The Bear Season 3 Review - (Episodes 7 - Finale) Yes, For the Most Part, Chef! 

Season 3 proved again why they are one of the best shows if not the best show on TV. My only negative is that 10 episodes is not enough. I love the use of music by the producers throughout. REM, Smashing Pumpkins, Counting Crows, Radio Head, etc, OUTSTANDING taste in music by the creators of the show.

Funny.. season 1/2 where okay to me. Season 3 really feels great to me at least. I love getting all these back stories it makes season 1 and 2 even better.

The Bear is currently my favorite show going and nobody will take my advice and watch it. Pretty sure I saw an interview with Ebon where he mentioned that Matty was hired as a consultant, but is so beloved he was offered a part and he refused to play a chef so opted for the handyman.

I really loved season 3, it feels like the most ambitious of the seasons where Christopher Storer has really trusted his audience and said they will get what this season is going for, and what its building to, and they will wait for season 4 to see it all come through. With that level of knowing by the end that we are seeing a full season where the main thrust is build up, there is still fantastic relatively stand alone episodes such as the gorgeous opening episode, which like you Coy I really loved it as this piece of visual emotive storytelling to mostly music, and of course Napkins and Ice chips. This season was concerned not with narrative propulsion i think but character propulsion, people saying it felt like it didn't move the story forward, well it does and it doesn't, it moves the characters forward, and this show has always been more about that than about narrative. So yes, the narrative moved slowly, but the characters didn't. But I also think there was a through arc that is smaller and more subtle in this season, and it is about legacy, and it is Carmy's arc. Yes, everyone around him is growing and he is stuck having reverted to his New York self, but that is the conflict of the legacies which make up Carmy. This season in a way actually begins in the season 2 finale and ends with the conversation between Carmy and Chef David juxtaposed with his one with Chef Terry, both at the funeral. They are repeatedly seen in contrast to one another in Carmy's memories throughout this season, they are the hammer and the anvil that made Carmy who he is, and he has to decide which of them he wants to be like this season, and he chose wrong. But even while he chose wrong in falling into repeating the trauma onto others that he endured with David, he is still carrying on in a subtle and unintended way Terry's, because everyone around him is thriving and growing in The Bear, but he is in danger by the end of killing it by being too much David and not enough Terry. So he is now left having confronted David about his cruelty and been confronted by Terry's happiness who do I want to be? The interesting thing as always with this show is there is layers to this though, as we see that despite everything, while Terry is much more put together and has created this wonderful legacy of happiness and loyalty in her kitchen, it ultimately is the one that is closing. While David, for all his being an absolute Monster, he has created this legacy of brilliant but broken success, his restaurant is still open and still successful. So Carmy is presented with not just the option of who do I want to be like in terms of his mentors, but also what do I want in life, happiness or success, which brings us back to the question of his unresolved relationship with Claire bear. Its in my opinion utterly brilliant writing that does actually drive Carmy and the Bear forward but it is the least obvious and is all about presenting him with questions for future season/seasons, yet I don't think that makes it incomplete. Really enjoyed all 3 videos on this season, thank you Coy.

I did love this season because it got really intimate with all the characters at an almost uncomfortable level. That episode in the hospital was brilliant and just one example. At the same time because we spend so much time throughout the episodes with individual characters it felt like there should've been a few more episodes, like there was still more on Carmy and the overall plot that we needed to see before the season ended, though I'm sure it was intentional. I read seasons 3 and 4 were shot back to back though so hopefully the wait won't be that terrible. Keep up the great videos dude, enjoying the commentary! 👍🏽

Season 3 almost wholly felt like filler to me. But the second half of the season really turned the corner. I liked the season overall. But I feel indifferent to it all because it does have a feeling of just spinning it's wheels and I feel like that's because of how committed they are to flashing around to different scenes and remaining spastic instead of establishing a timeline of when events happen.

I loved this season! It seemed so real. I felt like I lived in the same neighborhood as the characters. That episode with Tina was so good!!

