#been meaning to give my thoughts on carmy and richie’s interactions this season as well… that’ll come later

[brzatto]

Hello again! Since I started watching season 2 of the bear I've been building up some thoughts regarding the overarching plot and characterisation. I haven't been able to share my ramblings with anyone else, so I hope it's ok to share them with you. It's been a while since I've been this disappointed by the direction a show has taken. :(

I mentioned before on one of your posts that I saw Carmy as asexual, or at least not seeking a physical or romantic relationship with women. In season 1 I was so happy that Sydney was kept as a colleague/friend, which carries into season 2. I was legitimately hopeful to get just one show where the main character doesn't have a contrived romance storyline. I feel they always just derail the main plot for meaningless character interactions with terrible dialogue, with male and female characters never being allowed to just be friends. When Claire was introduced I audibly GROANED. Manic pixie dream girl has entered the chat.

The scene in episode 6 where Richie and Mikey are saying how in love Carmy is with Claire, how amazing she is, how hot she is—it felt like they were trying to convince me and not Carmy. You and others have said before how Claire just exists to be a love interest, and every scene with her does nothing except try (desperately) to solidify that. I feel like I'm being repeatedly beaten with a bat that has "Claire is nice so you should like her" written on it. The scene where Richie is legitimately upset that he messed up the generator and is worried Carmy will dismiss him—why was Claire laughing at that? I thought she was meant to be nice? That's what every character keeps telling me... Every scene with her drags, every character that mentions her name suddenly causes the scene to shift to focusing on Claire. It's like Claire is the centre of the universe and is pulling in and crushing everything with her gravitational pull.

When Carmy kissed Claire in episode 5 it made me lose hope for his characterisation. It was like I was instead watching JAW's character from Shameless. All nuance thrown out the window for a rushed relationship with no chemistry. His journey to heal from his traumas and come to terms with Mikey's death sidelined to make way for boring shot reverse shot talking scenes with Claire. Carmy doing restaurant business? Nah, let's watch him and Claire have some boring dialogue during a car journey.

Hater mode activated: Claire as a character is boring, shallow, and only added because "hur dur boy must like girl". Despite what her character was supposedly introduced for, I think her introduction just caused season 2 to waste time on meaningless fluff that actively made other characters worse by association.

I have 3 episodes left to watch but I'm feeling pretty low about this season. I shouldn't have expected an asexual main character because I just set myself up for disappointment, but the bear really had me thinking it wouldn't do something this lame. I'm still carmrichie for life though, your fics are keeping me hanging on. Sorry for such a long and depressing ramble in your inbox. ❤️

P.S. The scene with Richie and Mikey confronting Carmy in episode 6 really gave me vibes of Carmy being closeted and feeling pressured about his friendship with a girl (similar to what you previously said about the monologue in s1e8). I also got vibes of Richie trying to hide his own insecurities with women by being vulgar in this scene.

hi! <3

if i’m being honest i agree about everything :/ and i hate saying that this show’s disappointed me because all of my friends know just how much this show means to me and the steel grip it’s had on my brain for the past year since the first season first came out… i feel like i’m partially the problem because my expectations were probably too high + the shift between s1 and s2 was very drastic and i’m honestly not a huge fan of change either. i’m not sure exactly what i expected from s2 but the demo and remodeling of the beef felt very rushed to me… like the restaurant was undergoing very significant changes but all of that felt like it was put on the backburner in favor of focusing on the characters. and obviously a show will focus more on individual character storylines than settings (and i actually did really enjoy some of the growth we got for our side characters, sydney marcus tina and richie’s episodes were all amazing and i loved that sugar’s presence was much more prominent this season) but like you said the claire plotline with carmy felt very out of place and ooc… it just felt extremely weird for carmy’s character to make this jump from s1 where we see all the emotional trauma he still suffers from being so attached to mikey, how he uses the beef as a distraction for his grief but obviously those two things are deeply intertwined for him and by obsessing over the beef day and night carmy still remains entrenched in mikey by extension—there’s still so much about carmy’s trauma in relation to mikey that’s been left unaddressed and imo he still largely lacks closure and i was expecting that to be fleshed out properly in s2 but instead he spent all of it being infatuated with a girl we were introduced to for the very first time this season.

