Gather round, chefs. Hulu’s The Bear, one of Esquire’s Top 10 shows of 2022, has enjoyed its season of trophy collecting. (See: a Golden Globe win for star Jeremy Allen White.) Now, the cooks over at FX are hard at work on Season Two, after the announcement that the series will return with 10 new episodes early this summer. But that doesn’t mean all is well on the line.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, White admitted that he has some nerves about filming the new season. “This is all really exciting, but I am a little bit nervous about going back to shoot the second season because so many understandings of this work we did are now being pushed on us,” he said. “If you read too many reviews, this thing that was once ours has had so many ideas put on it. I’m hopeful we can shut the world out a little bit.” We have faith in you, Jeremy.
The Bear‘s creators have also been teasing the show’s future. The Bear‘s co-showrunners, Joanna Calo and Christopher Storer, recently spoke to Variety about the future of the series—hinting at more growing pains for our favorite culinary artists. “Nobody’s fixed and everyone’s a work in progress,” Storer told the outlet. “Every second counts.” According to Variety, Calo revealed that Season Two “will home in on hospitality, taking care of others and making the cast’s lives a bit bigger,” and that “Carmy will still be reeling from his brother’s death and his own demons.” TBD what’s on the menu for the next go-round.
Well, where did we leave everyone in the Season One finale? Carm is freshly armed with a whole lot of cash left behind for him by his brother. So Season Two will likely see him, along with his motley crew of talented staff, revive the restaurant with a new focus. “In terms of the restaurant changing, it’s not that they’re going to lose all the charm of the restaurant,” the show’s creator Christopher Storer told Esquire about the coming season. “We’re going to deal with this in Season Two. It’s more like: How can we do this and maybe make some money? And maybe make it easier? And maybe—maybe—start from a place that’s not fucked? Instead of beating a dead horse and making this fuckin’ food that no one even wants to make, I see the promise in my sort of found family in the kitchen. Can we use that to build something freshly, now that we’ve all found each other in this stupid-ass system where things make no sense and people are putting veal stock on the top fuckin’ shelf of the walk-in?”
What else might we see in Season Two? Carmy finding love, of course. When asked about the possibility of the notoriously introverted dude going out with Syd, White told W Magazine, “This is my first time, just in recent weeks, even thinking about anything going on with anybody,” White said. “I hope for Sydney’s sake that’s not going to be explored in later seasons. I just love their relationship [as it is]: the amount of respect they have for one another, and that they have a shared history, even if it’s not together. They’ve been through similar traumas and they really see one another. To add romance or sexuality would monkey up what I enjoy about their relationship.”
There you go, hungry patrons of Esquire. We’re only months away to the Season Two premiere. Until then, we’ll be ordering Italian Beef Sandwiches in Carm’s honor.
Assistant Content Strategy Editor
Lauren Kranc is the assistant content strategy editor at Esquire, where she runs the brand’s social media accounts and covers pop culture and television, with entirely too narrow an expertise on true crime shows