#he can learn to live with it but he can't defeat it. Carmy needed to be taught that lesson this season.

[undead-moth]

So I've made a couple of posts now about how the "season 3 didn't do anything" take is just objectively not true and I really believe that what people mean when they say this is "Season 3 wasn't warm and fuzzy like I wanted."

The story being told this season was "Cooking is about magic, nurturing others, and doing your best, but Carmy is trapped in the mindset he was abused in, and can't see it, so instead he's returned to perfectionism and materialism, which he was erroneously made to believe is what matters most about running a restaurant by the very chef that abused him."

Season 3 wasn't any more focused on aesthetics than season 1 and season 2. Just like in season 1 and season 2, cinematography was being used to portray the atmosphere relevant to this story. The only real difference is that the main conflict of this season was internal, and because internal conflict is difficult to show with external action, the cinematography is being used to convey it instead.

The internal conflict being conveyed this season was Carmy suffering from trauma. He was struggling to exist in the same environment he was abused in, while under enormous pressure to succeed - pressure that exists in part because he does want to give everyone else a "soft place to land" - directly after a devastating breakup, all while still grieving the death of his brother. HIs behavior this season was unhealthy, and - I can't stress this enough - completely understandable. The fact that so many people have immediately turned their back on Carmy because he's "insane" and "dragging everyone down" and have even gone so far as to say that Sydney "deserves better," and the way they talk about him now in general, is really telling of how this fandom views mentally ill people.

This season was a very classic fall-from-grace narrative that is likely to become a redemption arc later on. It is not "doing nothing" just because it isn't as action-packed or enjoyable to watch. Man vs. Self conflict is still conflict even if it's internal and not readily visible. Negative character development is still character development even if it's not what we were hoping for.

It is all very purposeful, and I would also like to point out that this show, from the beginning, has been about a traumatized person coping with his trauma. The fact that so many people seem irritated this season focused so heavily on how trauma affects Carmy (and so many people are acting like trauma is no excuse to act traumatized) which is a major theme in the show, makes me wonder what show people thought they were watching.

The Bear is not a #found family #coffeeshop elevated sandwich shop AU and regardless of what other criticisms I have about the writing - and there are a few, including the abandoned commentary on gentrification - I will die on the hill that season 3's story arc was exceptionally well-written and all of the hate it's getting is completely unearned.

The more I think about how The Bear went from being a show that was making a purposeful commentary on how gentrification happens and the harm it does to being a show that arguably glorifies gentrification and even embodies gentrification with more and more big-name celebrities cameoing unnecessarily in the show and with the real-life restaurant that inspired The Beef now being a tourist destination -

The more I'm actually hoping for an ending with The Bear failing. I honestly think that it would make more sense narratively and be more meaningful if The Bear failed. I would like to see Sydney become disillusioned from the dream of getting a star and realize that Michelin stars are at best an empty status symbol and at worst a literal scam. I would like to see Richie realize that serving the rich is not the kind of purpose he wants to have, and that he would much rather find purpose in serving the very community he defended in season 1, the low-income, working class people that frequented The Beef. And I would like Carmy to realize that the high-end restaurant culture that caused him so much trauma is not going to fulfill him, and that running a restaurant isn't about how high-end it is. I would like him to realize that running a restaurant really is about the magic of cooking, nurturing others, and accepting imperfection - all ideas that are largely incompatible with high-end restaurant culture.

I would like to see The Bear as a high-end restaurant fail, and instead, see all of them decide that not only is running an average, low-end and little-known restaurant more sustainable and more profitable - but that it actually means more to them, and is more fulfilling to them, and what they really want to do. I think this ending would say exactly what this show needs to say, and what it in many ways was trying to say in the beginning of the show.

But I don't think that's the ending we're getting. I don't think we're getting an ending that returns the show to its initial commentary on the harms of gentrification at all. There are multiple people involved in the making of this show that not only own and run high-end restaurants but have literally contributed to gentrification and become millionaires as a result. I think whatever inspired them to comment on it at all in the beginning was either a matter of Storer getting an elephant in the room out of the way, or a matter of different writers having worked on The Bear in the first season, writers who are no longer working on it now.

It's really unfortunate, honestly, but not really surprising. Given how difficult it is to get a show produced without the contributors being either significantly wealthy, well-known, or both, shows that are genuinely critical of capitalism and its many symptoms are pretty much nonexistent.