The Bear, Season Three

DB

Jul 10, 20242 min read

A third helping that is still enjoyable, but not as satisfying as what had been served up before.

Tension between Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Syd (Ayo Edebiri) - from the third season of The Bear

MOVIES

- The only movie re-watched recently is The Batman, which I think is still the best live-action version of the character seen so far.

GAMES

- Mass Effect: Legendary Edition has been polished off yet again, with a couple of new moments for me due to exploring choices not taken before and serving as a reminder of how much variety there is in this trilogy.

- I'm around three-quarters of the way through L.A. Noire, so there'll be a review of that soon.

- I've also started Humanity thanks to PC Game Pass, which feels well-made so far but isn't really my thing, so I don't know how long I'll give it just yet.

TV

- As the sub-heading might suggest, The Bear's third season is not quite as good as the previous two.

- Weirdly, it feels almost like the middle part of a trilogy, picking up where season two left off and not really tying anything off, instead leaving it for the planned fourth (and final?) season to deal with.

- Compared to seasons one and two, not as much happens this time out, with the episodes feeling far more character-based rather than having any great focus on the restaurant.

- That choice does lead to the excellent Tina-focused episode, "Napkins", and I also liked "Ice Chips" a lot too.

- To be fair, the first episode, "Tomorrow", is a pretty great 'how did we get here' episode-long montage, and "Doors" is possibly the most brilliantly stressful episode of the show so far.

- Unfortunately, the other six episodes feel like they're moving pieces into place for the next season.

- This season does feel a little self-indulgent on more than a few occasions, but there's always that underlying level of quality to each episode to keep you hooked.

- I also noticed that my opinion of two female characters, in the shape of Syd (Ayo Edebiri) and Natalie (Abby Elliott) have now reversed.

- I used to like Syd and empathise with her a lot at the start, while Natalie's appearances felt like an intrusion into the kitchen drama, but I'd now much rather spend time with Natalie instead.

- I think Syd's ego has gotten the better of her and I think we'll see her and Carmy as rivals rather than colleagues when season four eventually arrives.

- As of right now, this third season definitely feels underwhelming, but it'll be interesting to see how that view changes when we can see the bigger picture of the show as a whole.

- I'm not going to excuse this third season of The Bear though, with my feeling at the time of writing this being that I can't recommend it anywhere as highly as I did the first two seasons. [6/10]