There were some great episodes, but as a whole I just did not enjoy this season.

I thought there were some individually great episodes this season that showcased phenomenal acting (like JLC in "Ice Chips"), but as a whole, I think I hated this season. I hated it because the lack of direction to the story and I absolutely hated that finale. It felt like they were stalling for time. Like a teenager trying to hit a word count on a school paper. Shots that were dragged out sooo long. Conversations that just seemed to never end. Those things were obviously there in the first 2 seasons, but much less frequent. What even happened this season? I couldn't really give you a cohesive synopsis for this season. "Carm is still anxious and hasn't addressed what he said to Claire. Syd is questioning her place. The Bear has significant financial issues." That's all I got. It was like a single episode worth of plot progression.

And while I love the occasional chef cameo, to have your entire finale be just a bunch of non-actors monologuing was quite the choice.

I hated the back and forth dialogue between the Faks. Just a bunch of word vomit.

Absolutely loved Tina's backstory episode. The ways that the grief over Mikey's death hits all of them out of the blue at times is so real and painful.

While I do love them, I think the season was a little too Fak-forward. Nothing makes me laugh harder than the baseball card scene with Mulaney from season 2, but I think they're better in smaller doses. The whole "haunting" thing was odd.

The scenes with the chef from French Laundry and Olivia Colman were so lovely. Carmy was mentored by talented, nurturing and supportive chefs who created work environments where people thrived and enjoyed their time at the restaurant. But he ends up modeling the toxic behavior of his mom and Joel McHale, driving people who love him and The Bear away.

Me every time Gillian Jacobs shows up:

https://slate.com/culture/2024/06/the-bear-season-3-fx-hulu-bad.html

This is where I am at.

I loved the first two seasons and it was one of the most compelling character-driven narrative shows on TV ever, and I agree with TC on this -- season 3...what the hell happens? Nothing...

Which is actually the antithesis of the "non-negotiables" theme of the first episode that requires an ever-changing menu.

Quote:

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Most glaring are all the ways that the show's aimlessness has become purposefully embedded into both its content and its form. The incessant use of flashbacks feels like a crutch to avoid characters or the show itself actually moving forward, in any direction. Dribbling out details of a character's past like breadcrumbs is a hackish and tiresome device: Filling in backstory shouldn't be confused with character development. Multiple characters have become increasingly defined by their inability to make decisionsleaving aside that this isn't a particularly compelling trait, it also conveniently gives the show yet another way to avoid anything actually happening.

The absence of well-drawn story or characters means that the show has to rely on gimmicky tricks to achieve any semblance of emotional payoff. The most noxious of these is the aforementioned near-constant underscoring, always with music that none of the characters in the show would ever listen to.
[emphasis mine]

---

The music is actually one of the more endearing parts of the show (whoever picked the soundtrack of this show deserves some kind of award), but it all falls apart in season three as there is no coherence to either the story or character development.

This show was first of all a character driven show -- season 3 completely abandons this, in my opinion.

Chris Storer got high on his own supply or sniffed too many of his own farts.

Im not surprised that they paused the back-to-back filming of season 3/4. I think they got some feedback that they bust through a guardrail that they didnt intend to and are facing pushback that has the show runners now teetering on cancellation rather than an blank-check-renewal to whenever they decide to end the series on their own accord and exactly how they want to.

Because the show, as it is now, is just not very good.

BadMoonRisin said:

---

https://slate.com/culture/2024/06/the-bear-season-3-fx-hulu-bad.html

This is where I am at.

I loved the first two seasons and it was one of the most compelling character-driven narrative shows on TV ever, and I agree with TC on this -- season 3...what the hell happens? Nothing...

Which is actually the antithesis of the "non-negotiables" theme of the first episode that requires an ever-changing menu.

Quote:

---

Most glaring are all the ways that the show's aimlessness has become purposefully embedded into both its content and its form. The incessant use of flashbacks feels like a crutch to avoid characters or the show itself actually moving forward, in any direction. Dribbling out details of a character's past like breadcrumbs is a hackish and tiresome device: Filling in backstory shouldn't be confused with character development. Multiple characters have become increasingly defined by their inability to make decisionsleaving aside that this isn't a particularly compelling trait, it also conveniently gives the show yet another way to avoid anything actually happening.

The absence of well-drawn story or characters means that the show has to rely on gimmicky tricks to achieve any semblance of emotional payoff. The most noxious of these is the aforementioned near-constant underscoring, always with music that none of the characters in the show would ever listen to.
[emphasis mine]

---

The music is actually one of the more endearing parts of the show (whoever picked the soundtrack of this show deserves some kind of award), but it all falls apart in season three as there is no coherence to either the story or character development.

This show was first of all a character driven show -- season 3 completely abandons this, in my opinion.

Chris Storer got high on his own supply or sniffed too many of his own farts.

