The first two episodes of The Bear almost felt like a pointed response to the whole “The Bear is not a comedy” debate: Episode One is languid and gloomy, and Episode Two leaps back into the ensemble bickering and running jokes and precise cast rapport that had people chuckling as they bit their nails. It’s as if the show is saying, “We are whatever the fuck we want to be,” to use Richie’s and Carmy’s favorite word, and what it is so far is: a great argument for why Carmy needs to go on vacation and spend three months in therapy. This man is wound tighter than my hamstrings. He should at least try yoga.
I should have done a character rundown before this recap, as I did with Bridgerton, but I just didn’t have time. Also, please know that I just called it Beef before correcting myself. Beef is a show about angry people provoking and yelling at each other, and The Bear is a show about angry people provoking and yelling at each other while searing expensive protein and avoiding making beef sandwiches, so you can understand the confusion. I guess just know that Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) took over the Italian beef sandwich place his brother ran before he killed himself and decided to morph it to fine dining, and he and his “cousin” Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a longtime family friend, were often at loggerheads at how to manage these transitions logistically and emotionally.
The rest of the motley crew is comprised of folks who already worked at The Original Beef of Chicagoland, various lifelong Berzatto friends, Carmy’s sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) whom everyone calls Sugar, and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), who sought out Carmy to learn under him.
At the end of last season, Carmy & Crew finally opened The Bear — at which point Carmy accidentally got locked in the walk-in freezer and somehow did not perish. Instead, he had a total breakdown, reliving his days working for Asshole Chef Joel McHale in New York and ranting through the door about how he isn’t focused enough and doesn’t deserve contentment or joy or a girlfriend because “no amount of good is worth how terrible this feels. It’s just a complete waste of fucking time.” Except, whoops, his girlfriend Claire — also a childhood friend, because Sydney is the only new person anyone meets on this show — accidentally gets an earful of his misdirected regret. Still trapped and now listening to Claire leave, Carmy listens to a supportive voicemail from her and freaks out even more. Then he and Richie have a huge fight about how Carmy won’t let himself have nice things; Carmy calls Richie a loser of a leech, and Richie reminds us Carmy wasn’t at his brother Mikey’s funeral, so… it’s bad. Restaurant-wise, Richie and Sydney pull off a great night while Carmy is caged, and Carmy’s mother tries to come but cannot bring herself to go inside because she thinks she’ll ruin it and that she doesn’t deserve to be part of it. So Carmy’s apple has landed closer than the tree than he’d like.
Episode 1: “Tomorrow”
Comedy level: Zero out of ten microgreens tweezed onto a plate.
Stress level: Five out of ten throbbing veins.
Cameo counter: I got seven. Jon Bernthal, as the late Mikey; Joel McHale again, as Carmy’s old boss; Olivia Colman, as the head chef of Ever, where he once worked and where he sent Richie to learn the trade; Will Poulter, working the line with/for Carmy at Ever; famed chef Daniel Boulud, for whom Carmy worked at Daniel; chef Rene Redzepi of the late Noma in Copenhagen, where Carmy also worked and where he sent Marcus (who trained there under Will Poulter, connecting some more dots); and John Mulaney, as whoever the hell he even plays. I’m kidding, I looked it up; he’s Cousin Sarah Paulson’s boyfriend, and here appears to be Carmy’s roommate? Or is Carmy staying with them during this period and she’s just not around? Most likely they shot this when Paulson was too busy with Appropriate on Broadway or something, but I like to imagine the line producer being like, “Eight cameos? No. MY FOOT IS COMING DOWN.”
The rundown: The synopsis on Hulu was, “The next day and the days that led to it.” And it is indeed a 36-minute (without ads) moody and frequently wordless montage intercutting Carmy returning to The Bear the morning after the big Friends & Family opening, and slivers of memories of the people, places, and things that have made him this person. They play with time throughout the entire episode. Carmy is, in real time, cleaning up and resetting and rearranging The Bear’s dining room, and then noodling in the kitchen. In his mind, he’s everywhere else, all at once: at the French Laundry; crossing a bridge in Copenhagen; looking at Claire; saying farewell to Natalie at the airport when he leaves Chicago for New York; halfheartedly allaying Nat’s fears that she’ll never see him again and trying to refuse her offer of cash (which she slips into his pocket anyway); telling Mikey they could start a nice place and Mikey laughing at the idea; passing out on Mulaney’s couch after a long shift and getting covered up and and/or sprayed with deodorant; hearing McHale’s searing impatience and rudeness; and learning from Boulud — presented as a caring and delightful mentor, as you might imagine, given that he is played by himself and probably did not want to come in and be like, “That’s not a filet, you useless craptunnel, do you want me to demonstrate on one of your fingers?” This time travel is not as openly stressful as when they’re all screaming at each other, but the combination of the gentle pace and the nonstop mix of all these voices in Carmy’s head leaves you unsettled. It speaks to the level of drudgery that comes with this work, and the discipline and peace you can find in the mundane chores, set against the tension and tunnel vision that come with the rest of it.
