That despite its recent uptick in quality, the A.V. Club still hasn’t hired any copy editors.

This season, while enjoyable, was a step down from the previous two because its clear they were stalling to pad the episode count. There’s story content for one season here but they’ve stretched it out over season 3 and the upcoming season 4. I’m sure it was worth it financially, but creatively, it caused some issues.

I generally enjoyed this season, though definitely not nearly as much as the first two. However... that scene of everyone standing around gazing longingly at the “Every Second Counts” sign, each nodding their heads wistfully.

Haven’t seen much of that, but I tend to reflexively tune “shippers” out, because they generally range from annoying to flat-out insane.

So a small nitpick. Why did Chef Terry go party with people she barely knew after her legendary restaurant closed? Hell even Carmy was not there and that was her connection to that group. Richie was there for barely a week and he made that much of an impression with her?

i’ve seen way more people complaining about the complaint than making the initial point.

But this episode felt like a lot of naval gazing over famous chefs.

I’ve spoken to dozens of people about this show the past three years, frequented The Bear subreddit and listened to more recap/discussion podcasts than I care to admit and I’ve never heard or seen this brought up a single time.

I agree with everything you said. I actually liked to loved every episode but felt unfulfilled by the season as a whole. It felt like getting into a really nice car for four hours without ever leaving your driveway. A lovely experience but it went nowhere.

I've literally never seen that complaint, so I do wonder where you hang out and with whom...

I’m a huge restaurant nerd. When I lived in Manhattan, a Michelin star restaurant was basically my Cheers, and I was friends with the whole staff because I was there several times a week.

I think a better question is why isn’t there a life-sized carboard cutout of Paul Rudd in other places.

Character development doesn’t have to have direct forward momentum. It also doesn’t always necessitate a dramatic personality change; that’s a high school English class definition of character development.

Napkins was a standout episode for me. I just have a thing for episodic narratives that take abrupt detours to delve deeply into a minor character. Another great example is the episode of Serial S1 that focuses entirely on the DA in the case, which is either my favorite or second favorite after the episode on cell…

Cosign on The Insider. Always appreciate the opportunity to post one of my favorite movie scenes. Get ‘em, D-Day!

Another poster said they heard on a podcast that the showrunner only wanted to do season 3, but Hulu made them do two seasons instead, and they stretched the plot that was supposed to be only one season over two. If true, that makes a whole lotta sense. 

Exactly - the choice between “old man who’s not all there” and “proudly evil old man who’s not all there” should really be an easy one.

Yup. Even once he won, my feeling was, “Okay, relax, that was all campaign talk. He’s not actually dangerous and even if he is, that’s what the other branches of government are for.”

Additionally, I never had the feeling in 2016 that if Trump lost his supporters would try a fucking armed coup.

Possibly unpopular take?: It doesn’t feel like 2016 again, because IIRC there was a general sense then that of course Trump wouldn’t actually win and even he seemed surprised that he did.