0:00

We're down six sausage pepper, five greeks and

0:02

a ravioli. Let's go! We are down that because

0:04

you are not firing.

0:05

Chef, chill! Are you out of your mind? I'm

0:07

not out of my mind, Dave. You

0:10

are! I'm waiting on those peppers, chef. You need to put

0:12

in the chips. These guys gotta pick up their orders

0:14

now. I need chips. What

0:17

chips? I need chips! Listen to

0:19

the words coming out of my f***ing mouth! Chef! Lower

0:21

your voice, please. Thank you. So

0:23

sorry guys. Thank you for your patience. Oh

0:26

man, it's a now stressed

0:28

Ben Bailey Smith here. And Sasha Bates.

0:31

And Sasha is like my

0:33

cousin. She's not exactly my cousin. But

0:36

we run a little podcasting joint.

0:38

You should come check it out. We handpick

0:41

our own artisanal, favourite

0:43

fictional TV characters and we cook up

0:46

a many layered organic dish of reasons

0:48

why they behave the way they do. Alright?

0:50

And you might even get to take away a little doggy bag of life lessons. How

0:53

about that? Have a little human condition with some spice

0:55

on the side. Sasha, tell us about the clip at

0:58

the top.

0:58

Oh gosh, yes. The chef's at the original

1:01

Beef of Chicagoland. The

1:03

family run beef sandwich

1:05

shop where the bear is set. That

1:08

was one of the very many

1:10

high stress points in the series.

1:13

Yeah, I mean, like you, I feel so stressed by

1:15

that. I mean, everything's disintegrating.

1:18

They're very, very dysfunctional.

1:19

Yeah, and you get

1:21

a sort of sense of history

1:24

about it before you even get

1:26

any backstory, right? It feels

1:28

like a place that's

1:30

been around for a while, has had its

1:32

troubles, has maybe been a little neglected

1:34

at times. Do you know what I mean? Especially,

1:37

you know, just the look of it. It looks like

1:39

from a different era. Sort of down at heel. Yeah.

1:41

Yeah. But sort of well

1:44

loved as well. I mean, they have queues, don't they? People

1:47

host the regulars. The image of

1:49

it, the look of it, there's a richness to

1:51

the location that we're in pretty much 90% of

1:54

the time.

1:55

And it's lovely that there's a richness

1:58

of character. obviously

2:00

a richness of food because we're dealing with...

2:03

And of language. Yeah, and absolutely

2:05

rich, saucy language as well. Short

2:08

episodes gripped me from the start.

2:09

I found it all a bit too

2:11

much to start with. As

2:13

I tuned in to that kind of heightened

2:16

tension, gradually the characters almost

2:18

started to emerge out of the chaos

2:21

and I did come to love them, almost

2:23

as they sort of came to love and understand

2:25

each other, but it did take a while.

2:27

Yeah, I can see that now. Maybe

2:30

I approached it with that

2:32

steam train speed head on.

2:35

I was ready for what was coming my way.

2:38

Chaos is kind of a trope

2:40

of this show, isn't it? So it's like... It's

2:42

baked in. Yeah, so if that's just slapped

2:45

you in the face and you're not ready for it, I can see that. All

2:47

right, so

2:48

what we're hoping is that you are

2:51

hungry, you've got your appetite wetted

2:54

because on the menu today we've got more than

2:56

a couple of Michelin stars. Brigade systems,

2:58

we'll get an explanation on that. I don't

3:00

even think I can remember it. And an emotionally

3:02

charged spaghetti recipe that will

3:05

literally have you weeping into your dinner. Sorry

3:07

about that. Please expect a bunch

3:10

of spoilers and the odd bit cursing

3:12

because it's the bear and it's us. So

3:14

yes, chefs, welcome

3:16

to Shring the Box.

3:22

Okay, recap time for any

3:25

of those who haven't watched the Bay, or can

3:27

only remember mere more sauce. Here's

3:29

a tasty little recap. We've got Kami, who's

3:31

played by Jeremy Allen White. He's a young

3:33

chef from the... These come from the fine dining

3:36

world. And he comes home to Chicago

3:39

after a heartbreaking death in

3:41

his family. And the spot's

3:43

called the original Beef for Chicagoland, as

3:46

Sasha mentioned. It's a family owned sandwich shop

3:48

run by his brother and kind of cousin,

3:51

sort of family affiliate Richie.