can i say something actually. ik the creators and both jaw and ayo have all said that there won’t be any romance between carmy and sydney but i feel like they actually will be endgame and the creators are just trying to throw fans off so they won’t expect it LMAO or at the very least the way the writers have set up the storyline leaves it open as an option if they do change their minds and decide to go that route eventually. i’ve said before that i don’t ship them but i think there is a genuine and undeniable bond between carmy and sydney, although i enjoy their relationship platonically their dynamic and relationship has waaayy more depth than whatever carmy and claire are supposed to have going on… and i hate disliking female characters for being bland and stale because 9 times out of 10 it’s never their fault that they’re written that way, but seeing how realistic, grounded and likable our other female characters are (sydney, natalie, tina) it feels like there’s less of an excuse for her to be that way. she feels like a generic self insert pulled out of a x reader fanfic 😭 i immediately got the romantic vibe from her and carmy even from the season trailer but seeing what we’ve been told about carmy’s character i was sincerely hoping that i was misinterpreting it and she was just his cousin or something lmfsodoajaoaj and it felt so cheap and tacky for them to pull the “actually she’s his estranged childhood friend and he’s always had a crush on her!” card in e6. i also agree with what you said about that conversation sounding like carmy being closeted while richie and mikey tease him… also was kind of put off by the way they were talking about her tbh especially considering the fact she’s supposed to be carmy’s age and we know they’re both significantly older? i’ve also actually never considered interpreting it as richie overcompensating in that scene since he was still with tiff at the time (who i actually loved… i have my beef with carmy and claire but i would stand by tiff and richie until the end of time actually) but now that you mention it i think that makes sense too… much to think about

i can’t remember if i’ve said this before in another post but i also really disliked how love triangley they framed all of sydney’s interactions with carmy in relation to claire… i understood the purpose of other characters instilling this seed of doubt in her about her partnership with carmy and whether or not she was capable of trusting him, really trusting him, but i feel like there were multiple moments of unnecessary tension between the three of them and like you said, i’m so tired of contrived romance subplots in shows where there’s a female and male lead. i love carmy and sydney as individual characters but the possibility of their relationship being romantic just genuinely does not compute with me in my brain… that being said though it genuinely was very wild to me that everyone involved in the show made it clear on multiple occasions that there was no intention of sydney and carmy’s relationship going in that direction, just for them to introduce some random white girl this season just to give carmy a love interest. like? this season was longer than the first one and they still weren’t able to flesh out carmy and claire’s relationship and dynamic the way they did with him and sydney in s1, they felt so incredibly rushed and it was ABSURD to me when carmy openly admitted to liking and even loving her because those are things that feel like they should be so monumental for someone like him, who is supposed to be emotionally traumatized and romantically inexperienced—it was honestly strange to me hearing him tell even richie that he loved him and you know how i feel about them so. anyways you pretty much summed up my feelings towards claire and her plotline perfectly, and i genuinely wish that weren’t the case but i feel like that plays a part in why i find myself so incapable of rewatching this season t_t and i know objectively the point of the plotline was to show that carmy actually isn’t at a place in his life where he’s capable of maintaining a healthy romantic relationship/balancing it with his work but it still just felt strange to derail from the whole grief theme/mikey plotline for that when i was expecting them to delve even deeper into that this season instead.

i’m assuming you’ve finished the season since sending me this—just in case you haven’t i’ll refrain from talking about anything else that might spoil you but i will say that the one thing they absolutely did correct this season was e7. i’ve been dying for a richie centric episode and that gave me everything i could’ve asked for, it was so so gratifying seeing richie find his niche like that and i’m so excited to see what else the series has in store for him. this season wasn’t all bad but i was admittedly disappointed by a few things—nevertheless all that being said i did actually genuinely enjoy how the season ended and where it left off; that felt a lot more like s1 to me and i’m eager to see how they’ll pick things back up between carmy and richie specifically next season… hopefully s2 is just a product of middle child syndrome and s3 will blow us out of the water

#sorry for answering this late i’ve been crazy busy lately and i was waiting for the chance to sit down and reply to this properly 😵‍💫 #and of course i don’t mind! i love getting long messages in my inbox tbh #thank you for sharing your thoughts with me 🤍🤍 #been meaning to give my thoughts on carmy and richie’s interactions this season as well… that’ll come later #ask

[ladespeinada]

having finished watching the bear in the early hours of the morning, i have some thoughts rattling around in my head that i need to jot down because they keep distracting me from work, lmao. spoilers under the cut 

→ i had fun! it was emotional! it was stressful! i was entertained and then i had to suppress the feelings of familial relatability brought up in ep. 6!  → MARCUS!!! TINA!!! NAT!!! EBRA!!! RICHIEEEEEEE!!!!! All going through their own shit, changing, emotional, relentless, scared, nervous. I especially loved Richie this season and he had a speech in ep. 1 that broke my heart ("I'm 45, I've been here a long time, you feel me? I mean, you know what the fuck you're doing, you know. You love all this shit. It's fun for you. I don't have that. I'm afraid imma wake up and you guys are all just gonna cut—just drop this ass.")

