FX’s The Bear has returned with its third season, dropped in its entirety on the streamer on June 27. The stunning cooking drama starring Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri has been one of the best things on television in recent years, an indulgent feast of spectacular camera work and acting. Unfortunately, Season 3’s premiere takes that indulgence to an extreme, resulting in an episode that works fine on its own merits and would have been fine if it landed midseason, but fails as a reintroduction to the show.
To sum it up, the premiere sees Carmy alone the morning after his restaurant’s opening (as shown in the season 2 finale), looking back on his entire life while he creates a new menu and a list of non-negotiables that will help the restaurant earn a Michelin star. It’s an introspective clip show offering a glimpse into the mind of White as he seeks to start the next chapter of his career. As opposed to the often stressful episodes filled with lengthy character interactions highlighted by excellently written and humorous dialogue, the premiere is a fairly quiet affair focused solely on Carmy.
We do see short sequences from the past with other characters but nothing that goes beyond a couple of lines of dialogue. It’s all about the visual journey into the past. It plays out as a greatest hits recap of why he is working so hard on the restaurant in the first place but it lacks any meaningful additions to how the audience understands Carmy as a person.
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