Author: Monster
On June 23, 2022, a drama "Bear" that has hardly been announced quietly launched on Hulu, and there is not even a Chinese translation on Douban, and the only thing to watch is that the male protagonist of the show is Lip from "Shameless".
With the broadcast of the series, the super high reputation abroad finally made this seemingly ordinary drama popular in China, and some translators began to translate this drama that was ignored by major subtitle groups.
It finally has its own Chinese translation - "Bear Family Restaurant".
("Bear Restaurant" Season 1)
In the awards season, "Bear Family Restaurant" won the 80th Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy, the 80th Golden Globe Awards for Best Comedy Drama Nomination, the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Group Drama Nomination, etc., becoming a big dark horse last year.
Now, the second season of "Bear's Restaurant" returns on June 22, and the viewing time on Hulu in the opening weekend has skyrocketed by 70% compared to the first weekend of the first season, and set the record for the highest premiere of any FX series on Hulu Streaming.
An unpleasant and not yellow drama, why is it so good?
"Bear Family Restaurant"
THE BEAR
The male protagonist Carmen (played by Jeremy Allen White) once worked in a three-star Michelin hotel and won the selection of excellent chefs by food magazines at a young age.
Beneath the seemingly glossy surface is the high-pressure working environment brought about by the strict hierarchy of high-class kitchens.
The bad news of his brother's death became the last straw that broke the camel's back, and Carmen quit his job at a high-end hotel to take over the street restaurant that his brother had left behind.
From fancy hotels to street shops, from order to chaos, from feast to snack, Carmen is determined to change the place in the face of unorganized and undisciplined kitchens, freewheeling chefs and a mess of restaurants that are about to close.
But everyone in the restaurant does not recognize this "great chef" from the top of the high-end restaurant.
Especially his cousin Richard (played by Abon Moss-Bakrahe), born out of "Shameless", has the same sloppy, chaotic, unreliable, rebellious authority, and arbitrary shameless background.
Soon, due to Carmen's fame, the Xiong's restaurant welcomes another new character: Sydney (Ayu Edvilli).
The emergence of Sydney gave this chaotic restaurant scene the opportunity to reconstruct order.
With her initiative, after finishing her job, she also found time to complete a series of plans and designs for the restaurant's renovation.
But too proactive attitude has also caused dissatisfaction among the old employees of the restaurant, they do not want to change the status quo, and more importantly, how can a restaurant that is so poor that it cannot even pay employees' salaries still have money to renovate.
At the end of the first season of "Bear Restaurant", Carmen accidentally found the huge amount of money left by his brother in the canned tomato, and the two idealists finally had the ability to change the status quo and show their talents.
How to transform a restaurant? How are funds allocated? How to enhance the dish? How to develop employees? How to get the word out? How to open quickly?
The chaos of the Xiong's restaurant has a charm that attracts us to involuntarily immerse ourselves in it, and with the above questions and concerns, we find the answers in the second season.
Having said all this, isn't it a broken story of a restaurant, what is so good about this drama?
First of all, its chaos and disorder are almost the same as "Shameless", the same Chicago, the same East Coast story, the same racial problems, drug dealing, gang fighting, and a social foundation full of riot genes.
And Jeremy Allen White continues his down-and-out character in "Shameless", Carmen is the same anxious, irritable, and lacks a sense of responsibility, but also the same intelligence, values family affection, tries to take responsibility, repairs unsatisfactory lives, they are all unstable and dangerous people.
Therefore, we can say without exaggeration that this is an unofficial biography of "Shameless".
And who wouldn't love Shameless?
Secondly, every character in "Bear Family Restaurant" has a vivid personality and can be called a model representative of excellent group dramas.
Carmen, Richard, Sydney, Marcus, Tina, everyone has their own difficulties, but everyone has their own perseverance and resistance.
In particular, the character of Sydney is easily reminiscent of Shruti from the same episode "Pain is Inevitable".
To some extent, they all appear as the redemption of the male protagonist, the same ability, the same persistence, the same sacrificial spirit, and the same leading the male protagonist to usher in a new life.
Tina's (Lisa Koren-Zayas) transformation is also very surprising and moving, from the cranky aunt who looked down on Sydney in the first season to hugging Sydney who was willing to give her a chance in the second season.
During the renovation of Xiong's restaurant, Tina's contented and unruly spirit finally subsided.
She was even willing to admit her shortcomings and agreed to go to a training school for further study, as if she had become a little girl who had just entered the kitchen to study, shining with the growth arc of the character.
Finally, "Bear Family Restaurant" as a drama highly related to food, there must be a variety of tempting food in the show.
From Sydney researching secret beef in the first season to going out to learn how to cook pastries in the second season, we can feel the temptation of food in the series.
The so-called "people only eat the sky", who can refuse a gourmet fan?
Does not rely on the luxury cast platform, does not rely on the scale to get out, does not take the brainless cool drama route, such a "plain to the extreme" work with real and delicate emotions to gain a super high reputation.
Narrow space, chaotic rhythm, dense lines, under the high pressure that cannot be breathed, "Bear Family Restaurant" brings us the purest sense of street roughness.
How to seek order in the midst of chaos, "Shameless" shows how "white trash" survives, and "Bear Restaurant" tells us: "Nothing is impossible to get by." ”