The loudest memories are of McHale, who berates him for repeating ingredients, being too slow, and not being simple enough. “SUBTRACT,” Joel writes on a piece of tape and slaps it on the counter. “That’s how you do better,” he says. We see Carmy insisting to Natalie, before hopping his NYC flight, “I’m good at this,” and her patiently replying, “I know you are, honey” — and then immediately pivot to McHale: “Get good at this or go home.” And as if we were not grumpy enough, we also get flashes of the disastrous Berzatto holiday episode in the middle of all this, like a migraine in the making. I had to take a long break after watching that one last season.1 It was a well-executed and thoroughly miserable experience and I had PTSD here just looking at Jamie Lee Curtis for a split-second, which is not a reaction I ever want to have to Wanda Thee Gershwitz.
It’s not that any of this is badly done, but the entire time I was thinking, “I know this already.” I appreciate The Bear’s willingness to spend an episode on the interiority of its characters — Marcus’s Copenhagen episode last year, and Richie’s at Ever, were standouts — but the one character I don’t need that from right now is Carmy. Because the entire show has, brick by brick, already shown me what built Carmy. None of this was new information. It’s tough to spend that long on a glorified montage, no matter how prettily done it is, and come away thinking, “Okay, so was that the Previously On???” The premiere is too soon for a filler episode — it felt like a visual record of the show’s pitch deck — and this trick never would have worked if this weren’t being dumped all at once on Hulu.
At times the episode uses flashbacks that should live outside Carmy’s memories. For example, we see Richie knocking on Mikey’s door, with no response. We hear him yelling into the phone for someone to pick up, or call back, but who knows if it’s to Mikey or Carmy. We see the Original Beef staff, sans Carmy, pouring out of the church at Mikey’s funeral looking lost. We watch Mikey get a photo text from Carmy, of a gorgeous dish he created at Noma, and laugh with Tina about having no idea what the hell it is. None of that is anything Carmy himself would have witnessed; I’m not sure if we’re supposed to think he’s imagining them as part of his self-flagellation, or if the show is just trying to get away with something.
The first words Carmy utters to one of his crew in season three: “I’m so sorry.” They come around the 14th minute, to Sydney, in a scene shot pretty much up both their noses. She shrugs that, hey, they made it, and he’s like, “No, you made it.” She says, “With everyone else.” Carmy can’t get over leaving her alone, even if it was because the handle broke on the deep freeze. I suspect he feels he abandoned her mentally before that, and she might agree. “So don’t let it happen again,” she says. Carmy stares at her. “It’s never gonna happen again,” he says. As grim music plays, they sweep the food off the counter and go at it right there on the kitchen island.
Okay, obviously I am joshing, but real talk: I know a subset of viewers loves the idea of them as a couple, but I do not see sexual chemistry between these two characters; if their’s is a love story, to me it is of friends and colleagues and chefs who make each other better, or are trying to, and I prefer that. Let’s not prove Harry Burns correct that men and women can’t be friends. It would be so great for a healthy male-female partnership and collaboration to play out on TV without them falling into bed, and I don’t get “rip your clothes off” energy from either of these people.
Anyway, Sydney tells Carmy, “You should call.” He thinks she means Claire; she does not. Cut to Carmy leaving a rambling apology message that is more or less this: “I don’t know what I said, but I know I didn’t mean it… and I know you didn’t mean it… yeah I think we just… um… I’m sorry and I love you. And I’m sorry.” Then Carmy crushes out a smoke as we cut to Richie, who is the one receiving this message, listening in his car. He looks sad. We then have to watch Claire do some nursing, before she walks over and checks her phone and sees no message from Carmy. I confess I find Claire super boring, so that was unnecessary to me — we already know Carmy has not called her. I didn’t have a burning need to see it from her perspective, because she is not a character whose feelings concern me that much. She is too exterior to all this.