Im not surprised that they paused the back-to-back filming of season 3/4. I think they got some feedback that they bust through a guardrail that they didnt intend to and are facing pushback that has the show runners now teetering on cancellation rather than an blank-check-renewal to whenever they decide to end the series on their own accord and exactly how they want to.

Because the show, as it is now, is just not very good.

---

While I'm sure this was partly a factor, I really don't think it was a driving force.

Again, Storer had a three-season arc in mind that he knew from the jump. The "problem" was that, after season two, the show became too popular to not try and milk it for all it's worth, thus the decision to split season three into two seasons, which was almost assuredly an FX suggestion.

However, the "back-to-back" decision tells us everything we need to know, in that, deep down, the filmmakers probably knew it was a bad creative decision, hence trying to follow season three so soon with season four (which I imagine would have come out at some point in the fall had they been able to pull it off). In short, they knew the new season three would feel incomplete, so they were trying to rush a season four as close as they could after.

But imagine if the season three we just watched had been only half the final season...

- There would have been way less water treading.

- Oliver Platt's character would have given his ultimatum (the review better be good or he has to pull the plug) in, say, episode three or four as opposed to episode nine, which would have given the season much-needed stakes way earlier.

- Ever closing, Carmy confronting Chef David at the dinner, the review dropping, etc, all would have presumably happened around episode five or so.

... which, altogether, would have made for a damn good first half of the final season.

In other words, I think it was less "smelling his own farts" and more "keeping his cast and crew employed for an additional season (especially after having not worked for months during the strikes), prolonging a once-in-a-lifetime experience, making FX happy, etc." The decisions this season, while, yes, pretentious at times, didn't feel born of out pretentiousness, if that makes sense. Rather, I think the pretentiousness was a byproduct of suddenly having to now fill space not with forward progress but rather with backstory and static, in terms of the characters feeling stuck, dwelling more than than would have on the past, putting off decisions they have to make, etc.

Just now getting around to finishing episode 9 because, well.....this season is bad. Its a total drag and my son, wife, and myself have had to push ourselves to slog through this far.

Boring. Excrutiatingly boring. And depressing. And annoying. At this point I'm not sure which characters I even like that much other than Tina and I suppose Marcus.

Too introspective. Too slow. And yes, too artsy-fartsy. I loved the first episode. But then the rest of the season was just flat out pretentious and boring and annoying. Yes, even the Faks. Sometimes especially the Faks.

They went too heavy on the Faks this season. They need to dial that back.
That being said, I have to know what Francie Fak did to piss of Sugar.

We finished the season last night and gotta relate to a lot of the sentiment in this thread so far: the season just kinda fell flat. After a few episodes we were sitting there asking each other what the point of the whole season is and it just didn't have much of a solid plot line to follow.

I thought the hospital episode was nice, the Napkins scene with Tina and Mikey was great. I really liked the first episode and getting Carmy's story more fleshed out before Chicago. But they had way too much of the Faks. I love Matty Matheson, but he can be annoying as **** in this show sometimes. And in the final episode when all those real chefs were sitting around talking it felt like I was watching a Netflix-produced chef's roundtable vs what I had gotten used to.

One thing I wish they had done is at the end of the finale, when Syd is having her panic attack, we hear footsteps coming up the stairs and it's Carmy showing up late and chewing Nicorette. He calms her down, and he realizes he's become the last thing he thought he'd turn out to be, and he and Syd finally have that talk she's been putting off. Then you can either go in one of two directions: she quits and goes to the other guy (I don't think that happens), leaving Carmy dejected, or she decides The Bear is what she wants and stays. Then he hears his phone buzz and they read the bad review together.

I love this show and what it's created, but 70% of this season felt like unnecessary fluff.

Finally finished the season. I started it when it first dropped, and slowed down on it until tonight. It definitely felt we got about 4-5 episodes worth of story across 10 episodes. Much of these season definitely felted stretched. "Like butter scraped over too much bread."

Still a lot of great acting and some good scenes. Hopefully they tighten things up in the final season.

That season was terrible… just awful. Acting was good I guess, just story is nonsensical, ten episodes of hey remember those two good episodes last season? Well watch us beat that dead horse until you are sick of it. Another thing every song choice is like 10-15 years too old for all the characters except Oliver Platt and JLC.

Speaking of JLC, holy **** that episode should've been called "guess what ****ers, JLC is old now, and we are going to zoom in with the macro lens so you don't forget it". I expect in season 4 she will be recast with the crypt keeper.

Also, I am surprised that restaurant at the end decided to close without checking with their most important employee ever, Richie, you know the guy that was there for 5 days and *****ed about it for the first 3.5 days. loved that the out of business party of a famous restaurant that probably had 50 employees, was attended by 1 or 2 staff members at a random girls apartment that is probably a 30 minute train ride away.

Lastly, stop trying to make haunt happen, it's not going to happen.