Speaker 1: I don't look at decorative flowers on a play and
Speaker 1: think yeah, I think congratulations on making that.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was really hard. Can make some beef
Speaker 2: and cheese immediately.
Speaker 3: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
Speaker 3: I'm Claire Harvey. It doesn't sound like the premise of
Speaker 3: a hit TV show. Following the suicide of his brother, Carmi,
Speaker 3: a tortured chef returns home to Chicago to save the
Speaker 3: family Italian beef sandwich business. Short King Jeremy Allen White
Speaker 3: is the lead, alongside a cast of mostly lesser known stars,
Speaker 3: and yet The Bear has become one of the biggest
Speaker 3: shows on TV four seasons in with a fifth on
Speaker 3: the way, It's swept awards, topped critics lists, and introduced
Speaker 3: yes chef h into everyday vocabulary. Today entertainment reporter Jordie
Speaker 3: Gray joins me to talk about how and why The
Speaker 3: Bear has resonated with huge audiences and critics alike.
Speaker 2: Hebra make sandwiches.
Speaker 3: Don't stop making fucking sandwiches.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna make three sections.
Speaker 3: Okay, They're gonna be wet. Most of the action in
Speaker 3: The Bear takes place at the Bear the restaurant that
Speaker 3: is now Kami's joint, along with all the dirty dishes
Speaker 3: and dodgy accounting his late brother Michael left behind. Krmi
Speaker 3: is unhinged in a way we're used to chefs being
Speaker 3: on TV.
Speaker 1: The clocks are.
Speaker 5: Require.
Speaker 2: If it's not perfect, it doesn't go out okay.
Speaker 3: His ambition and obsession is destructive, but it's also contagious Gradually,
Speaker 3: Kami's motley caste of chefs led by Ao at every
Speaker 3: Sydney a young Sioux chef with Michelin star dreams try
Speaker 3: to turn this greasy institution into something great. There's tenderness
Speaker 3: and laughs.
Speaker 4: You cut vegetables like I'll be it, don't wipe your
Speaker 4: hands on your apron chef.
Speaker 3: Chest chef. But the road to success is naturally rough
Speaker 3: and presented unsparingly.
Speaker 4: I told you, I told you to be more fucking ready.
Speaker 2: I told you that dish wasn't fucking ready. What does
Speaker 2: this have to do with yes?
Speaker 1: Stop stop?
Speaker 2: As someone who has worked in.
Speaker 3: Kitchens, Jordi Gray is the Australian's entertainment reporter.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's really accurate. I feel like that's
Speaker 1: how chefs are. And then new clockoff and that kind
Speaker 1: it's just the madness of the job.
Speaker 3: Do you think they've learned to be like that or
Speaker 3: is it like the crazy industry gives them permission to
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's like gentle parenting at culinary school.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether that will change and we'll see
Speaker 1: gentler chefs emerge in the future.
Speaker 3: What's the craziest thing you saw in a kitchen?
Speaker 1: Well, everyone is angry all the time, right. I remember
Speaker 1: working an ANTC day shift, not getting penalty rates because
Speaker 1: everything is cash in hand and cutting my hand open
Speaker 1: and then getting yelled at by the chef because there
Speaker 1: was food to run.
Speaker 2: It was like a.
Speaker 1: Tarantino movie, like the comical amounts of blood spurting and
Speaker 1: just been yelled at.
Speaker 2: I was like seventeen, and don't bleed on the food.
Speaker 5: Don't bleed on.
Speaker 2: The food, run the plates and what did you do?
Speaker 2: Apologized for bleeding? Apologize profusely.
Speaker 3: As a piece of television. Then, how successful has the
Speaker 3: Bear been?
Speaker 1: I have a theory on why it was so successful
Speaker 1: so immediately, I think it was perfectly calibrated to hit
Speaker 1: this pop culture sweet spot, which is very online millennials,
Speaker 1: most of who probably have writing jobs, which isn't to
Speaker 1: discredit like.
Speaker 2: The quality of the Bear at all.
Speaker 1: I'm not denying that it is an absolutely excellent show.
Speaker 3: You're saying it's for old people aged.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm saying it's the ancient thirty three year olds in
Speaker 1: this world.
Speaker 2: But it did arrive with this pre existing hype.
