This summer’s breakout TV hit is, without question, The Bear. The FX series, starring Jeremy Allen White alongside a stellar cast of restaurant world personalities has been hailed as an authentic portrayal of the chaotic world of running a restaurant, and now it’s coming back for a second season. (Warning: Season 1 spoilers within.)
FX announced on Thursday that it had ordered a second season of the show, which currently boasts a 100 percent Certified Fresh rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes, according to a release from the network. White will return as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, a young-yet-grizzled chef who left the world of fine dining to run his family’s failing sandwich shop after the death of his brother — and launched a million (mostly) horny memes centered around what I call “line cook lust.”
“I haven’t watched The Bear yet but I’m thrilled that people who’ve never worked in a restaurant are being introduced to an exclusive strain of Sexually Competent Dirtbag that only exists in a restaurant kitchen,” reads one viral tweet from Sarah York.
White, who got his big television break playing Philip “Lip” Gallagher on the rowdy Showtime series Shameless, has become a stand-in for all the hot line cooks, sous chefs, and other restaurant workers who, perhaps despite their inability to live a fully emotionally stable life, remain hopelessly attractive to anyone who’s ever spent any time in a restaurant kitchen. If you’ve never crushed on a hot-yet-emotionally-unavailable line cook, did you really even work in a restaurant?
This is also welcome news for fans who thought that The Bear’s eight episodes just weren’t enough to unravel all of the mysteries behind how Carmy managed to save his late brother’s restaurant, the Original Beef of Chicagoland, thanks to a mysterious cache of money-filled cans. Viewers, including many deeply confused Eater staffers, have tons of questions about those cans, chiefly: How did the money get in the cans? Does the Beef have a professional can sealer?
Fortunately, we’ll all be able to find out sooner rather than later. No word yet on when exactly The Bear will make its comeback, but expect season two to arrive sometime in 2023.