3:53

And it's now in Kami's hands.

3:55

And it's a world away from what he's used to. And

3:58

now he's suddenly got to balance this.

3:59

the soul-crushing realities

4:02

of small business ownership, and

4:04

then his strong-willed and rebellious staff, and

4:07

his strained, familiar

4:09

relationships. And he's got to do all of this while grappling

4:11

with the impact

4:13

of this death in the family, which was his

4:15

brother's tragic suicide. And then the

4:17

show follows Kami's fight,

4:20

almost from his POV at times, to transform

4:23

both the shop and also himself.

4:26

Sash, give us a rundown of the

4:28

sweaty young man at the center of this, he's

4:31

sort of at the eye of the storm, isn't he? Our

4:33

head chef,

4:35

Kami. Poor Kami, I mean, he's really

4:37

back-cling on all fronts. And I think

4:40

the thing that you notice about him first,

4:43

beyond the stress, is that he clearly

4:45

worshiped his older brother, Mikey, and

4:48

he was really hurt and confused when he was

4:50

pushed away by him. We learn later that Mikey

4:52

actually stopped him working in the sandwich shop,

4:54

which is what kind of fueled his ambition

4:57

to go off and learn how to do the whole boat cuisine

4:59

instead. And he poured himself into his

5:01

work, I think, to run away from that hurt. And

5:04

now, again, it's like he's pouring

5:05

himself into the work to run away from the hurt of

5:08

Mikey's death. What we see initially

5:10

is a sort of obsessive workaholic. He's

5:13

trying to change the sandwich shop into

5:15

a slightly more functional place, but

5:18

he's also trying to make himself a bit more functional

5:20

as well, I think.

5:20

How do you think the environment

5:23

that he finds himself in affect his

5:25

psyche? Because I

5:27

feel like his behavior around people is

5:29

really often unacceptable and sort of justified

5:33

by the stress of the job, do

5:35

you know what I mean? It feels like it's been normalized. It

5:37

feels like everybody just accepts

5:39

that that's how kitchens work. As

5:41

you say, whether it's the sandwich shop or fine dining,

5:43

it seems like this kind of horrible culture

5:46

of speed and abuse

5:48

and bullying and conflict is

5:50

baked in. When we meet him,

5:53

he's just in this sort of state of bemusement.

5:55

It's like he's scrabbling to keep the business

5:57

afloat. He's scrabbling to keep his own head above water. The

6:00

whole series starts with him having

6:02

a dream about a bear

6:05

being locked in a cage and

6:07

it feels like the whole stressy

6:10

environment is him working to

6:13

keep the bear at bay, trying to keep the

6:15

bear, which I think represents his grief and his vulnerability

6:18

locked away in a cage. And we're

6:20

thrown straight into the middle of that chaos with

6:22

him. Like you said, we barely leave the kitchen

6:25

really. Sometimes people even sleep there. So

6:27

it is this just heightened,

6:29

hot, horrible environment. And I think

6:32

working is his way of not having

6:34

to look at anything more emotional.

6:36

What kind of responsibility do you think

6:39

Kami feels? Because he

6:41

seems so focused on

6:43

one thing that he's ignoring everything

6:45

else. He can be quite passive.

6:48

It's almost like he doesn't want to impose

6:51

his personality. At one point, much, much later

6:54

in the series, he says, I let the food

6:56

do the speaking for me. He says that he didn't really

6:58

have friends. He was shy as a child.

7:00

He stuttered and he didn't have girlfriends.

7:03

And Mikey, the brother that died, was

7:05

very much his kind of hero.

7:07

And he kind of took

7:09

the lead. And I think Kami's feeling a little bit

7:12

lost without him. He's having

7:14

to step up and be the boss and he can't

7:16

be as passive as he has been. And I think that's

7:19

why Richie, Mikey's

7:21

best friend, kind of fills

7:23

that void a little bit. Kami is so used

7:25

to being bullied in his old job. And

7:28

by, I think, having an older brother that

7:30

took the lead, that he kind of lets

7:32

Richie take that role. And it

7:34

leads to so much conflict because

7:37

Kami's nominally the boss. He's trying to

7:39

impose order. And Richie just

7:41

kind of sweeps that out the

7:43

way. He humiliates him, he mocks

7:46

him, he laughs at all his attempts to change.

