‘The Bear’ Is the Coolest, Mos t Stressful Show of the Summer

with Kevin Fallon

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

This week:

A surprisingly great new show to check out.

And a lot of great old shows to check out, too.

Shawn Mendes is coming for that Oscar!

“Break My Soul,” all day, every day.

This week’s best celeb photo.

This New Show Is So Good

Back when I was just Baby Kevin in college, a number of years ago I will never reveal, I worked in a restaurant, an experience that I have never recovered from and likely never will.

There are few places in this world that are scarier, more upsetting, or swathed in dark, cursed vibes than the kitchen of a restaurant. Any time a film or TV show enters a dining room and then kicks open the swinging doors to the kitchen it is immediately triggering.

I can deal with your Saw franchise, your Raw, or your Squid Game. But show a lead character putting on a white chef’s coat and brace for a blood-curdling scream and to be billed for the extra three sessions a week of therapy I’ll need to recover.

You might watch Ratatouille and think, “What a sweet, charming story about the power of food and the culinary arts to bond and inspire.” I see the most harrowing piece of cinema that has ever been produced. Writer-director-actor Jon Favreau has yet to be tried for crimes against humanity for his 2014 dramedy (horror film) Chef, but I will not be deterred in my pursuit of justice.

We are a culture who loves dining. Restaurants, especially as the world opens up again, are a haven for connection—an emotional sanctuary of sorts for one of the most intimate acts we’re privileged enough to partake in: the communal experience of sharing food together. Forgive me, then, for taking those rose-colored glasses and stomping on them in a panicked tantrum until they are nothing but the shards of lies they truly represent.

Behind the scenes, restaurants are a powder keg of stress, ego, and abuse, where the fog of pressure is too dense for concepts like grace or decency to survive. They asphyxiate in the chaos, collateral damage of the mission at hand: Serve the food, no matter the human cost.

It’s likely quite confusing that I will now effusively recommend the new FX television series The Bear, which released all eight episodes of its first season on Hulu this week.

The Bear follows a talented, successful fine-dining chef named Carmen (Shameless star Jeremy Allen White) who returns to his hometown Chicago neighborhood to take over a dingy beef sandwich shop after his brother, who had been running it, dies.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most anxiety-inducing TV series I have ever seen. It nails the mayhem and the din of flaring short tempers that makes what happens at restaurants nothing short of a continuous miracle: something as delicate and crafted as a plate of food manages to come out of all that pandemonium.

What it also captures, however, is the beauty that lies underneath: the drive behind people so overwhelmed by their passion for the field they chose and who are so committed to the skill and the art it requires that they’re willing to submit themselves to that kind of environment.

Each night of service is like doing the tango blindfolded with cement in your shoes—and, of course, with sharp knives everywhere. It should be impossible. So, when the curtain falls and it’s time to bow at the end of the night, the relief in having pulled it off is so addicting you go back for more. That’s mirrored in the experience of watching The Bear, too. The brutality of the kitchen work, while pulse-racing to the point that you feel like you need to look away at times, is so real and so fascinating that you’re addicted to watching it, too.

For the relentless jackhammering of crises in every scene, there’s also something emotionally elegant about The Bear. There’s the passion that Carmen has for his work, even if he’s often his own worst enemy. There’s also the deep-rooted bond between everyone who works in the kitchen, in spite of the fact that they spend eight hours a day cursing each other out and blaming each other for everything that goes wrong.

The Bear is an almost unbearably loud TV show. It starts at a deafening pitch and only escalates from there. But given the subject matter and the environment it’s tackling, it’s in that extreme that it is able to find any real-world subtlety.

As someone who, all these years later, still has stress dreams about having to tell an already-cranky chef that a table is sending an order back and who sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat murmuring, “We need a runner…Behind…Corner…,” it’s surprisingly gratifying to see this portrayed so well in a piece of pop culture.

The Bear is also, as it happens, just a really cool show.

There’s something thrilling about the way it’s tackling this world cinematically. The seventh episode of the season, “Review,” features a “one-take” tracking shot that lasts for nearly 20 minutes, chronicling the crucial moments in the lead-up to the doors opening and the lunch rush coming in. The line cooks are prepping. Everyone seems to arrive with a problem. Screaming matches erupt, are quickly settled, and then are reignited again in a tireless loop. So many things—too many things—are going wrong.

It’s a riveting piece of filmmaking—a rare and rewarding attempt at capturing this environment. So, while my own personal Babadook is the head chef at a seafood restaurant in Southern Maryland where I spent my college summers, there is still something so invigorating and human in a kind-of revelatory way about The Bear. So take a Valium or two and watch.

The Best TV Performances of the Year So Far

It is halfway through the year. On the one hand: What? Really?! How?!! Wow, time flies, my friends. Tempus fugit, amiright? On the other: 2022 has been a slow march of torture; a painful slog progressing at a pace that defies the physics of time.

The middle of summer is a Big Deal in the world of television for its bevy of traditions. People who belong to the “Not Kevin Fallon, Apparently” segment of the population find themselves with more time on their hands. That’s truer than ever now that the most devout among us are following the Gospel of Beyoncé in her new release “Break My Soul” and quitting our jobs. (A fun lyric, serious life advice, or a musical middle finger to Kim Kardashian’s infamous “nobody wants to work” monologue…Who can say?)

