Be the hype.
That’s a working title. I just caught up on The Bear. So that means while everyone else is done talking about it, I’m just getting started. But in the desperate belief that people will want to read and think and talk about a TV show long after it’s aired, I will push forward writing about something everyone else has already digested, reflected, and ejected from their daily lives.
I started season two in December, almost six months after it dropped on Hulu. I loved season one and started episode one of season two back when in June with high hopes. The show delivered. I just wasn’t in the headspace to watch a show about picking up the pace and not wasting time. I spent the better part of two years trying to get better at slowing down the pace and wasting time. Turning on The Bear was like swerving into the other lane. I needed to get distance between me and workohol, not be pancaked by a delivery truck transporting kegs.
So I hit pause after one episode and skipped recap podcasts and left conversations that might tell more of the story I was eager to watch but committed to avoiding. Still I picked up enough chatter to know it was better than last season in pace, character, story, heart, humor and stress. And last season was a banger. I also knew Carmy was deeply unhappy even though he was a master chef.
Three days into watching it, I went out for a birthday lunch with my friends and it came up organically because I had ordered essentially a five dollar homemade Sprite and someone had said that was a reference in some popular show, and that it could be The Bear, but they weren’t sure. A night later I would watch “Fishes” and the homemade Sprite made an appearance. But at that same lunch, my friend said he was about to watch the hour long episode and my other friend said “that’s the best episode of the season.” Then on the ride home from that lunch, a TV podcast I listen to, named “Forks” the best episode of television of the year. When I got home, I went to Hulu and learned the hour long episode was called “Fishes.” So now I wasn’t sure if my friend was mistaken or if I had got the words confused somehow. But my expectations were very high for a show I was already anticipating.
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