Note: This review contains spoilers from “The Bear” Season 2.
There’s a convenient little portrait of exactly how “The Bear” has progressed, and what it’s pulled off, in the first shot of the Season 2 finale. The episode opens with a virtuosic, 12-minute long take that is, intentionally, a rejoinder to the 18-minute single take from the first season’s penultimate episode. Whereas the Season 1 shot maneuvered through the crumbling hellscape that is the sandwich shop known as The Beef, this one weaves through the carefully controlled chaos and polished corners of the newly opened, high-end establishment The Bear.
That juxtaposition is the easy answer to what the sophomore season of “The Bear” is about, as Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (Ayo Edibiri), and the ragtag Beef crew pick up right from where we left off and get to building an ambitious new restaurant.