Especially at a time when there is so much content being produced, it’s the perfect occasion for critics and entertainment writers to publish their reminders of the best TV shows that have been released in the year so far, in case you’ve missed them and might want to catch up. (Somebody Somewhere! Severance! Better Things…for the love of God, Better Things!)

Because it’s the time of year when Emmy voting happens, it’s also become somewhat of an FYC and awards hub. Organizations like the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics and the Television Critics Association recently announced their nominations, and both are abundant with taste. Great job, critics!

On the off chance that even one Emmy voter reads this piece, here are my desperate pleas for performances to be considered. I don’t want to toot my own horn when it comes to an eye for good TV, but toot-toot, beep-beep you should all listen to me.

A crucial reminder that Molly Shannon could and should have three Emmy nominations this year for I Love That For You, The Other Two, and The White Lotus.

Renée Elise Goldsberry gave the funniest performance on TV this year in Girls5eva. Nicholas Hoult in The Great was a close second.

Kaley Cuoco and Sharon Stone had the best-acted scene of the year in The Flight Attendant.

Say what you want about And Just Like That…, but Sarah Jessica Parker was as brilliant as ever in it.

There will be attention paid, I hope, to bigger names like Patricia Arquette, Adam Scott, Christopher Walken, and John Turturro for Severance. But Britt Lower’s performance was why that show worked as well as it did. Nominate her!

Similarly, what if standouts like Cho Sang-woo and Han Mi-nyeo from Squid Game or Sydney Sweeney from Euphoria joined their predicted cast members?

Don’t forget about Pachinko! Or The Good Fight! Or Evil! Or Search Party! Or PEN15!

The final season of Insecure is eligible for these Emmys. Give it its due and, most important, give that Best Supporting Actress nomination to Natasha Rothwell, dammit!

If the entire main cast of Abbott Elementary isn’t nominated, we ride at dawn.

The second battalion is dispatched if Station Eleven and Mackenzie Davis are ignored, too.

Repeat after me: Kristin Chenoweth, Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series nominee for Schmigadoon!

Lily James was legitimately brilliant as Pamela Anderson in Pam & Tommy.

Midnight Mass may be the series I’ve thought about most this year, especially Zach Gilford’s performance. Give Matt Saracen his flowers!

The acting in Maid from Margaret Qualley and Andie MacDowell was stunning, but don’t forget about Anika Noni Rose’s pitch-perfect supporting turn, too.

If we can get Bridgett Everett and Jeff Hiller their nominations for Somebody Somewhere, I will make out with all of you.

It’s Called Art, Sweetie

They say that Hollywood’s overreliance on mining existing intellectual property, brands, and franchises is destroying cinema and art as we know it. They say that our taste level is being neutered by the endless feedback loop of cynical, meaningless content. They say that Hollywood is where original ideas go to die.

I say to all of them: Have you even seen the trailer for Lyle, Lyle Crocodile?

No two-minute teaser for an upcoming feature film has thrilled me to the extent that this trailer does for a movie in which Shawn Mendes is a singing crocodile with a heart of gold who is discovered in the bathtub of a new home that Constance Wu and her family moves into.

This film, based on a children’s book, is promising hijinks. There will be madcap humor, folks! To create Lyle, it is serving up the most sophisticated visual effects of the year 1999. We are getting Javier Bardem in a bowler hat and wily lil’ mustache giving energy that can only be described as “just did some hits of poppers and then did some acting in this family film.” It is titillating us with the promise of a large-scale international press tour in which Shawn Mendes has to answer serious questions about his journey from pop star to cinematic crocodile.

Lyle, Lyle Crocodile hits theaters this October. Event of the season. Of the year. Of our lifetime.

I Am Only Living For “Break My Soul” Memes

In mere hours, I will be living the life that God intended: Long past losing count of how many vodka sodas I ordered while on the dance floor of a Pride party struggling to lift my feet off the sticky drink-stained floor to do my trademark shuffle-step signature (tragic) dance move while mouthing along to Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” as if I’ve actually learned a single lyric to it beyond the words “break my soul.”

Until then, I have been living for all the memes of the song playing over iconic, equally tragic dance sequences from pop culture’s past. Charlotte, Carrie, and Miranda at a Staten Island bar in Sex and the City. Hilary Duff performing on the Today show. Lindsay Lohan in Mykonos. Goldie Hawn in her living room. The Real Housewives of New York in a fever dream.

I’m the world’s easiest target. I laughed hysterically at each and every one of these memes. It’s the same joke each time. Doesn’t matter. I lost it with each one.

I Would Like for You to Enjoy This Photo of Anne Hathaway

I can’t exactly explain it, but this photo of Anne Hathaway swinging from a rope in an Interview magazine photo shoot is the most important image of the year.

Chloe: A great, disturbing new series and a public service: It will make you want to quit social media. (Fri. on Amazon)

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: If you have about seven hours of free time this weekend, that might be enough for me to finish telling you how much I loved this movie. (Fri. in theaters)

Only Murders in the Building: The iconic comedy trio of Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez (?) return! (Tues. on Hulu)

Westworld: We should stop encouraging this show! (Sun. on HBO)

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