Sunshine and Olly

by Jonathan Blaustein

Happy 4th of July, if you celebrate.

And if you’re not in favor of American independence, (on land purloined from the Indigenous population,) no stress.

Hope you enjoy a day off, irrespective of the cause.

That said, there is one thing you should not do today.

(Not if you have any sense.)

Do NOT watch Season 3 of the hit Hulu/FX show, “The Bear.”

Unfortunately, as the blog’s title suggests, the artistic series, which was pretty terrific in its first two seasons, is downright bad in its 3rd season. 

These days, bad can apparently mean hot, or extremely good-looking, in Gen Z parlance. 

(As opposed to the late 20th C, when it meant tough. As in the Michael Jackson song “Bad.”)

I am not using bad in either manner.

Here, bad means terrible.

Poorly made.

Annoying.

Frustrating.

And, ultimately, fruitless.





Major spoiler alert, as I’ll be discussing the story arc of Season 3.

Were I to do so extensively, I’d have trouble, as there was almost no arc of which to speak.

Basically, Disney has a Season 3 jinx with some of its Uber-talented creative teams.

It happened with “Atlanta,” “Reservation Dogs,” and now “The Bear.”

(Netflix had a similar issue with Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None.”)

Without access to what happened, I’m left to speculate.

Perhaps once the creators have built up street cred, it’s harder for them to take criticism?

Or maybe it’s the opposite, and once the projects are successful, the networks start meddling too much?

Certainly, with all three Disney shows, Season 3 was a radical departure from the energy that built success.

All three created rich, layered, hilarious, but also empathetic characters from the jump. They gave us real humans, from diverse backgrounds, who we wanted to watch.

Humor was mixed with pathos.

Depth and profundity flowed naturally. Absurdity and surrealism made sense. 

Lots of movement, both the camera and in the blocking. Universes sprung up, fully formed, in Black Atlanta, Indigenous Oklahoma, and then Blue-collar Foodie Chicago. 

We’ll stick with the last of those worlds, as the criticism here is mostly meant for the Christoper Storer food series.





Season 1 had only 8 episodes, filled with entertaining chaos.

Lots of yelling, cursing, passion, spilled milk, make-up hugs, and terrific set-ups.

(Like the bit about accidentally slipping valium to the attendees at a children’s birthday party.)

All the actors were charismatic, vibrant, and equal parts joyous and murderous. 

The final reveal at the end of the season was revelatory.

The money in the tomato cans.

Such a powerful, intentional story.

The wonderful writing was matched by the insanely good acting.

Shout outs to all, but definitely Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Oliver Platt, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Lionel Boyce, and Liza Colón-Zayas.

Season 2 took it further with 10 episodes, and gave us two of the best I’ve ever seen: the back to back “Fishes” and “Forks.”

Holy Shit was that art good.

Tension that makes you sick, but always with a payoff.

Ridiculously good cameos by Jamie Lee Curtis, Bob Odenkirk, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Paulson, and John Mulaney.

These episodes were humanistic to an impossible degree.

Magnetic bad behavior, positive expressions of love, and everything in between. 

10/10.

Which is what makes the Season 3 belly-flop so disappointing. 





Lest you think I’m exaggerating, I did a 3-Season binge with Jessie, as she hadn’t seen the show before. 

She agreed Parts I and II were brilliant.

And we commiserated together, as Season 3 started off flat, then never improved.

Episode 1 was basically built off of flashbacks, like what they did on “Happy Days” when they needed a filler.

Seasons 1 and 2 left so much to the imagination.

Using flashbacks to fill in gaps that didn’t need filling was amateurish.

As with Aziz Ansari and Donald Glover, the show started to lean heavily on high-art cinema clichés, European style. 

All through Part III, we have miserable people, emoting misery. (In obvious fashion.)

Funerals, breakups, deception, bleak stares, panic attacks... but not much movement. 

So many scenes with two people sitting next to each other, talking about boring stuff, in uninspiring locales.

We had to stop it SO many times to shit-talk, or take a walk.

No balance. No uplift. No depth. And no joy.

Except for the repeated use of the Faks, two fat guys as comic relief.

(So blatant, like Shakespeare with a MUCH lower IQ.)

Irrational decisions abound, plot holes like pot holes, and very little progress.

The less said about the masturbatory IRL chef-cameo-obsessed finale, the better. 

(Though I'll admit we enjoyed watching Thomas Keller try SO hard not to look at the camera as he spouted his pretentious pablum.)

It seemed like a parody of itself, but clearly wasn’t.

To top it all off,  as Jessie and I stopped the finale, again and again, to wonder how they could possibly resolve any of the plot lines by the end, (as there had been so little development,) they made the cardinal sin of all time.

They ended the fucking thing with a To Be Continued.

(For real.)





Did I throw something at the screen?

No, but only because I didn’t want to break my computer.

An irresponsible solution to a season with so little joy.

We continually talked about the Hollywood Writer’s strike of 2023, and how it seemed the production team had given in to nihilism. 

How they should have done more therapy, then used their personal growth to fuel the writing.

(Rather than just trauma-dump.) 

It was impossible to stay in the narrative, as the seams were everywhere. 

As I said at the beginning, I hope you have a nice day today.

I do.

But you won’t if you try to watch the latest version of “The Bear.”

It’s about as much fun as having a junkyard dog bite off your private parts.

No thanks.