7:48

He calls him a fucking baby. Every

7:50

time Kami says, can we do it this way, please? Richie's

7:52

like, ah, fuck that. Just do it our way. Stop

7:54

trying to mess with our systems. I think

7:56

Kami consciously wants He

8:01

quite likes the big brother energy that Richie brings to him, because

8:03

it's almost like a way of keeping Mikey alive,

8:06

that sense of, yeah, I am the baby in the family.

8:09

I'm used to being told what to do. There's

8:11

a tension not just between the two of them, but I think

8:14

within Kami himself. Have

8:16

I got the balls really to step up and say, no,

8:18

fuck it, it's my restaurant. Mikey left

8:21

it to me, do as I say. And

8:23

I think the whole series is that fight, externalized

8:26

in the fight with Richie, but actually internalized as well. That's

8:29

how I read it. Richie's sort of playing

8:32

a role as well, because he is representing, like you say,

8:36

he's older brother, so he's representing old

8:39

Italian family and ways. Yeah.

8:42

And he's not

8:43

old or Italian or family. Yeah. So

8:46

speaking of confrontations, there's a flashback

8:49

to Kami's old workplace,

8:52

which is this Michelin-starred

8:54

French-style restaurant in New York. And

8:56

there's a particularly abusive head

8:58

chef. So this is kind of some little origin stories

9:01

from what you were talking about. Check this out. Still

9:04

not there again, chef. Yes, chef. Thank you, chef.

9:07

Wait on 31, chefs.

9:09

Hey! Why?

9:14

Chef, I'm sorry, it got too hot. Why? It didn't

9:16

cool down. Why? It was my fault.

9:19

Go. Fine. Fire 19,

9:21

chefs. Really? Hold

9:23

on 17, chefs. Hey! Why

9:26

do you hire fucking idiots? Do you like working with fucking idiots? I'll

9:29

do better. Say yes, chef. Yes, chef. Can

9:32

you not handle this? Is it too much for you? Answer

9:34

me. I can handle it. I can handle

9:36

it,

9:36

chef. 12, 10, 36. Fire 8, 13, 36. Don't

9:39

fuck with my town. Sorry, chef. 8, 15, 14.

9:42

13, 29, chef.

9:42

Why are you serving broken sauces? Why? I

9:45

get it. You have a short man's complex. Is

9:48

this why you have the tattoos and your cool little scars and

9:50

you go out and you take your smoke breaks? It's fun, isn't it?

9:53

Here's the thing. You're terrible at this. You're

9:55

no good at it. Go faster, motherfucker. Keep

9:57

going faster. Why are you so slow? Why are you

9:59

so fucking... Why? You think

10:01

you're so tough. Yeah. Why don't you

10:03

say this? Say yes, chef. I'm so tough.

10:05

Say fucking yes, chef. I'm

10:08

so tough. Yes, chef. I'm so tough. You are not

10:10

tough. You are bullshit. You are talentless.

10:12

Say fucking hands.

10:13

Hands! You

10:15

should be dead.

10:18

Bro, listen here. I

10:21

feel quite sick listening to it.

10:23

It is a barge. Oh, mate, that is...

10:24

I mean, what I think is interesting about this

10:27

whole kitchen environment is it's almost like

10:29

it personifies the state of the nervous

10:31

system because we now know how

10:33

sort of indivisible minds and bodies are. And

10:36

if we're really in a state of tension and if

10:38

our nervous systems are ramped up into that

10:40

kind of survival fight flight mode,

10:43

our brains can't think clearly. And none of them

10:45

are thinking clearly, but it all adds to this sort

10:47

of this muddle and this sort of aggression

10:50

and this rage. We talk

10:52

a lot about the influence of family and how

10:54

that makes us who

10:54

we are. But we've also got our work

10:57

family. A lot of people, especially

10:59

chefs like this, they spend more time with their

11:01

work family than they do with their actual family. And

11:03

that all adds to who we are. And

11:05

I think we live in a society represented by

11:08

this kitchen that values and rewards

11:10

speed and overwork. And

11:13

it's almost like, oh, you're a success

11:15

if you never sleep. You're a success if you sleep

11:17

underneath your counter and get up and make

11:19

donuts at 4am because you're trying to get it right.

11:22

And it's so unhealthy. But we can see

11:24

the amount of layers that we're fighting against

11:27

to kind of combat our own internal,

11:30

you know, my old brother's dead and I'm trying to

11:32

kind of cope with that and my dynamic

11:34

with him. Plus this work environment

11:36

where bullying and abuse is just normalized.