Speaker 1: Obviously, Jeremy Allen White was on Shameless for like a
Speaker 1: decade and he was the favorite character. But the supporting
Speaker 1: Cluss has this kind of in built circuitry of very
Speaker 1: niche fame. Marcus the Dessert Chef was a member of
Speaker 1: Odd Future the Rap Crew sort of fronted by Tyler
Speaker 1: creator Any Teenager Online in like the late two thousand.
Speaker 2: And they were like the biggest steal ever.
Speaker 1: So to see like, oh, the dude from Odd Futures
Speaker 1: in a television show like that was immediate interest there.
Speaker 1: Uncle Richie Evon muss Backrack played a very small but
Speaker 1: very memorable and totally unbearable character in Girls, the Lena
Speaker 1: Dunman Show, which is the most influential millennial show.
Speaker 2: And Maddie Matheson, who plays Neil Thack.
Speaker 1: They're like burly and beloved Handyman hosted a food show
Speaker 1: on Vice called Munchies. So it's all these very small,
Speaker 1: niche people. But when you read that this completely disjointed
Speaker 1: group had come together, it's like automatically tapping into a
Speaker 1: certain audience. It seeded the kind of low key cultural
Speaker 1: recognition that built momentum.
Speaker 5: Ah.
Speaker 3: So you're saying it's sort of like a boy band,
Speaker 3: so curated to hit a particular moment that this was deliberate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was curated amazingly. Yeah, I think, and very tastefully.
Speaker 5: I know who you were, Oh yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 5: you're the most excellent CDC at the most excellent restaurant
Speaker 5: in the entire United States of America. So what are
Speaker 5: you doing here? I guess.
Speaker 3: Making sandwiches. Jeremy Allen White is kind of an unlikely star,
Speaker 3: isn't he. He's ridiculously handsome, and he's offside of Sydney
Speaker 3: is this beautiful young woman who you can tell is
Speaker 3: a deep lover of food, and yet her ideas are
Speaker 3: crushed by Kami. There's a sort of romance at the start,
Speaker 3: isn't there. She's obviously interested in him romantically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't think he's interested in anyone romantically
Speaker 1: until the Claire character resurfaces. I just don't think romance
Speaker 1: is something that's on his radar. And I also think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting that there's a show where there is
Speaker 1: a male and female lead and they're both very attractive
Speaker 1: and then not an item that's more interesting to me
Speaker 1: than I will they won't they?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And then Camie then starts kind of marginalizing her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's definitely is sidelined, and it's I don't think
Speaker 1: it's out of spy. I just think it's out of
Speaker 1: his pure obsession, yeah, for his craft, and he cannot
Speaker 1: think about anything else outside his own ambition and leaves
Speaker 1: just this trail of destruction.
Speaker 3: And then you see this arc that Richie goes on
Speaker 3: that's really interesting too, Richie the shouty, kind of messy cousin.
Speaker 4: Yep, Richie Jeremolovich, pleasure to meet you, Sweeteart'll say, sweetheart,
Speaker 4: your you're so wolf. I mean nothing by it, Sydney
Speaker 4: saying Sweetheart's just part of our Italian.
Speaker 2: Okay, listen, I'm trying to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: Then he discovers fine dining as well, like goes off
Speaker 3: to do a stag at this restaurant run by Olivia Coleman.
Speaker 2: Just put her on everything.
Speaker 3: She's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: I'd slice my hand open and apologize for Olivia Coleman.
Speaker 3: So then Richie discovers the magic of fine dining and
Speaker 3: food and serving people and then becomes an obsessive kind
Speaker 3: of matre d.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This show, unlike any others, is so good at
Speaker 1: going into the lives of its peripheral characters, and you'll
Speaker 1: just have these amazing standalone episodes like the one in
Speaker 1: season three that was directed by Ao Debris, who plays Sydney,
Speaker 1: and was focused on the character of Lisa and how
Speaker 1: she struggled to find a job and then wound up
Speaker 1: at the Beef of Chicago Land.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where other productions try to do color line casting,
Speaker 3: you know, and they'll cast a black woman as a
Speaker 3: tudor princess bridgeton. Yeah, this show stars a Puerto Rican woman.
