“The Bear” Season 2 Review: Second Helpings

metroweekly.com:

The Bear‘s second season places us in a frigid Chicago winter, where our beloved, stressed chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his crew are hard at work turning their now-shuttered sandwich joint “The Beef” into “The Bear,” an upscale dining destination.The second season of Hulu’s surprise hit from Christopher Storer (Eighth Grade, Ramy) proves that without change, even the most timeless meals can go off.

Sophomore slumps are a hit show’s worst nightmare, but The Bear (★★★★☆) proves that great television can handle a little taste of something new.After the nerve-wracking end of season one saw “The Beef” shot up by local gangsters, we now find ourselves thick into renovations for a reinvented restaurant that is opting for high-class dining over local favorite status.We see Carmy struggling to get things on track with little time and even less cash, while creating a new menu from scratch with his Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), who is battling insecurities and has doubts the herculean effort is worth it.Carmy’s cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), now trying to work on his temper, helps renovate alongside the immature Fak (Matty Matheson, whose role feels meatier this season), while baker Marcus (Lionel Boyce), splits his time between creating desserts and hospital visits to see his mom.Meanwhile, Carmy’s sister, Sugar (Abby Elliott), is being courted to step in as the project manager, as Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) and Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) are sent to cooking school for the formal training they will need so that the new restaurant can earn a coveted Michelin star.The first noticeable change is how season two’s chaos lies in its renovations, leaving behind the stress of working in a restaurant in favor of creating one from the.