11:39

Plus the society that's saying, yeah, if you want to be a success,

11:41

of course you're going to work 12 hour days or 18 hour

11:43

days. It's awful.

11:44

Even him being in control of this kitchen,

11:47

he's not really in control.

11:49

No, it doesn't feel like it. It feels like that's

11:52

what he's battling towards, but

11:54

he never quite gets there. But again,

11:56

control is a way of controlling his emotions.

11:59

Again, we looked at

11:59

this in several other episodes

12:02

where grief has been a running

12:05

theme, how people trying to

12:07

outrun their grief because it's too

12:09

much, they don't want to face it. This show

12:11

is a series of things going wrong.

12:15

Toilets explode, fuses explode

12:18

as well. Buttons get stabbed. Buttons

12:20

get stabbed. There's knives

12:22

and somebody's going to get a finger chopped off and there's

12:25

like boiling oil and there's things to

12:27

slip on on the floor. It feels

12:29

like

12:29

constantly waiting for somebody to hurt themselves.

12:33

And when you hear the clips, the music's

12:35

actually like it's from a horror film. It

12:37

is. It's super sinister. Yeah. Let's

12:40

see if there's any more of that under this next clip as

12:42

Kami is trying his best to take

12:44

control of this insane environment

12:46

that Sasha's just detailed.

12:48

Okay, look, I'm not trying to be an asshole and

12:50

change your guys' system, okay? I

12:53

don't want to fuck it up. I don't want to meddle with

12:55

it or whatever the fuck, all

12:57

right? I want to

12:59

harness it, okay?

13:01

Seriously, I want to organize it. All

13:04

right, we can't keep operating like this. We got

13:06

a C. Guys,

13:09

a C stands for chaos. That can't

13:12

happen again. And

13:15

that's why we are going to start operating

13:17

like a French kitchen. That means there's

13:19

going to be a chain of command. Okay,

13:22

this was developed by a Skofie and I think...

13:24

Oh, a Skofie game? Skofie?

13:26

Love that, dude. What's up?

13:28

I don't know what's

13:30

going on. We're implementing a French brigade. Mm,

13:34

got it. Cool. Yeah.

13:37

Eh, fuck that. That was bullshit.

13:42

Okay. Kami, no, no, no,

13:44

no. I was in a brigade once.

13:47

What happened? Many people

13:49

died. See, Joe? Okay,

13:51

this is... it's going to be different. All right, look, this is...

13:55

this is what real kitchens do. Guys, this

13:57

is what real teams do,

13:59

okay?

13:59

Everybody takes care of their own station. They keep their own side

14:02

of the street clean. Yeah.

14:06

It's almost like there's a really sweary video

14:09

game in the background. Yeah, they've got those- Is

14:11

it a video game? Yeah, they've got a whole load of

14:13

video games lined up behind that seem to be constantly

14:16

making this horrible bibbing noise. And

14:19

like you said, there's a phone that keeps ringing

14:21

and there's the like, whatever it's called, the ticker tape

14:23

thing that's throwing out the orders. There's

14:25

like constant noise. Soundscape. Oh

14:28

yeah, soundscape. Oh my God. Yeah,

14:30

but you can hear there as well, Richie again undermining

14:33

Kami's attempts to try

14:36

and find a path through. And

14:38

he humiliates him. I mean, the number of times

14:40

he calls him a fucking

14:42

baby. There's no teamwork. This is

14:44

an attempt to make them work as a team. But at the moment,

14:46

they're each an individual pulling

14:48

in a different direction. And they

14:50

do, they need to work as a brigade or as

14:53

a team. I mean, that's why I think this is such a great

14:55

series. This isn't just about working in a kitchen. It's

14:58

about how we navigate grief. It's about

15:00

how we navigate life.

15:01

Which makes me think Richie

15:04

scoffing at it has deeper meaning for

15:06

him, for Richie. Because if you work

15:08

together, if you don't isolate yourself, if

15:10

you're part of a team, then people might fuck

15:13

around and start talking about feelings. Yeah, exactly.

15:15

I don't think Richie is ready for that.

15:17

The irony of the baby thing of course, is that Richie

15:19

is really immature. Exactly.

