The Bear Season 2 Review: Same Ingredients, New Menu

"The Bear" stormed through the TV landscape last summer like a rampaging animal, sweeping viewers away on its heady blend of comedy, tragedy, and all-out, nerve-jangling restaurant kitchen energy. When the meal was over and the plates were cleaned, it was hailed as one of 2022's best series, and the mic drop ending it delivered to close out the first season only enhanced that reputation

Now, "The Bear" is back, and just like its characters, it has a lot to live up to. Last season promised us a kind of rebirth, the rise of a new restaurant concept and a chance for the show's leads to live out their culinary dreams on the strength of an unexpected windfall. That windfall marked the promise of something new, something bigger, something even more ambitious than the show's breakneck-paced first year, but with that windfall comes a pitfall. A huge part of the allure of "The Bear" stems from its sense of intimacy, its ability to make us feel like what's happening to half a dozen people in a tiny restaurant kitchen is, for a brief time at least, the most important thing in the world, a battlefield of emotions and hopes and dreams around which an entire planet is spinning. Go bigger, and you run the risk not just of losing that, but of undermining it, of stacking so many new cards on top of the house that the whole thing topples.

Happily, Season 2 of "The Bear" does indeed manage to go bigger, but never loses sight of those pitfalls, and avoids them with the kind of chaotic grace that came to define its first season. Creator Christopher Storer and his cast and crew are back in top form, delivering not just more of the same delicious recipe from the first round of episodes, but a revamped menu that keeps the same perfectly sourced blend of ingredients at the forefront of everything.

In other words: One of TV's best shows is back, and it hasn't lost a step.

Season 2 picks up more or less right where Season 1 left off, with Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and the crew at The Beef going all-in on their mission to rejuvenate the restaurant and make it something like what Carmy and sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) have always dreamed of building. But of course, that's easier said than done, and "The Bear" wastes no time in throwing its characters out of the frying pan and into the fire. Construction setbacks pile up, Cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) fights to control his stress level, Carmy's sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) hits logistical issue after logistical issue, and of course there's still a menu to figure out. It's a lot, and that's not even factoring in the various personal and emotional crises of the characters as they try to get the work done and rebuild The Beef.

All those issues, it should come as no surprise to "The Bear" fans, mean that the staff has plenty to argue about (and plenty to stress about) right out of the gate, and it's clear that Storer and his writing team have lost none of their zest for the volleys of intense dialogue that so helped to define the first season. There's no breathing room in here, no sense that we have to pause before diving back into the action of the restaurant and the anxiety that comes with trying to realize your dreams in a world that wants to break them apart. Instead, "The Bear" not only builds back to its original energy levels, but starts to build out from what was already there.

This season, we get even more of the inner lives of The Beef's staff, branching out from Carmy's narrative to give us not just more of Sydney's story, but more of everyone's. Marcus (Lionel Boyce) deals with family problems while trying to up his baking game. Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) and Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) work to sharpen their culinary skills to match Carmy's ambitions. Richie and Natalie struggle with a sense of purpose and destiny as they watch Carmy keep building around them. Each of these narratives has weight, power, and intrigue, and yet they never take away from the larger story of what these people are collectively trying to build. It's a remarkable balancing act, and it makes the show better.

Of course, the core of the show is still Carmy and Sydney — their creative partnership, their individual goals, how far they're willing to go and how much they're willing to endure to make it all work. Just like Season 1, Season 2 finds Carmy caught between coming through for his family and making things make sense for himself. It looks different this time, but that's still the central tension of his life, of his search for meaning in a world that seems to value what he can do less and less. Instead of covering the same ground, though, Christopher Storer and Jeremy Allen White dig deeper into what's really driving Carmy. How does he keep going when things are somehow even more difficult than they were last season? Why does he surround himself with these specific people? What does happiness look like for him? There are no easy answers to these questions, and that means Carmy's journey remains not just the searing heart of "The Bear," but its most fruitful guiding light, particularly when White continues to bring his raw power and endlessly searching eyes to the party.

As much as Carmy remains the heart of "The Bear," though, the real star of Season 2 is Ayo Edebiri as Sydney, whose anxieties over belonging have been replaced this time out by a search for what she has to say, and what it will take to make people listen. She's still questioning everything, still anxious about every word that leaves her mouth, but in mapping out a new menu and a new mission with Carmy, she also gets the chance to search her own culinary soul for new things worth getting excited about, worth continuing to reach for. Edebiri encapsulates all of this and more in one of TV's most gripping performances.

So yes, the presentation might have changed somewhat, and the direction might be a bit more unpredictable, but the same ingredients that made "The Bear" one of TV's best shows in 2022 are all still here in 2023. They're finding new ways to express themselves on our palates, and the taste is still divine.

All 10 episodes of "The Bear" Season 2 premiere June 22 on FX.