The Bear

 

I'm late coming to The Bear.

Last year, I told a friend who was highly recommending the show that I wasn't ready for the series' storied closeness and intensity.

Actual worldly stresses were making series that involved characters mired in mental and emotional turmoil rather redundant. So, I back-burnered The Bear and a half-dozen other programs.

Jeremy Allen White's Golden Globe win as the show's lead, Chicago chef Carmy Berzatto, piqued my interest and led me to fire it up. It is indeed as remarkably well-crafted as folks say and much more varied in tone and pacing than I expected.

Though I'm only half-way through the season, I'm finding wonderfully compelling its story of a tortured and disaffected young man trying to save a Windy City diner his brother nearly ran into the ground before he killed himself.

White, whom I first saw on the long-running Shameless, is a blur of obsession and regret. He finds a soul mate in a young Black woman named Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), also Culinary Institute-trained, who comes to his kitchen as sous chef, believing the restaurant, much loved by her father, can be something great.

Their relationship is richly textured, their characters infused with both boldness and earthiness, like the delectable food served by The Original Beef of Chicagoland.

*****

I found so much to savor about The Bear in addition to all the wonderful food and the healing emotional and psychological scrubbing by Carmy, Richie and their high-strung crew.

Though I was late to the party, as usual, I really loved the respect the series' creators showed in the collegial relationship between The Beef's gutsy sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and Marcus, the restaurant's cuddly and idealistic baker (Lionel Boyce). Their conversation in her apartment in the final episode -- after quitting The Bear because of Carmy's meltdown (a performance that no doubt sealed the Golden Globe for Jeremy Allen White) -- was as enchanting and delectable as the sea bass and tomato confit she prepared for them.

Frankly, I'm somewhat ambivalent about whether the two of them become a couple as long as they keep talking with the same warm candor they did during that exchange.

It's refreshing to see a young Black woman and Black man deal with one another without the swagger, swivel and games-playing.

More please.