15:22

Even with the homophobic slur there, it's

15:24

just like so childish. But that is

15:26

Richie. And then he's constantly calling

15:29

this little brother who's not his little brother or cousin,

15:31

a baby. A man

15:33

who's achieved way more than

15:36

Richie has. Yeah, I mean- In less time.

15:38

We see that he got awards as Best New

15:40

Chef or something. And Richie

15:42

just scoffs at all of it because I

15:44

think he can't bear the fact

15:47

that Kami inherited the

15:50

West John and he didn't. The rivalry

15:52

and the jealousy over who

15:55

did Mikey love best. I think that underpins

15:57

so much of that aggression and why he

15:59

has to- keep calm me down because it's

16:02

like calm me got the restaurant and I didn't and what

16:04

does that say about our relationship, Mikey

16:06

and my relationship?

16:07

Yeah. All right. Well, let's

16:09

take a little break. And when we come

16:11

back, we'll be looking at a

16:13

Xanax-fueled kids party, a

16:15

pyromaniac's fantasy and an exploding

16:18

toilet. Back after the answer unless you're a subscriber

16:20

to The Take, in which case we'll see you soon and then

16:23

I can cork up a hole in the wall. Bloody

16:25

rodents.

16:44

All right. We've just stepped back in from the

16:47

damp squalid alleyway through the back

16:49

door and we're back

16:51

in the kitchen. So, Calmy

16:53

is in the throes of grief,

16:56

your specialist subject, Sesh,

16:58

and tell us a bit more.

16:59

When I first started watching this series,

17:01

along with all the stress and the tension,

17:04

I felt like I'd missed an earlier series.

17:07

It felt like we'd just woken

17:09

up and just thrown in to the middle

17:11

of a sort of maelstrom of

17:14

confusion. And I think that's what grief can feel

17:16

like. Suddenly, somebody just kind of, you woke

17:18

up one day and your entire life had changed.

17:21

And I think that's what they were all dealing

17:24

with. Again, like that sense of all the

17:26

knives and the boiling oil and this sort of

17:28

lurking terror.

17:29

When you do lose somebody, particularly when

17:31

you lose somebody suddenly, it's like you're very

17:34

faced with your own mortality. That's

17:36

there as well. And also guilt. Whether

17:39

you have any responsibility for the person's

17:41

death or not, you still feel that guilt.

17:44

Another one of Calmy's dreams shows

17:46

that he's feeling guilt towards his brother because

17:48

he has a dream where he actually killed Mikey.

17:51

And he also talks about feeling

17:53

like when he witnessed a fire

17:55

once in a restaurant, he wanted to just

17:57

let it burn down because he thought all over

17:59

the place.

17:59

my anxiety will go away if I just let it

18:02

burn. And I think there is that fantasy of, I

18:04

just want all this to go away. But

18:06

of course the truth is, is that if he had let it

18:08

all burned out and he'd still just have a whole load of other anxieties.

18:11

Can you have envy of a dead

18:13

person because they don't have to worry about

18:15

anything anymore? I bet. They can rest like

18:18

properly.

18:18

Yeah, I think that's really part

18:21

of it that I'm left to deal with

18:23

the shit. And that can

18:26

complicate your grief as well, because you

18:28

can also feel very angry at the person for

18:30

leaving you with this. And I

18:32

think you can see that in Kami's

18:35

incomprehension at the paperwork

18:37

system and the ordering

18:40

system and where the supplies are coming

18:42

from and who's paid for what. And

18:44

there's a lot of anger of like, why have

18:46

you left me in this situation? But

18:49

I also think he's lost, and this is also very

18:51

relevant to grief. He's lost a part of himself,

18:54

which you do do when you lose somebody really

18:56

close to you. And he's lost the part of him

18:58

that was an oat cuisine chef

19:00

and working in the top

19:01

restaurants. And he's gone back, literally

19:03

back to basics, his family sandwich

19:05

shop, this kind of regression.

19:08

And he's never gonna be the same again. You never are

19:11

with grief.

19:12

So do you think there's a worry as well

19:14

that with this turning point, this huge

19:17

tragedy in his life, he's not gonna be

19:19

able to

19:20

become the

19:23

man he thought he could become, Kami? Kami

19:25

won't become the man that he thought he

19:27

was going to be because after your death, you never

19:29

can, but he can become a different man. And I

19:32

think that's what he's sort of grappling with.

19:34

Which is a scary place for someone who needs

19:36

control to be.

