Hugo pop! | Eat the bear eat!

I love the psychoculinary series The Bear. Its deliciously chosen music (REM, Counting Crows), its super-talented actors, its complex, bizarre and endearing characters, as well as the realism of its foray into the backstage of a bustling Chicago restaurant.

But I also hate The Bearsometimes. After a sequence that borders on genius, pow, we are served a full menu where it does nothing but shout at each other and shower each other with insults. Shut your mouth! No, you, shut your mouth! Go to hell! No, you, go to hell! Fuck you!

Nobody listens to each other in The Bearso no one shuts up and the service of profanity never stops. This constant, deafening chaos is as offensive as a dash of pesto on a square plate.

Online on the Disney+ platform since the end of June, the third season of The Bear offers haute cuisine on television, no doubt about it, but does not reach the three Michelin stars of the second, the best so far. In order of flavors, I would put the second season of The Bear at the top of the charts, followed by the first and third, the least successful.

Because this third chapter of The Bear is more of an appetizer than a main course. A snack before tackling the fourth year, where the intrigues set up with giant eyelash tweezers will finally come to fruition.

Will neurotic chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) mend his self-sabotaged relationship with his doctor girlfriend Claire (Molly Gordon)? Will shy head chef Sydney (Ayo Edibiri) sign her cursed partnership agreement with the other restaurant shareholders? And will we get to read the full review of Chicago Tribune, who terrorizes Carmy and her uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt)?

The ten episodes revolve around all these pots without ever diving into them. In short, we come away from watching The Bear with the feeling of not having eaten enough, despite the beauty of the plates and a hefty bill.

The first episode, an extended musical retrospective of the past and future career of star conductor Carmy Berzatto, tests our patience with its jumbled and shattered timeline. That takes a lot of confidence from the creators of The Bear to start a season with such a radical episode, where few words are spoken.

Oddly enough, the two best episodes of The Bear 3 – the sixth and eighth – are those who have no interest in the tortured Carmy or her constantly moist blue eyes.

Episode six tells us where cook Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) comes from and how she met Carmy’s hot-tempered brother, Mikey (Jon Bernthal), who long ran a family-owned diner turned chic bistro. It’s touching, raw and enlightening. Almost like reality TV.

The eighth takes place entirely in the hospital room, and in close-up, where Natalie aka Sugar (Abby Elliott), Carmy’s sister, is about to give birth. And who accompanies Natalie in this tense moment? Probably the least zen person in The Bearor her alcoholic mother Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), who is just incredible. In a compact half-hour, we grasp all the pain, incomprehension and resentment that have polluted the bonds between a sick mother and her daughter, who has suffered greatly from it.

One of my favorite characters from The Bearthe fake cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), deserves more love. Like a crusty plate abandoned in a tub of dirty water, Richie stagnates in this third season. Too bad.

Now, in Quebec series, the lines flow smoothly without overlapping. The Bear offers exactly the opposite: the characters stammer, hesitate, interrupt each other, yell louder than the other and hesitate often. Yes, it breathes realism into the episodes. On the other hand, when the Fak brothers waste too much airtime persisting on silly things (who is haunting who?), it becomes repetitive. Every second counts, even on TV, as chef Andrea Terry (Olivia Colman) would remind us.

Foodies will definitely enjoy the presence of real chefs Daniel Boulud (Daniel) and Thomas Keller (The French Laundry), with whom Carmy collaborated. The second episode begins with a superb montage of the city of Chicago waking up, it’s great art. The song Save It for Later Eddie Vedder’s The Nightmare on Elm Street fits perfectly with the beautiful images of sleepy people commuting to work.

Of course it’s goodThe Bear. I savored the ten episodes in two short evenings. I pick and choose, because the series, which sweeps all the awards, has itself raised the standard of all American television.

When you book a table at a fancy restaurant, you expect to be dazzled by the food and treated like royalty. And you’re more likely to notice the little mistakes there than you are at a local dive, aren’t you, chef?

Yes sir !

I levitate

With The Kremlin Mage, by Giuliano da Empoli

Several years behind on my reading, I finally devoured this novel that everyone has already talked about, even Patrick Lagacé, in 2022. It is a great book, which tells the crucial importance of a political advisor – and former popular TV producer – in the rise of Vladimir Putin. The book is inspired by real events and takes us behind the scenes of the Kremlin as well as into the head and private life of the President of Russia, a cruel, rigid and angry being. It is brilliant, captivating and written in a delightful language. For intelligent tanning, certainly.

I avoid it

The film A Family Affair from Netflix

A good audience for sugary romances, I hated this lazy and poorly acted romantic comedy. First, its two leads, Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron, have no chemistry and no convincing facial expressions. The two stars look like they’re going into a factory, punching their cards and doing as little as possible. And the script won’t win an Oscar. Zac Efron plays a Vin Diesel-esque action actor who falls in love with the novelist mother (Nicole Kidman) of his assistant/personal slave (Joey King), who obviously doesn’t approve of the relationship. Dialogue excerpt: “You smell so good, what are you wearing?” “Sunscreen.” Bleh!