![]() The two attempt to rein in a motley crew of Beef veterans from Mikey’s chaotic, debt-ridden reign: curious pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce), Somalian immigrant Ebra (Edwin Lee Gibson), caustic line cook Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas, a standout who gets more interesting with each scene), and his non-biological “cousin” Richie (Eben Moss-Bachrach), the mercurial, street-smart interim manager so tightly coiled with grief and rage that I felt my shoulders tense while watching. He hires Sydney (Ayo Edibiri), a sardonic culinary school-trained sous chef whose ambition and talent have not yet paid the bills. Carmy is a burned out Michelin-star chef who returns to the Beef after his brother Mikey’s suicide. ![]() ![]() This is in large part due to the show’s excellent supporting cast, which emphasizes collaboration over competition and collides formal training with earned expertise. But its eight half-hour episodes, all released last week, manage to capture the visceral, heart-palpitating adrenaline of the professional kitchen, the financial precarity of the restaurant business, and the drive to subject oneself to it better than any scripted show in recent memory. The Beef’s kitchen is a constant cacophony of shouting, several of the characters are ticking time bombs of grief, and Carmy is an exacting boss over several perfectionists. The Bear, created by Christopher Storer (an executive producer of Ramy and internet verité film par excellence Eighth Grade) has several of those staple ingredients. See: AMC’s bland Feed the Beast in 2016 or, in 2018, Starz’s disappointing Sweetbitter (whose star, Ella Purnell, has found much meatier material on Showtime’s breakout hit Yellowjackets), both limp dramas about the cutthroat New York food scene that struggled to establish stakes beyond the plate or to grip without overdone cliches of anger, sexual tension or neurotic perfectionism. But that intensity has rarely translated well to scripted television. Series such as Masterchef, Chef’s Table, Top Chef, The Great British Bake-off, and Netflix’s recently rebooted Iron Chef have accustomed viewers to the pressure of the kitchen, the heat of the stove and a timer breathing down one’s neck. It’s a high-cortisol view of cooking that is very familiar to audiences, given the plethora of cooking competition shows on every platform. ![]()
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