19:37

Exactly. But I think that

19:39

there's different ways that people kind of deal

19:41

with it. There's two in particular

19:43

that I think Ritchie and Kami personify.

19:47

Ritchie is very stuck

19:49

in the past. He doesn't want anything

19:51

to change. He wants everything to stay as it is.

19:54

And he even says it with the changing environment. He

19:56

sees shops and restaurants around

19:58

them being closed down. really upset

20:00

by nothing staying the same, that the fact that

20:02

the street's becoming gentrified. And

20:05

he kind of wants to hold onto the past because

20:07

the past had him and Mikey being like

20:10

the top boys and you know, being, you

20:12

can kind of imagine them at school being

20:14

the ones that everyone looked up to. So

20:16

he kind of represents the being trapped in

20:18

the past where, no Mikey's not dead, things

20:21

can carry on as they were. Karmy

20:25

represents the not looking at the past

20:27

at all and just projecting himself forward into

20:29

a future where everything runs smoothly

20:31

and the sandwich bar is, you know, is really

20:34

successful and running on controlled lines. And

20:36

he's refusing to look back. He doesn't want anything

20:38

of the past to remain. He's trying to completely transform

20:41

it. And in a way that I think represents

20:44

a grief theory that I think is very true, which is

20:46

called dual process theory, which

20:48

is to say that even though there's an

20:51

instinct to either be completely stuck in the past

20:53

and not look forward or to be completely

20:56

escaping into a future that doesn't exist

20:58

yet so that you don't have to look backwards. Dual

21:01

process theory says that it's more of a pendulum

21:03

swing. So you will have moments when you

21:05

do feel like trapped in the past and then you will swing

21:08

into a future where you can see

21:10

something changing. And your process

21:12

suggests,

21:13

as I believe, that grief isn't static and

21:15

that you are going to sometimes look backwards

21:17

and you are going to sometimes look forwards.

21:19

Very tricky. So I mentioned dreams earlier.

21:22

You mentioned the bear dream and

21:25

there's a couple of other dream sequences. Do

21:27

you like dream sequences and things? How do

21:29

you take them? Because dreams

21:31

are a big part of

21:33

psychology, right? Yeah. What

21:35

he is unable to face

21:38

in his day to day life, the thing he is outrunning

21:40

in keeping busy all the

21:42

time

21:44

comes up in his unconscious. And that's what dreams

21:46

do, the stuff that we don't want to look at consciously,

21:48

like as soon as we fall asleep, our unconscious

21:50

saying, no, this is here. And it can be really

21:52

reflective of what is really going on, which

21:55

can be very, very different to what we see

21:57

in real lives. As I always say, you know, you can't.

21:59

You can't outrun all of this stuff.

22:02

You can run but you can't hide. It's gonna come at

22:04

you in your dreams. It's gonna explode

22:06

eventually. And I think the whole show, the whole

22:08

series, is a series of

22:10

explosions of the unconscious saying, no,

22:13

I'm here. The bear in

22:15

the cage is gonna come out and get you

22:17

eventually.

22:17

Are there dreams that your clients

22:20

tell you that are as analogous

22:23

as that?

22:24

Sometimes they can be. But the first question to ask

22:26

if somebody brings a dream is not so much

22:28

about the content of the dream. It's

22:30

about how the person feels about the dream. So they wake up feeling

22:33

calmed or tense or afraid.

22:36

So there's no, this kind of thing of, oh,

22:38

teeth falling out definitely means

22:40

this. It's more about what does

22:42

it mean to you? How has it left you feeling? So

22:45

it's trying to tease out what

22:47

the dreamer thinks it means rather than imposing

22:50

some sort of reading upon

22:53

it. We've actually, we got a clip from one

22:55

of the slightly unsettling dreams

22:57

that Kami has. And we're given a

23:00

bit of an insight here into the state of his kind

23:03

of inner world. This is from The Cooking Show. Welcome

23:05

back to The Bear.

23:08

I'm Carmen Berzado. And today we're gonna

23:10

be making beef rajal. Now

23:13

this is a very special dish in my dysfunctional

23:15

nightmare of a household. My brother Mike made this

23:17

for us every single Sunday. You

23:20

guys, this is a cute story. My

23:23

brother, who

23:24

was addicted to painkillers, blew

23:27

his head off on the State Street bridge.

