‘THE BEAR’ IS SET IN CHICAGO, BUT DOES THAT MAKE IT A CHICAGO SHOW?

The following contains spoilers from Season 3 of The Bear.

After having some time to process Season 3 of The Bear, I’ve generated a few thoughts from the Chicago perspective about all 10 episodes. I’ll try not to spoil too much, but please don’t say you haven’t been warned. Here’s your chance to bail without damage.

Still with me?

Season 2 quickly carved out its territory, screaming to anyone within earshot that The Bear was a Chicago show, backed by montages and Sydney’s now-famous food tour of Chicago restaurants, a scene so resonant that it’s produced a cottage industry of sorts with real-life entrepreneurs offering their tours based on the TV show.

Prioritizing the Chicago footage felt like a response to Season 1 and early critiques from locals who were irritated that the show had created a fictionalized version of Chicago, one that looked fine from afar. Still, up close, it tasted as disappointing as a bite of Pizza Hut tavern-style pizza. The metaphor runs deeper: No one outside of Chicago cares about accurate depictions of the city. Customers in middle-of-nowhere Massachusetts don’t care if Pizza Hut’s tavern crust uses enough cornmeal or deploys the right kind of sausage. In their eyes, it’s a genuine Chicago-style pie.

But while Season 2 loaded up Chicago references and vibrant cinematography, Chicago in Season 3 feels more like a prop than a place of meaningful depth, or as Anthony Bourdain once described, “a metropolis, completely non-neurotic, ever-moving, big-hearted but cold-blooded machine with millions of moving parts  — a beast that will, if disrespected or not taken seriously, roll over you without remorse.”

Of course, the show is under no obligation to be perfect, but many Chicagoans are desperate for a depiction that represents the spirit that Bourdain alluded to, and that’s why this most recent season was so disappointing. Season 2 showed glimmers of showing a more complete Chicago, but we’re given a third season that squanders that momentum. This death by a thousand paper cuts starts in the new season’s first episode when we’re shown the insides of Chicago Tribune’s Freedom Center, the press where the paper was printed for 43 years. The Freedom Center ends up being a plot device that sets up the season finale.

Including the Freedom Center is a questionable ploy given that the press made its last run in May and the Trib will now be published in Schaumburg inside a facility once owned by the Daily Herald. The paper is vacating the building to make room for a casino that may or may not actually open. The deal was announced in June 2023, well before crews began filming on Season 3.

In the current context, scenes like this just don’t hit. It’s as if producers asked ChatGPT to concoct a version of Chicago instead of finding footage that rings true. The AI bots seem to churn out results from an outdated database, one that, among other faults, presents a Chicago where Asian restaurants don’t exist. Check out dueling Bear-inspired lists of Chicago restaurants from Food & Wine and the Washington Post where Kasama is the only restaurant with Asian owners among a combined cohort of 21 restaurants. This might answer why some Asians in Chicago continue to feel invisible.

Speaking of invisible, pastry chef Marcus Brooks’s (Lionel Boyce) potential as a character is wasted this season. The Bear could have explored how rare it is to have a Black man as a pastry chef. Though the production acknowledges that by bringing in Malcolm Livingston for a cameo, the show dances around addressing how unusual the role is for a Black man. The show may provide some context with plenty of shots outside of Marcus’s home in Armour Square. Not many are pushed toward the world of pastry when growing up on the South Side. But the subtle approach comes off as toothless, designed to avoid the backlash to DEI. It’s unclear what the writers want to do with Marcus after setting up a friendship with Luca in Copenhagen in Season 2. Will Poulter’s character, with his fanboy charm irritating Alinea chef Grant Achatz, somehow manages more character development in Season 3 despite not being a series regular.

On Wednesday, The Bear broke an Emmy record with 23 nominations. Whether or not that’s too much or too little, the number did stick out. While Season 2 clung to a thread involving a book written by former Duke University men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski — a Chicago native — Chicago’s real number 23 was, for the most part, absent. No one did more to define Chicago culture in the ’90s than Michael Jordan and the Bulls. As The Bear weaves a fictional Chicago mixed with nostalgia and the present day, MJ’s absence is conspicuous.

There is some effort to show a more complete Chicago. An entire episode, directed by Ayo Edebiri, is dedicated to Tina Marrero, played by Liza Colón-Zayas, who’s from New York and is Puerto Rican. In her episode, Marrero’s journeys on the CTA manage to illustrate the city’s segregation and how back-of-the-house workers at your favorite businesses depend on buses and trains for employment.

The show does nail some Chicago aspects. When Jon Bernthal’s Michael Berzatto offers her an Italian beef, Tina admits the unthinkable and asks him, “What’s an Italian beef?” This captures the city’s divisions. Some have critiqued this scene, and it’s easy to see why youngsters who are digital natives can’t relate. We live in an age of TikTok and Instagram, where posts quickly become viral, exposing foods to populations that wouldn’t normally be familiar. Social media can challenge culinary segregation.

More compelling is how the show addresses the ongoing tension between folks who remain in the city, who feel those who have left are privileged and are elitist, and those who have ventured elsewhere. The departed often believe people who stay are stuck and lack the global perspective that travel provides. Beyond Chicago, this is what it’s like for many who live in the Midwest. Keen Chicago observers have seen this bear out in the city with a new tasting menu restaurant, Feld, and some of the reaction to its young chef, a Chicago native who traveled the world and worked at restaurants — just like Carmy.

In 2022, Jeremy Allen White told Axios’s Monica Eng that “Carmy has been running away from Chicago for years, so Chris [Storer] didn’t want him to really have an accent.” Storer, the show’s creator, also left Chicago for a career in Hollywood, and it’s no leap to see parallels between him and Carmy. We all have memories encased in amber that crack when we come home after an extended period. Storer addresses what it’s like to leave Chicago and return, to reunite with friends who haven’t had a chance to see the world.

In a seemingly throw-away line from the latest season’s second episode, Storer addresses that resentment through interactions between Carmy and Chris Zucchero’s character, Chi-Chi (Zucchero’s late father, Joseph, ran Mr. Beef — the iconic real-life restaurant that inspired Season 1). Chi-Chi expresses how life is different for Carmy, that his career focus led him to depart Chicago to explore restaurants around the world. Storer fires back, having Carmy unleash on cousin Richie, belittling his table arrangement in the dining room: “It was so strange, it looked like the person who had done it previously had never left the city of Chicago,” Carmy says.

Ouch.

These interactions build to another signature line from Season 3, delivered by Racine, Wisconsin farmer Jerry Boone: “What grows together goes together.” The dialogue is meant to serve as kitchen advice but extends to the show’s cast of characters. Perhaps the Berzattos popped up together like seedlings in Chicago, but they’ve grown apart as the years have gone by. And the same can be said about Chicago and The Bear. Chicago may have inspired the show, but the latest season presents a barely recognizable city. The lesson here is that that’s okay, as Chicagoans also need to be good with letting go. Doing so would demonstrate actual growth — together.

2024-07-19T16:36:11Z