Marcus is also sad, because his mother died in the finale while he was working. Now, I love Marcus. Lionel Boyce has one of those gentle auras where I only want happy things for him and the idea of him getting hurt cuts me to the bone. He and Syd are in a weird place because he asked her out and she wasn’t on that wavelength, but she calls him and leaves a message of support, telling him not to worry about work because they all understand. He doesn’t answer; at the end of the episode, we see him lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. The parallels are clear. Carmy was perfecting his craft when his brother died, so he wasn’t there; Marcus was perfecting his craft when his mother died, so he wasn’t there. Somebody please hug Marcus. I’m serious. I’m going to say this until somebody listens.
The episode ends with Carmy using Joel McHale’s labeling system to put times, names, and other instructions on ingredients that he prepped, and scribbling a list of cliches: “PERFECT MEANS PERFECT” and “NO EXCUSES.” He writes “KEEP FUCKING GOING” on the counters as a reminder to himself, and then sits back and stares at an array of dishes sitting in front of him, waiting for... well, for the end credits, which do eventually relieve him of his agony.
Other bits:
— At some point, Joel McHale rejects all of Carmy’s scallop sides and recreates the dish as his own — fully announcing that it’s HIS dish now. Later, Carmy is told a diner has an allergy, so he has to replace Joel’s preferred side and he swaps in the blood orange puree he had made. The dish is served… to Sydney, in the dining room, who blisses out over her meal. It’s a nice little moment showing the beginnings of the connective tissue between them.
Episode 2: “Next”
The need for one episode called “Tomorrow” and another one called “Next” is… nonexistent. I really think they could have made “Tomorrow” a five-minute prelude to “Next.” Basically, this episode deal with, yes, what happens next. Which is indeed often the mandate of an episode that takes place after another episode. This one is a more enjoyable rhythm — mostly — but STILL acts as a resetting of the stage before it begins to take us somewhere. To me, that is episode one business, but episode one was too busy being all up in its cinematic shit and treading water. All told, we are going into Episode 3 having advanced zero squares on the board, and in fact possibly we have gone in reverse. Sigh.
Cameos: Christopher J. Zucchero, who owns Chicago’s Mr. Beef — here is a history of it by Eater — plays a veggie delivery guy named Chi-Chi. I’m not sure if we’ve seen him before because I cannot remember who half these people are to each other. They’re all related but not related. Except the ones who are related. It’s a lot.
The rundown: Sydney and her dad are living together in cramped quarters, as witnessed by him intruding on her bathroom time because he urgently needs to, er, free himself from the questionable wings he ate. She asks him if he took his meds and he says she reminded him already, which is not the same thing as, “Yes,” and she points that out and he’s like, “I’m gonna do it, yeah, yeah” — and I can’t tell if that’s going to be important or not? Like, is this laying groundwork for him to have An Issue, or just slice of life scene? Anyway, he practically dances out of the bathroom and gives her a lot of affectionately silly “YES CHEF” stuff as she half-feigns irritation, so they’re in a decent emotional place even if they’re physically tripping over each other.
And then, off we go through Chicago. The main title slates roll across a lengthy B-roll montage of people working in a variety of Chicago establishments: restaurants, markets, hotels, florists. (I wish they had thrown in a shot of Country General as a joke, or like Dr. Peter Benton doing his famous celebratory gesture, but I know that’s too expensive and also deeply niche.) It’s a nice love letter to the city in which they film, but also, after the previous episode, a choice that quickly begins to feel like bloat. Now that the show is a Hulu exclusive and not airing on FX, they seem to be feeling the ability to do whatever the hell they want with runtime. Oh, and this bit is set to a pretty great Eddie Vedder cover of “Save It For Later,” whose lyrics include, “Sooner or later, you’ll hit the deck, you’ll get found out… don’t run away and let me down,” and then a lot of repetition of, “You let me down.” Which is basically Carmy’s inner monologue, and possibly to a less (or differently) toxic degree, also Sydney’s.
