The trailer for the second season of FX’s The Bear just dropped, meaning it’s time for anyone who hasn’t caught last year’s critical darling to catch up. Jeremy Allen White won a Critic’s Choice, Golden Globe, and SAG award for Best Actor (and will most likely win the Emmy once those happen later this year). It’s stressful, heartbreaking, hilarious, and probably the best show to come out last year. Bringing us to the trailer for season 2 with all ten episodes available on Hulu as of June 22nd.
As a random aside, I really love a well-crafted trailer. It needs to walk the fine line between actually letting us know what the next season/episode is about (Mad Men and your comically inscrutable teasers, I’m looking in your general direction) and not giving everything away. You know how sometimes you can watch a trailer and realize you’ve now seen every funny line from the movie? Yeah. This is not that. So what does it tell us?
Things we know:
- Carmy and team are continuing with reimaging the former Beef into a fine dining, destination restaurant
- Despite the influx of money from last season, they still need more
- The restaurant staff are all still present, and attending culinary school
Things we learned:
- OH MY GOD, CARMY HAS A LOVE INTEREST
I might not have made it clear yet, but I love Jeremy Allen White. More specifically, and in order to not engage in parasocial relationships because I’m trying to be less of a weirdo, I love the characters Jeremy Allen White plays. (He was Lip Gallagher on Shameless and therefore will remain the love of my life forever, but again, trying to be less weird.) Lip Gallagher’s relationship, for the most part, worked out less than good for him. So I really want this to work.
What exactly do we know about the mystery woman then?
Aside from calling him Berzatto (meaning she doesn’t call him Bear like his sister does but also doesn’t call him Carmy like his cousin does, further meaning she was never close with his family, but like definitely these two fucked right? Like this is how he looks at her?
And a man doesn’t look at someone like that when they haven’t been naked together), she knows the name of the restaurant Carmy and his (dead) brother Mikey wanted to open. The one Carmy talked about in the Al-Anon scene from season one that won White all his awards. They had a name, a vibe, all of it. Not only did he tell her the name, she remembers it and still loves it. God, this is going to wreck me.
The woman who is about to wreck me, by the way, is Molly Gordon.
I’ll fully admit I didn’t recognize her on the name alone, but she did have a memorable role in Booksmart. Specifically:
Live your truth, girl.
So Carmy’s getting a new (old) love interest who according to the IMDB page, will be in all ten episodes. While you’re on that IMDB page, you might want to scroll all the way to the bottom because
HOLY SHIT, SAUL’S HERE TOO. Which is amazing! Bob Odenkirk is great, and I imagine whatever (as of now still unnamed) role he’s in will be great. It’s just a little odd, right? Like with Oliver Platt as Uncle Jimmy, they’ve sort of got the “prestige actor in a minor role to secure legitimacy” part down? And why would Odenkirk opt to do one episode of a hit drama (it is not a comedy) when he’s just so recently finished his own? Is it, possibly, because Odenkirk and White got to know each other on the set of Movie 43? Oh, yeah, that’s right. Not only did the current best actor on TV star in Movie 43 (a movie so bad I will not watch it despite White’s presence) but goddamn Jimmy McGill helped write it.
This is a lot to process. I’m going to need a couple of sandwiches.