Overall I loved the season, even if it clearly feels like half a season. Not sure why they wanted to spin their wheels and not move forward so much, but I loved every minute we had with all the characters. The Tina flashback ep was cool but it was such a simple story (she lost her job, couldn't find a job, and found work at The Beef) we didn't need a whole episode for it. It could've been an extended scene within an ep. One thing I found odd was how Carmie and Richie had no reaction to Sugar giving birth. It was almost like they didn't know, which is really odd. The only reaction was Sydney taking food to Sugar. After a whole ep of giving birth, it felt weird to go to the next ep and almost everyone had no reaction to it. I loved them all partying and being happy in the final ep (the Boiling Point series did the same thing, happy times after all that stress and drama). And less Faks screen time next season please!

I thought they did a great job in setting up Joe and why everyone is where they are at the moment before each arc is ended in the next season , it really felt like every character had something of a stake to be concluded down the road

I loved this season. I can understand the reaction that it feels incomplete, but I felt like that was right for the story. Carmy didn't get an arc because he's stuck, and that feels more realistic to me than him getting any real growth or resolution. Even his interaction with the horrible chef was anticlimactic. Because that's what happens in real life. Season 1 and 2 each had their goals, and for 3, the goal is to just survive. We see Carmy grasping for the next goal (suddenly deciding he wants a star) while he's actively avoiding all the things in his life that would be good: apologizing to Claire, visiting his neice. And then with Syd's panic attack at the end, we see that, as much as he hates the chef he worked under, he's creating an environment that's exactly the same. The season felt the way it was meant to feel because no one knows what they're "supposed" to do next. Each character feels lost and, a little bit, like the bear is all they have. I think that's part of the reason we got to see the conversation with Sweeps about his baseball career and why we saw Tina's backstory. They literally all just landed here. Now what?

Carmen is gonna need to "subtract." The one word Joel McHale wrote on the piece of tape. I'm very very very very high on t his season. I can agree it's not perfect but some of the work in this season is my favorite. I think it just landed/hit me personally in a good way. Objectively I can see it not being "the best" but to me it's one of my favorite seasons of TV ever.

I think season 3 I laughed the most, I think for me it’s on par with season 1. I think season 2 is perfection and hit on a special level

I thought this season was fantastic. My favorite episodes were ep306 ("Napkins") and ep308 ("Ice Chips"). How incredible is Jamie Lee Curtis?!

I actually really enjoyed episode 7 and season 3 as a whole. I was not the biggest fan of episode 8. I do feel as though there was a lot of setup for season 4. I would also say that this is my least favorite out of the 3. I started The Bear a few months ago, thanks to you, Coy! 8 out of 10

Her nickname isn't Sweetie. It's Sugar.

I'm not gonna be that person😅 Enjoyed your thoughts on the season 😊

Great analysis

Want a surprise maybe part b season 3 or it’s really season 4 and we have to wait 1 year?

Although it is my least favorite season of the Bear, it's still really good TV. I will often tell people that The Bear season 2 is possibly my favorite season of TV...ever.

I didn't like season 3 at all. It felt like a different show and the story got no where. I loved s01 & s02; hope season 4 delivers. I predict the show will end with the restaurant going back to making sandwiches full time and 86 the fine dining. You can already see the early success of the side window opening back up and the happiness with those characters. The sandwiches are also profitable and if they can get that to work, it's probably what Mike would have wanted anyways. I think the fine dining experience will fill in any holes the team was missing and so the sandwich shop should run better and all the characters will be happier without the pressure of chasing stars.

Ah man season 3 was a huge let down for me. The episode I liked was the Tina episode, but like the rest of the show it barely moved the story forward

Fun fact Tina's husband in the episode is her real life husband.

I really enjoyed this season, it felt unresolved though because I think it's a two-parter and do not want to see Claire again outside of him getting some closure with her lol!

Didn’t really like this season. Episode 6 might have been the only one I enjoyed; the rest were mostly boring. Whole season felt like a bridge into season 4.

I think all the seasons are good but would rank this season at the bottom. My biggest issue with this season was the over-the-top cringe of the Faks. I liked the non John Cena brothers well enough in the past, and they served as good light heartedness in seasons 1 and 2. This season it was like the writers were trying to prove the show really is a comedy, and their antics became too much for me. And still not a comedy!