My Review of "The Bear: Season 1"

The Bear: Season 1 is a TV show set in a restaurant in Chicago and it aired back in 2022. I can't believe it took me this long to check this show out. Admittedly, the premise of the show never really caught my eye even though I haven't actually seen a bad restaurant movie. There's actually a lot of good chef movies and I've never thought of checking out a TV show about a chef. This boggles my mind but I'm glad I finally gave in.

The show starts off a bit weird because our main protagonist, Carmen Berzatto (hence the name of the show) is going through things. He's actually a highly acclaimed chef who's worked at one of the best restaurants in the world. Everything gets shattered when he has to come back to his hometown of Chicago.

He has to deal with a death in the family. His holder brother had committed suicide and left the family restaurant to Carmen. Now, it's up to Carmen to pick up the pieces of his family legacy and take on his newfound responsibilities. It's a far cry from where he was before so we kind of question his decision. Then we meet the rest of the staff at the restaurant.

They're even more dysfunctional then you expect. We have all sorts of personalities in the kitchen. Even though they don't seem to get along they are in some ways more family than we expect. We have one more newcomer to the gang with Sydney. She's is well overqualified to be working there but she wants to work with Carmen because of his reputation as a great chef.

As each episode flies by we realize that there is more to this business than simply selling sandwiches. This show gets into some of the complications that restaurants have gone through during the pandemic, how to deal with unsavory characters, egos headbutting each other and much much more. Although this show is supposed to be fictional, there is a side of me that feels that this is all drawn from real world experience.

All of the situations in this show feel like they actually happened in real life and I could feel the tension and anxiety that the staff is feeling as they're working. This is all done through clever editing and some terrific acting by the whole cast. Each of the characters are so different from one another it's hard to understand how they work together but at the same time you can't imagine splitting them up. It's like the dysfunctional family that you want to be part of. I don't understand it but they really sucked me into this show with their amazing personalities.

To make matters worse there are some things in the background that Carmen has to stickhandle around. Before his brother had committed suicide he got himself into a whole slew of problems. Besides the restaurant, Carmen has also inherited all of the debts and problems that come with it. There's no wonder why Carmen has to go through some sort of therapeutic group to help him recover what sanity he has left.

This show is at times unhinged and chaotic but I wouldn't have it any other way. Through it all somehow they're able to add a whole slew of comedy bits in there. I would never have thought they'd be able to seamlessly add comedy to such crazy tension without losing the audience. They weave this fine line like a hypnotic dancer. It's a short exhilerating ride that I never want to get off.

Overall, I had a blast with this season and I can't wait to get onto the next. The writing, the cast, the artistic direction and even the music has me all in on this show. I never thought this show would exceed my wildest expectations for it but it somehow did it. If you haven't already started watching it, do yourself a favor by binging this first season. I have to give it a 9 out of 10. I'm all in.