Inside The Bear, Carmy is staring at the plates he’s assembled, and they are all plates from his past, I think — things we saw him creating and fumbling and perfecting and being yelled at about in the previous episode, and/or things drawing from those techniques. It’s his psyche on a table. Chi-Chi comes in and says what everyone has been thinking: Where the hell are the beef sandwiches, because none of the regulars want micro-radishes and pancetta dust. No, really, Carmy is gonna take beautiful pancetta and TURN IT TO DUST. Molecular gastronomy is cool and also sometimes needs to be stopped. Chi-Chi says he remembers when they were kids and would slice the bread and wipe the tables together, and how it was different for Carmy because he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Just when you think this is a compliment, Chi-Chi finishes by saying that for the REST of them, they were doing it with so many more possibilities in life.
One by one, the scene builds, as the people in Carmy’s circle arrive for work and The Bear settles into its usual rhythm of having three rat-a-tat-tat conversations at once until the loudest one wins. First it’s Natalie — I can’t bring myself to call her Sugar — who grills Carmy on how he’s doing and how long he’s been there, and resents his evasiveness. She’s also stressed out, but “it’s not great 8 a.m. stuff.” Carmy wants to know, so she tells him: “I’m gonna have a kid in two months. I just wish I could push a button and get the baggage put away.” Carmy replies, “That’s 4 p.m. stuff,” and Nat retorts, “I told you.”
As line cook Ebraheim sidles in, Nat picks up the list Carmy was making last episode. It says NON-NEGOTIABLES up top, and it’s Carmy’s manifesto for “how restaurants of the highest caliber operate.” He wants her to type it up and print it, and she’s like, “…???” Next in is Oliver Platt, who reminds us all that he technically owns the place, as he’s Uncle Moneybags. He weaves in and out whining about things being expensive, and making of Carmy for being “in the fridge yelling at yourself.” Natalie rattles off stuff on Carmy’s list, like pressing shirts, “personal hygiene,” never repeating ingredients, breaking down all boxes before putting them in the Dumpster, “know your shit,” all of which… listen, those do not seem like unreasonable expectations at all. Good personal hygiene SHOULD be a non-negotiable at a restaurant, and breaking down boxes is just sensible. If the objection is that he’s infantilizing everyone with this, well, guilty as charged. But every restaurant bathroom I’ve been to has a sign in the bathroom ordering employees to wash their hands. Natalie snarks that he emphasizes “technique” three times but spells it wrong, and then reads aloud, “Constantly evolve through passion and creativity.” Without saying it in so many words, Carmy feels like he’s in a race that he’s already losing, and Natalie tells him a piece of her heart just broke off.
Sydney arrives and stops short at the sight of all the new food. “I subtracted, and I pushed,” Carmy says. Once again, the Joel McHale buzzwords we heard last week. It’s interesting that Carmy has sent his staffers to study under his gentler mentors, but the one whose lessons stuck to him the most was the awful one. If these people had watched episode 1, they would all understand Carmy so much better. Carmy tells Sydney they’re gonna get a Michelin star, and that her cook was excellent the night before. She thanks him and says, “You still changed all my shit.” He corrects her, “It’s OUR shit, and it’s just some adjusting of the plating.” Then he drops the bomb that a) he sent her a partnership agreement so that she and he and Natalie are all clear on their ownership share, and b) they’re changing the menu every single day, “so they can see what we’re capable of.” He doesn’t answer who they are — the Michelin team, the locals, his demons; all of the above — but he says he’s doing it “so that I can push you, and you can push me. That’s what you wanted, right?” Sydney is like, “I feel like I’ve been here an hour.” She also clocks Carmy popping a piece of nicotine gum.
Sydney definitely agrees with THAT one. She is, in the way Ayo Edebiri has perfected, visibly spinning on the inside but keeping as placid an exterior as she can. Anyone who cares to notice, will, but Carmy does not. He is a cactus of a person right now
Right as Syd gets hit with the NON-NEGOTIABLES, Richie enters. He and Carmy act like schoolyard babies, asking Sydney to relay their comments to each other.
