TV Recapped here! Today, we have a new TV series to talk about.

It is interestingly entitled,
“The Bear”, it entails a captivating story that centers around a young chef who, after a family's
tragic death, returns to Chicago to operate his family's sandwich store. With him entering a
whole new world, far from what he has been used to, Carmy must find a way to juggle all the
new things coming his way.

In the first episode, the series stays faithful to its title as we see Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto with
his encounter with a bear. He goes over to a cage and lets the bear out. Just about when the
bear is going to attack him, Carmy is startled awake at his restaurant.

He rushes to the door and learns that he is only able to pay for a 25-pound worth of meat when
he actually needs 200 pounds. He tries to resolve this by getting on a call with Luanne. He
acknowledges his shortcomings in operating the store and admits that he misses Michael,
although he is still thankful that he can still run the shop despite everything. After the call, Carmy
becomes frustrated with the arcade games and considers disconnecting them, but Tina
intervenes. Carmy then proceeds to collect the pool of coins inside the arcade games.

Carmy then calls Chi-Chi if he still has the meat collection. He meets with Chi-Chi and bargains
his antique collectibles to purchase more meat. With the help of social media, Carmy promotes
an arcade tournament to be held at his shop.

Carmy gets on a phone call with Sugar and asks if she could bring the jacket that Mike gave
him. After the call, he gets approached by Sydney, the new worker. Upon seeing Sydney’s
resume, Carmy learns that she used to work for UPS as a driver. Sydney then asks Carmy what
he is doing in a local sandwich shop when ironically, he is a head chef in a famous restaurant.
Carmy simply responds he s making sandwiches.

Carmy has to deal with his chaotic kitchen mates. He asks Tina to start a new giardiniera, but
she insists on using her pot which is still in use for a 12-hour boil. Ebraheim won’t stop asking
Carmy where the beef is because he sticks to a strict “beef first” sequence. While Marcus
asserts that he cannot comply with Carmy’s request to make double bread because their mixer
is messed up and he has been doing everything by hand. To top it off, Tina keeps on messing
with the temperature.

It is a busy day in the kitchen. The others learn that a new girl is helping them out. Carmy wants
Gary to set up a compost for him today as soon as he walks in. They are joined by Richie, who
warns them not to tamper with his program. Richie then asks what happened to the arcade
game because his social media exposure is inflating. Carmy explains that he needs the Ball
Breaker for his business as the nerds are coming to the shop to compete.

Richie is upset with Carmy hiring a new worker without consulting him first. The two continue to
argue about Richie’s struggles involving Carmy. Richie reminds him that the shop is originally
owned by Carmy’s brother and that he was running it just fine without Carmy’s help. In return,
Carmy asks Richie if it was the case, why didn’t his brother leave the shop in Richie’s care.
Richie was speechless.

Carmy returns to preparing meals before the opening as things continue to heat up in the
kitchen as they continue to argue. Carmy complains that his knives are sharp. Ritchie states
that the shop has been short on money ever since Carmy arrived. Even so, the entry fee to the
arcade tournament is up by a dollar. The idea of spending more time cooking the beef because
of low resources does not sit right with Richie. He does not want things to go out of the system,
but Carmy asserts that if they stick to the system, they wouldn’t be able to pay the staff.

When Fak shows up, he tells Carmy that it is not a good idea to raise the entry fee to the arcade
game. He also apologizes to Carmy since he was not able to attend his brother’s funeral. Fak
notices that Carmy’s hand is bleeding and Carmy puts the blame on the dull knives. Carmy puts
a bandaid on his finger and takes medicine.

Back in the kitchen, he reminds everyone that there is only an hour left before the shop opens,
but Richie keeps everyone distracted and Carmy does not like that. He sees a knife on the floor
and picks it up as he stares at a religious photo. Only he knows what is going on in his mind as
he pictures a morgue while police sirens are wailing.

Carmy asks Tina to take charge because he needs to go out to meet his sister, Sugar. Outside,
Sugar hands Carmy the jacket that he asked for. They catch up after a while of not seeing each
other, their mother would be thrilled to meet him, Natalie assures him.

Sugar also informs Carmy that their Uncle Jimmy is interested to buy the shop but Carmy is firm
that it is not for sale despite Sugar insisting that he should. Carmy also tells her that he will fix
the shop and keep it running, but Sugar shuts down the idea and tells him that no one’s
expecting him to do that. Sugar parts way with his brother by telling him that she loves him, but
Carmy ignores it and just thanks her for bringing the jacket.

Nearing their opening time, Carmy checks the bread and says it is too crumbly. Much to Marcus’
dismay because he has been producing them all by hand. They all tried the sandwiches,
Marcus has a unique way of complimenting it by saying it is “redundant and white just like
Carmy”. Tina, Gary, and Sydney are also impressed with the taste.

Upon seeing the tournament attendees in cosplay, Carmy declares that they need more bread.
While Fak is repairing the mixer, he tells Marcus that he was friends with Michael, not until
things got dark, implying his death.

Sydney calls everyone as their food is ready to eat. They also take the time to discuss the
things that they are grateful for while eating. Carmy notices that things are getting crazier
outside as the tournament attendees are flooding. When he goes outside, he gets caught up in
the riot and gets beaten up.
Richie follows Carmy outside and fires a gun into the sky catching everyone’s attention. Richie
reminds the attendees that they will play on their best behavior to not scare the regular
customers. He also tells them to clean up after themselves as he hates litter the most.

