The show is in some ways (especially S3) a love letter to the city; most of the cast is aggressive, use "fuck you" as a term of endearment, a constant focus on keeping working class roots, and alcoholism. Give it a couple of episodes, and turn it off if you're stressed, but it's worth a watch.