Speaker 3: She's the working poor in America. Yeah, desperate for a job,
Speaker 3: gets one at the Beef. Yes, and it saves your life, really,
Speaker 3: And then it's about how she then discovers that she
Speaker 3: can do more than just wash dishes or just be
Speaker 3: aligned cooings.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't have to try that hard, because
Speaker 1: that is ultimately what life is like. And I think
Speaker 1: that's why people like the Bear so much. I think
Speaker 1: the realism isn't just in the restaurants, but in the
Speaker 1: emotional plausibility of it all. Like you believe these characters
Speaker 1: and you care about what they're going through because they're
Speaker 1: not so dissimilar to people you know and love in life.
Speaker 3: There's a great episode in season three where Sugar is
Speaker 3: giving birth. Oh do you remember this?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: So I didn't like that episode. Why Because I think
Speaker 1: it indulged in all the bears worst impulses, which as
Speaker 1: it's kind of progressed, they've kind of gotten maybe too
Speaker 1: experimental for what we want from television, which is like,
Speaker 1: I like a driving narrative, and I think that these scenes,
Speaker 1: these conversations work, but not for like.
Speaker 2: A whole episode. It was full it was full on.
Speaker 2: But why did you like it?
Speaker 3: I didn't like it the first watch, and then I
Speaker 3: watched it. I forced myself to watch it again because
Speaker 3: I think also, you know, childbirth scenes on screen can
Speaker 3: just lean into a lot of you know, silly breathing
Speaker 3: and sort of sweating and nice chips, but the kind
Speaker 3: of layers of sort of need and emotion between these
Speaker 3: two women as the child is becoming a mother, the
Speaker 3: mothers struggle to relinquish her power and their daughter stepping
Speaker 3: into hers is so carefully calibrated. And it's very similar
Speaker 3: towards happening to Kami. Kami's emerging from being the little
Speaker 3: brother and being the employee to being the boss and
Speaker 3: the creator and the visionary and kind of realizing along
Speaker 3: the way that he's none of those things, not capable
Speaker 3: of any of it, you know. So I found it
Speaker 3: very moving. But the episode with Jamie Lee curt Is
Speaker 3: making the Christmas dinner is very hard to watch as well.
Speaker 3: It's rare to see an older actress like Jamie Lee
Speaker 3: Curtis be that ugly as well.
Speaker 1: Yes, she is one of our great criers, and I
Speaker 1: always think about how, like, specifically American productions are filled
Speaker 1: with people crying and they look beautiful and it's just
Speaker 1: like a few tasteful tears, but she is just this heaving,
Speaker 1: snotty mess and it's fabulous. It is.
Speaker 3: Coming up more of my chat with Jordie Gray, and
Speaker 3: now it's been renewed for a season five.
Speaker 1: It has been renewed for a season five, and there
Speaker 1: was like a little teaser as to what direction it
Speaker 1: may take. And I think it's going to focus on
Speaker 1: franchising the original Beef of Chicago Sandwich Store, and that
Speaker 1: might be the thing that gets the bear out of
Speaker 1: financial trouble.
Speaker 3: My heart sank a little bit when I saw it
Speaker 3: would have been renewed for a season five, because I
Speaker 3: really worry. Not many shows can be sustained over more
Speaker 3: than two seasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's so true, and this doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: have a clear ending.
Speaker 3: There's a threat at the end of season four that
Speaker 3: Jeremielle and White's character Calm he might leave if he
Speaker 3: doesn't get a Michelin star.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not sure about your My favorite catch
Speaker 1: I certainly is not Krmi. I'm much more interested in
Speaker 1: those he's surrounded by. So I think if it stops
Speaker 1: being about Kami's ambition, then it could be a more
Speaker 1: thrilling show.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's a new kind of show. Actually it's a
Speaker 3: real ensemble, isn't it. Maybe this is a show where
Speaker 3: actually the star can fade into the background and the
Speaker 3: rest of them can pick it up.
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 1: I think that's what the show has been preparing for.
Speaker 1: Life without Kami, Life without Kami.
Speaker 3: Jordi Gray is the Australian's Entertainment report up. You can
Speaker 3: read her writing every weekend in the Weekend Australian's Review
Speaker 3: section and anytime at the Australian dot com dot auslash Review.
Speaker 3: This episode of the Front was hosted by me Claire
Speaker 3: Harvey and produced by Jasper Leak, who edited the episode
Speaker 3: and also wrote our theme. Thanks for joining us on
Speaker 3: the Front this week. Our team also includes Christian amyot Leat, Sammaglu,
Speaker 3: Tiffany Dimack, Joshua Burton and Stephanie Coombs.