I would have quit right then and there. After last season I will ride for Richie at dawn, but he is also an emotional hoarder who cannot let anything go, ever, even if it’s starting to block the exits and emits a weird smell. So he starts a land war over Carmy’s reorganization of the dining room, which Richie views as his terrain, and Carmy feels antagonized and possessive of his role as the boss. This devolves into a pile of fucks until Sydney says, in her understated way, “I don’t like this AT ALL.” Richie says, “It’s fine. Chef Carmen uses power phrases because he’s a baby replicant who’s not self-actualized, which is maybe why he repeatedly referred to me as a loser… I respect your honesty and bravery from inside a locked vault.” And Richie wants to keep their zones separate: “That’s MY dojo. Shit gets rearranged and it creates an environment of fear, and fear does not exist in that dojo.” Richie wore me the HELL out in season one and yet now I nod along to him all the time. How did they pull THAT off?
Anyway, there’s another Battle of Fucks until Sydney shushes them and sputters that she doesn’t know what to do with these asshats. Especially when Richie gets a load of the NON-NEGOTIABLES, which even Sydney admits she feels contempt for, and which Richie says are not entirely useless except for the phrase “vibrant collaboration” which he determines can “get fucked.” Which kicks off Richie and Carmy fighting about who or what can get MORE fucked. Is this all improv? We need about two minutes less of them doing this in every conversation. Carmy starts having an aneurysm about how the whole point of NON-NEGOTIABLES is that they are not to be negotiated, Sydney is like, “I am not stupid, I understand words,” and Carmy spits back, “You don’t think I can do it?” Sydney exhales and marvels that Carmy has made this so much about himself. Except I think Carmy always does that, if I recall correctly — I wish I’d rewatched the other seasons, but also, I didn’t think I could take it — so this should not be a surprise. Carmy is gonna Carmy. It’s why he turned a casual neighborhood institution into a gentrified Michelin grab.
A light starts flickering, which by the comedy rules means three people will notice this in the middle of all these other conversations, and wonder whether they’re having a stroke (they are: Sydney, Natalie, and Matty Matheson’s character Neil). Because we really needed one more thing for people to mumble while everyone is arriving and learning about NON-NEGOTIABLES. Carmy and Richie veer their raging argument toward Carmy’s taped labels, and Sydney is about to have a stress meltdown as Carmy screams, “I APOLOGIZED TO YOU,” and Richie begins to mock the way he did it. To amp up OUR stress levels, we get in real close on Sydney’s eyes periodically as they flicker across all the new dishes and she starts to imagine the prep in her head. I am going to need an Aleve in a second. I cannot believe we are still doing this.
Sydney welcomes Tina to NON-NEGOTIABLES Island — Tina is so chill, I love it — and an arriving Neil is just like, “The vibe is WEIRD,” and begs them to stop because it’s scary. Thank you, Neil. Unfortunately, his brother Ted is less helpful. He is fixing the light when Neil is telling Carmy that the new menu plan is crazy, and Richie says, “Ask Claire if he’s crazy.” That shuts up the room, and Richie admits it was a low blow, but then Ted cheerfully says he saw Claire “at a friend’s.” Sydney blinks at him. “Ted, why,” she deadpans. Ted insists it’s all good and Carmy is like, “?????” because of course it isn’t. “It just seems a little impossible for it to be all good,” Sydney says delicately. Ted amends, “We’re all good, this little cul de sac, we’re good with her. But you’re not good with her, Carm. That’s not it right now. You’re dusted.” WHY, TED. Also I’m unclear how much time can possibly have passed. Did I miss something? Does this not feel like it’s basically right after the previous episode? It cannot have been three weeks or three months, so… was it even three days? I can’t tell if the implication is that she moved on already (again… how long???) or just that he laid eyes on her and she wasn’t rending her garments, or that he laid eyes on her, period.
This is Oliver Platt’s cue to come in and ask for some exposition, but sadly none of it is date-based. Carmy grudgingly admits to the room that he MAY have accidentally told Claire that they were a waste of time, because he is who he is. Carmy is like one of those cars that gets near-totaled but the person doesn’t take it into the shop, so they just keep driving it and driving it and duct tape it together until it gives. He is going to lose a wheel soon. Everyone gapes at this, and then Richie is like, “Who cares, let’s get some work done.” Carmy agrees, so Richie says, “Well then I actually take it back, fuck you.” Richie is the master of Not Helping. When Sydney tells them three servers quit because they don’t want to work in a dysfunctional kitchen, both Richie and Carmy says, “Show me a functional one,” and then turn and yell at each other, twice, “STOP SAYING THE SAME SHIT AS ME.” Honestly, these two are gonna get stabbed, Murder on the Orient Express-style, by the entire kitchen staff. And there will be no arrest.
