Season three of FX’s breakout hit The Bear finds the crew of the titular restaurant grappling with the fresh pressure of being among the best in Chicago. 

 

Chef Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is stuck in his head after having a meltdown at the end of last season and losing his girlfriend, Claire (Molly Gordon). It was Carmy’s decision to move the restaurant toward a forward-thinking, fine dining experience, and the pressure is now very much on as he struggles to live up to his own high expectations and stellar reputation. What that does to him – and to his friends and family around him – is very much at the center of season three. 

 

Getting the brunt of his frustration is Chef de Cuisine Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri). Sydney came to her new role expecting a collaborator and mentor who could help move her own impressive skills forward. Instead, she finds an increasingly hostile and cold working environment fueled by a chef who, rather than nurture his protégée, is infecting her with his own toxic insecurities. 

 

Carmy is also unable to repair his strained relationship with longtime friend Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). While Richie runs the front-of-house operation, Carmy dismisses him and scowls, pouts, and barks orders in the kitchen, further deepening the divide among staff. 

 

If all that sounds stressful, it is. But it’s also one of the best shows on television. 

 

What Carmy is trying to do with The Bear, the restaurant, often mirrors what showrunner Christopher Storer is trying to do with The Bear, the TV show. Carmy is constantly trying to reinvent, to elevate, to push things forward, and to not repeat himself. Likewise, Storer is pushing the bounds of what a TV show can do through collages of visuals, an incredible score and selection of music, and rapid-fire editing that beautifully illustrates the frantic pace of a kitchen slammed at dinner service. 

 

A perfect example of that forward-thinking approach plays out as Pastry Chef Marcus Brooks (Lionel Boyce) becomes obsessed with creating magic through his dishes. Working off that theme, an episode opens to a montage of literal and figurative moments of magic in cinema, then pans out to find Marcus cutting out and taping pictures of those moments around his workstation. 

 

The season three premiere features a stunning score by Oscar-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, with hardly a word of dialog spoken. In a pivotal scene later in the season, the score is slowly dropped as R.E.M.’s Strange Currencies fades in, repeating a cue from season two and summing up Carmy’s internal push and pull. It’s such a simple maneuver, but the way it’s pulled off is utterly unique. 

 

While Carmy insists that The Bear needs to strip away elements of a dish to get to its essence, it’s no accident that two of the best episodes here feature stripped back production and just one or two actors. 

 

Episode six, called Napkins, flashes back to the story of how Chef Tina Marrero (Liza Colón-Zayas) came to the restaurant after losing her job and being turned away for scores of other positions before slumping into The Bear for coffee, breaking down in the dining room, and confessing her sorrows to one of the workers. It’s a fantastic acting showcase for Colón-Zayas, and it also drives home just how much the restaurant means to its renegade collection of employees.

 

Even more impressive is the eighth episode (Ice Chips) that’s driven almost exclusively by an extended interaction between Carmy’s sister, Natalie (Abby Elliott), and mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis). Most of the episode takes place in a single operating room in a hospital, with only closeup shots of Elliott and Curtis, each elevating each other’s performance to rarified heights. The sound design is just as powerful and affecting, with the beeps and pings of the machinery left high in the mix to constantly remind the audience where they are and what is happening. It’s the small-screen equivalent of a five-star minimalist dish. 

 

From start to finish, season three of The Bear showcases exceptional acting, writing, cinematography, and sound through both music and score – and mixing. 

 

White and Edebiri continue to challenge each other as actors – just like their characters challenge each other in the kitchen. More than ever, the show has become about inner turmoil, and it’s a remarkable accomplishment that Storer can make that come across in such a visual medium, and that he’s found actors who can deliver such elevated, high-concept material with often very little dialog. 

 

Moss-Bachrach maybe understands that approach better than anyone else on the show, and, especially in the season finale, there are extended scenes where all he needs is a glance through the camera lens to explode through a stunning range of emotions: isolation, fear, anger, grief, and crashing toward one’s true purpose. In a show filled with outstanding actors, he remains a scene stealer. 

The one complaint here is the lack of resolution in the finale, but with it comes a promise on the screen that reads, simply, “to be continued.” The Bear continues to operate on another level – and the creator, stars and crew collectively continue The Bear will go on.