→ Sydney, light of my life. Her fierce ambition, so obvious and strong in S1, got tempered by doubt and distrust in her partner, by the gradual recognition that she is doing so much, too much, by herself. I don’t think it bodes well that the last shots we get of her, she’s ralphing after opening night service—after an intense kitchen set-up that tests her limits and shows who she can and cannot trust. (Giving Carmy in NY, throwing up before service vibes). And honestly? I wouldn't be mad if she really, really starts doubting her partnership with Carmy and just dips. 

→ Anyway, I came back to add that Sydney, despite her doubts and not-unfounded fears, is such a positive source for those around her. We saw it in S1, when she gave Marcus a confidence boost, when Tina sought her approval after initially being very hesitant about her. And that faith in others just increased in this season, and god, to be around someone like that, who lifts others up no matter what, is so rare. I love her so much. (And her carrying around that book the whole season! Just holding onto courage and confidence, letting it shape her leadership.) 

→ I'm so happy Natalie wasn’t relegated to glimpses this time around. She's present and focused and involved in dismantling her family’s trauma and history, and I love that for her. I also love her and Syd's relationship (them almost being synchronised in saying Carmy Problem) and her interactions with Fak, lmao. 

→ Tina at culinary school! Tina with reservations about her place but thriving and finding inspiration. There's a moment where some of the people in her class all go out, and they invite her, and when she meets them at the bar, they've all got a nasty judgemental face (it's def an age thing) but then she EATS THEM UP at karaoke with a beautiful song in English & Spanish, TINA TE ADORO. 

→ I immediately re-watched Marcus's episode and I want a spin-off series where he stages at different world-renowned bakeries and lives his best patissier life. 

→ That Variety piece that said Carmy was the least interesting character in this show was RIGHT ("It’s no coincidence that these weaker points tend to involve Carmy, a character perfectly rendered by White who’s still the least interesting part of his own show.") 

→ Speaking of: the romance between Carmy and Claire (which we all unfortunately saw happening after the trailer, and is fucking annoying, and yes part of it is because I love Syd & Carmy together, but also because the showrunners pledged no romance in the show which would have been fine, too) is BORING. So boring. I know Claire is going to get a lot of hate and honestly, it's barely fair because she's just not developed as a character at all. Beyond being someone Carmy knew in his past, and who is now stealing his time and energy away from the restaurant, there's not much to her. She's written with so little dimension, and exists purely to be Carmy's lil girlfriend and it's disappointing. She could have at least been fucking interesting. 

→ Carmy's so angry around the time of the opening, and he projects it onto everyone else, and it's really his own fault that he's not aware of what's happening in the restaurant.  → Okay so another thing—Sydney talks about how much she wants a Michelin star, how it’ll make The Bear a true destination spot. And rudely, Carmy goes, “you really want one of these bullshit stars?” to which Syd says yes, I really do, and this fucking dickhead tells her: “you’re gonna to have to care about everything, more than anything” AND HE STILL LET HER DOWN!!!!!!!! The more I think about it, the more upset I get. 

→ Also, Michael doesn't haunt the narrative the way he did last season—his presence is so faint. There's moments, of course, but it just feels like something is missing or off. I had expected some sort of sentiment to come to the surface towards the end of the season at least, some sense of acknowledgement that maybe he would have loved The Bear, or hated it, or something, from literally anyone—Carmy, Nat, Richie, someone—but nope, nothing besides the cannoli.

→ Episode 6, man. Episode fucking six. Natalie Berzatto, you deserve peace. 

→ Anyway, overall there’s a sort of bite missing in this season. The looming threat of Cicero has been softened a lot and yes, obviously internal workings at The Bear are the new obstacles but it doesn’t feel quite the same. Maybe it's a lack of tension, or a lack of anxiety? I don't know how else to explain it.

#the bear hulu #the bear spoilers #the bear fx