At that moment, Marcus walks in, and that really does get them all to pull their heads out of either their own or each others’ asses. “I just wanna be here with y’all and not think about it,” he says, shuffling to his spot in the back, and taking the NON-NEGOTIABLES with him. The clock starts on eight hours until service, and Sydney stares at the food like she’s memorizing it.
Carmy walks back to Marcus and starts to make fun of his list, but Marcus likes the NON-NEGOTIABLES. They make sense to him. He has a healthier relationship to lists than everyone else, maybe, or else he understands that asking them to be clean and have new ideas isn’t really that revolutionary — even if it’s being executed in the form of a condescending dick move. Carmy awkwardly points out to Marcus what was apparent in the last episode: that he knows a little bit about what Marcus is going through, and “instead of not dealing with it, try to, um…” and Marcus cuts in, “Is that what you did?” Carmy laughs sadly and says, “No.” Marcus says that it doesn’t make him sad that he was at work when his mother died, because he thinks that’s how she wanted it — him there, moving forward, making his future. “This is what’s up now,” he says. “This place has gotta work. And I need you to do something for me. Take us there, Bear.” Carmy blinks. “Yes, Chef,” he says. Say it with me: SOMEBODY HUG MARCUS. Someone other than Carmy. No one wants to hug a cactus.
Comedy level: Six out of ten NON-NEGOTIABLES. Maybe seven? Many of the cleverer bits got drowned out by the Fuck Brigade. My favorite line was when Carmy and Richie squabble about whether Richie placed too many flowers on all the tables, and Richie screams, “THOSE FLOWERS ARE ELEGANT AS FUCKING SHIT.” Runners Up:
Chi-Chi, telling Carmy that he heard the buzz from the locals about missing the sandwiches: “You don’t hear it like I hear it. I hear it like, ‘Fuck this fancy fuck, I want my shit.’”
Gary arriving for work as Carmy is trying to figure out how everyone already knew Claire overheard Carmy ranting and took it personally. Without missing a beat, Gary says, “Group chat, bro.”
Ted, trying to explain how ruined Carmy is with Claire, puts his hand out and says that if that represents good, then Carmy is… and he raises his hand. They’re like, “That’s above, Ted. That would mean he’s good.” And Ted goes, “I’m on a ladder, it’s different!” Sydney, sort of sadly: “It’s not.” That whole bit was a nice chuckle for me even if I still don’t understand how the hell long it’s been.
Stress level: Eight out of ten Fucking Fucks (this show is Succession’s successor). Every single conversation with Richie and Carmy felt like the two actors just being like, “Let’s yell FUCK at each other a bunch.” These two characters never left the sandbox. It’s frustrating to feel like Carmy can’t really see anyone around him, or never really grows. Richie grew! He did so well! I also just think Ebon Moss-Bachrach is brilliant in this show at making you care about a character who was initially the fingernails on the chalkboard of The Bear.
Other tidbits:
— If you’re curious, the nine course menu at The Bear costs $175, plus tip. Richie doesn’t like tipping: “You judge a professional based on their performance and determine how much money they’re going to make?” He likens this to going to the theater and deciding you don’t like the actors’ performance so you decline to pay for it.
— Gary is going to wine school! I hope we get to see him learn this, because I want to spend more time with the people who DON’T yell “FUCK” at each other for 15 minutes an episode.
— The episode ends on “Nice Dream” by Radiohead. Lyrics: “They love me like I was a brother // They protect me // Listen to me // They dug me my very own garden // Gave me sunshine // Made me happy // Nice dream // Nice dream.”
— Carmy tells Chi-Chi that he’ll open the sandwich window the following day, but there is not an episode called “The Following Day” and nor is there one called “Sandwich Window,” so I cannot tell you yet whether that comes to pass.
— Heather
My husband and I had to watch Home Alone after it, so we could sleep. - J
Heather! Your writing! "emotional hoarder who cannot let anything go, ever, even if it’s starting to block the exits and emits a weird smell"
We are halfway through EP4 and I don't know that it improves that much! We liked S1, LOVED S2 - especially Forks and Marcus' ep - but these eps so far feel pretty lazy, like almost AI generated.
I liked the first episode. It felt like meditation to me. The second episode was way way way too stressful. I watched the first 3 episodes in one night and had to take a break after that, so.... YMMV.