In season 3 of THE BEAR (Disney Plus), Chef Carmy buckles down and runs his new restaurant toward an ever-elusive standard of excellence, only to create a dysfunctional workplace that reflects his internal landscape. I didn’t find it as funny as Season 1 nor as poignant as Season 2, but I’m so committed to the characters that I found myself loving it just the same.

In the first two seasons, Carmy, a highly successful chef, returns home to Chicago to take over a family sandwich shop after his brother dies, only to find it a chaotic mess. In Season 2, he refashions it as The Bear, an upscale restaurant with the same staff, now sharpened and tuned to this new sense of purpose.

Season 3 brings the crashing end of Season 2 in for a soft landing by elegantly tying all the loose ends before showing us the hectic life in The Bear’s kitchen day in and out. Like all good restaurants, I came for the food, and there is food porn galore. Seriously, I could watch a chef spoon boiling juices over a slab of pork for an entire episode. From there, we see all the characters struggle with whatever is holding them back from achieving whatever their standard of excellence is–Carmy sacrificing harmony for perfection, Sidney being in Carmy’s shadow, Richie’s estrangement from his wife and new role as a weekend dad, Sugar’s fear of motherhood because she doesn’t want to end up like her mother, and so on. Two looming events promise a big finish to the season, one an upcoming make-or-break restaurant review, and the other the closing of a beloved high-end restaurant that brings everyone in the culinary community together.

In this season, we get a lot of things I love about THE BEAR–the characters, the slice-of-life feel that relies on dialogue and the excellent cast instead of off-kilter camera work, the vignettes, the focus on working class people, the themes of finding purpose in work and achieving personal excellence, and cameos by great actors and real people from Chicago’s vibrant culinary community. Also some things I don’t like as much, which is the occasional uncertain plot pacing and periodic overreliance on quick camera cuts to push the comic or cute. My biggest peeve with this season is while the previous two seasons told complete stories, Season 3 wraps up a few subplots but otherwise ends on a cliffhanger.

We’ll have to wait until June 2025 to see what happens next. But yeah, I’m totally in. THE BEAR remains one of my favorite shows, and while Season 3 didn’t push it to a higher standard, it didn’t wreck it either, and it remains one of the best shows out there.

In the six-part series ERIC (Netflix), a father faces a parent’s worst nightmare as his son goes missing, and he will have to fight not only a hostile city but his own nature to get the boy back. Immersive world building, deft direction and storytelling, and excellent acting elevate this show from something I might not have watched into one I found riveting.

I am typically not into “missing child” stories. As a parent, I find them depressing and filled with anxiety. My partner suggested it, so we gave it a shot, and sure enough, it’s anxiety-inducing all right. But the gritty production, excellent performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and the rest of the cast, and almost perfect portrayal of the beautiful decay of New York City in the 1980s hooked me almost instantly, and it’s an intense ride. It doesn’t rest on the inherently dramatic premise but reaches for so much more.

Cumberbatch plays Vincent, a mad genius-type puppeteer who co-produces a popular kid’s TV show similar to SESAME STREET, called GOOD DAY SUNSHINE. The show provides children with an idealized New York where people take care of each other. The problem is that outside the show, he is a bit of a toxic basket case, detached and irascible with his wife and son. While fighting with his wife one morning, his nine-year-old son walks to school on his own and disappears in the jungle of New York, producing every parent’s worst nightmare.

From there, the show appears to spill and spin in multiple directions as a virtual ensemble cast of primary and secondary characters are introduced, all of whom will play a part in the unfolding tapestry and contributing to the emerging theme that those in power–whether it’s Dad or the men who police or those who run the city–should do better to break negative cycles, particularly neglect. Honestly, at first, it’s all a bit unwieldy, super ambitious and requiring a major balancing act compressed into six episodes, but it all comes together nicely, mainly by shifting the focus of the show from Vincent and his family to Michael, the detective assigned to the missing persons case. His story is as compelling as Vincent’s and even eclipses it, which keeps the drama rising to the climax that neatly ties all the threads together and pays them off handsomely.

Overall, I enjoyed ERIC quite a bit. Part mystery, part social commentary, part redemption story, it’s a gritty, realistic, and compelling drama I found gripping almost throughout.