They go back inside and Richie tells Carmy that it is not a good idea to have such a crowd in the
shop as it does not fit into their system. Richie yells at Carmy to get back inside the kitchen and
cook spaghetti to have enough food to feed the tournament comers. While opening the canned
tomatoes, Carmy is deep in his thoughts. To close out the episode, we see Carmy throwing the
can into the garbage.

In the next episode, we pick up on Carmy’s terrible past, when he was still working at the fancy
restaurant, a year ago. It was a busy day in the kitchen when his boss entered and noticed the
poor performance of one of the chefs, and with no hesitation fired her. The boss then decided to
put Carmy on the hot seat asking why did he hire such idiots like the woman he fired. The boss
continued raining Carmy with curses and insults like he has a short man’s complex and that he
should be dead.

Back in the present, it is still a busy day at the sandwich shop. Carmy keeps yelling “hands!”
asking for someone to deliver the prepared sandwich to the customer. The whole crew joins
hands in cleaning the dirty kitchen after the long day while Richie and Carmy continue to
exchange banters.

Later that night, Carmy and Richie go out for a smoke. While the others have already clocked
out, Carmy decides to stay and clean the kitchen again by himself. He goes home that night and
eats a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, chips, and cola. With a lit cigarette in his hand, he drifts to
sleep while watching a cooking show. He dreams of his past boss mocking him, and with the
cacophony of sounds, he finds his stove engulfed in flames.

The next day, Sydney comes prepared with the things that she wants to raise to Carmy. She is
also proposing a plan she prepares to help manage the shop’s finances but Carmy has no time
and interest to hear her out. The same day, Nancy Chore, a health officer, comes to the shop to
do an inspection.

After the assessment, Nancy bears a series of unfortunate news. She founds a large hole in the
tiles where stuffed napkins are used as a proxy instead of being caulked. Additionally, there is
no running hot water in the prep area. And worst, someone left a pack of cigarettes near the
stovetop. All of these negligences are health and safety hazards, causing Nancy to award them
a C, which means failure in health and safety standards. Richie pleads with Nancy to let them
off the hook, but she has to follow the protocols.
After the tension among the crews subsides, Carmy asks Richie to go to the hardware to buy
the materials to fix the kitchen. Sydney drives him there since Richie’s license is suspended.
While Carmy is posting the safety standard poster on the glass wall, he is surprised to see a
visitor smiling at him, but he is obviously not fond of the visit.

At the hardware, Richie refused to ask a worker where the materials he needs are located,
keeping his pride. Richie reveals to Sydney that he is not really related to Michael, in fact, they
were just best friends.

It turns out that the uninvited visitor is Carmy’s uncle, Jimmy. He tells Carmy that the shop is
just unsuccessful and that it even has a lower success rate than Chicago Bears. Uncle Jimmy
also reveals that Michael took cash from him and never paid it back, and now he states that he
holds Carmy responsible for that. Even further, Uncle Jimmy is compelling Carmy to just sell the
shop to him in return for Michael’s loans, but Carmy is adamant about keeping the shop
running.

Back in the car, Richie asks Sydney why is she so persistent in working with Carmy. Sydney
argues that Carmy is talented and that they can learn a lot from him, even more Carmy was
awarded as Food & Wine’s Best New Chef when he was only 21 years old.

While they continue to bicker, Richie gets a call from his wife, presumably, and later talks to his
daughter. Richie promises his daughter that he will give her 500 dollars if she does great and
reassures her that he will see her on Friday before bidding his daughter goodbye.

At the same time, Richie admits that it was he who screwed up with the cigarettes on the
stovetop. He also tells Sydney that he purchased the wrong caulk, good thing Sydney bought
the correct one.

Carmy calls Pete, Sugar’s husband, and apologizes. Pete hands the phone to Sugar and Carmy
asks why she is not picking her phone up. Sugar informs him that she is busy cooking dinner.
Carmy then opens up about him waking up in the middle of the night and his difficulty in
breathing at times.

Sugar asks him when the difficulty in breathing started, Carmy says it was around that time
when he was still working under his horrible boss in New York. She asks him why did he stay if
it was all terrible, Carmy answers that he loved how people loved the food he cooked.

Worried, Sugar tells his brother that Carmy cannot look out for other people’s sake without
taking care of himself. She keeps on telling Carmy to take a look at that “thing”, which is still
unmentioned.

Richie drops his ruler while caulking the wall, when he picks it up, he noticed a piece of paper
with Michael’s name on it. He picks it up and it turns out that it’s a letter from Micahel addressed
to his brother Carmy. Riche drops it on Carmy’s desks but later puts it back to where it was
originally placed on the floor.

After a busy day serving the customers, Carmy goes out of the shop and meets Richie on his
way out. Carmy confirms to Richie that the health officer is coming back once again. While
dealing with his difficulty in breathing, Carmy remembers his honest mistake of putting his pack
of cigarettes on the stovetop while he was cleaning one day. He checks out Sugar’s messages
and the episode comes to a close.

How did you feel about the first two episodes? It’s almost like a rollercoaster ride as we witness
the ups, but mostly the downs of Carmy’s life. This show is probably not made for everybody. It
is packed with intense scenes and numerous exchanges of curse words. But if you are looking
for something to keep you interested, not to mention if you are curious about the inside world of
our local fast food shops, then you might want to give this series a go.

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