23:30

Bam! Now

23:33

hold on, it gets better. No letter,

23:36

no goodbye, nothing except

23:38

he did leave me our family's restaurant

23:41

in his will, which was a nice curve ball considering

23:43

he never let me work there with him. Even though

23:45

I'm

23:47

pretty good at this, right? Yeah,

23:50

I used to run the best restaurant on

23:53

the planet Earth it

23:57

was pretty different from my brother's shithole which was barely

23:59

hanging on.

23:59

I had thread. So that was

24:02

a nice final fuck you from Michael

24:04

on the way out. Anyway,

24:08

Bajal. Guys?

24:12

Where's my stuff? What

24:18

the fuck is going on? Fuck!

24:24

Shit! My shit!

24:26

Shit! Shit! Shit! I'm

24:30

sorry, I'm

24:32

just fucking this up guys. Stop,

24:35

stop, stop. I'm

24:40

right here.

24:41

Twin Peaks level

24:43

of creepiness towards the end there. What

24:46

are some of the different coping mechanisms

24:49

that Kami uses just to survive?

24:51

Well

24:52

I think that dream's quite interesting because I think what we

24:54

saw there was him being very visible in his vulnerability.

24:59

People having an audience laughing at him

25:01

because he couldn't do it. He kept saying, I can't do this.

25:04

Seeing him not be able to cook.

25:07

And so I think one of the coping mechanisms

25:10

in his waking life to keep

25:12

that fear at bay, that what if they see my vulnerability,

25:14

is to aim for perfection. And

25:18

he describes once making

25:20

this dish that had four different kinds of plum

25:23

in it when he was at the posh

25:25

restaurant. I mean it sounds

25:27

to me absolutely nuts here that there was some sort of

25:29

plum sauce that it took like a relay

25:32

team of people stirring it for 48

25:34

hours or something. But I think that

25:36

sense of if I can just make it perfect,

25:39

and it's also a bit like Marcus, the

25:42

pastry chef who is

25:44

trying to make the perfect doughnut as well.

25:46

He kind of gets that similar obsession

25:48

for perfection. If I can just make

25:50

the perfect dish, if I can just get the perfect restaurant,

25:53

then I won't have to feel any vulnerability. But

25:56

the problem with perfectionism as we see all

25:58

too well in this show is that you

26:00

can never attain it. I mean, the culmination

26:02

of his story about the four plum dish

26:05

was that the chef still wasn't satisfied. And

26:07

that's the thing, you can do exactly what

26:09

you think is needed and

26:11

then the goalposts move. And we

26:13

also see it like when Marcus makes what he believes

26:15

is his perfect doughnut after having slept

26:18

there all night, he chose it to calm

26:20

me at a time when calm me can't take it on board

26:22

and calm me like smashes out of his hand, it smashes

26:24

to the floor. I think that is a really

26:26

good metaphor for perfectionism is

26:29

not going to save

26:29

you. It could be just you just smash

26:32

through it because actually ultimately,

26:34

who cares about the perfect plum dish and the perfect

26:37

doughnut, your

26:39

emotions are going to smash you over the head

26:41

and you're going to have to pick them up at some point.

26:43

Every now and again on this show, there's moments

26:45

where I just feel like

26:47

I'm actually in therapy because that's like,

26:50

that was just so close to the bone. I'm

26:52

definitely a perfectionist. It annoys

26:55

me. I know I'm doing it as well while

26:57

I'm doing it. I was late today because I was writing

26:59

a jingle. I knew I would get it done

27:02

in time to get to the studio. I'm

27:04

like, it needs to be perfect to me.

27:07

It's mad. And what does it mean to you if it's not perfect?

27:10

I think that I'm, you know, I'm going

27:12

to disappoint people. It's so

27:14

crazy. Like I'm so aware of it.

27:16

Why do I give a fuck what they

27:18

think? Like I know I can do it. And if it's

27:21

not right for them, they can tell me a better

27:23

way of doing it. And I can do that too. No,

27:26

it's crazy. It's crazy thinking.

27:27

Well, it's not crazy thinking.

27:30

I think it's very natural to not

27:32

want to give anybody any cause to

27:34

kind of pick away at especially

27:37

in a creative job, I think.

27:39

Yeah, because we all talk about

27:41

in the industry having like thick skin because

27:44

we're throwing our ideas

27:45

out there, you know, sort of laying them bare,

27:47

so to speak.

27:49

You know, ultimately the whole thing's

27:51

a process of validation. You know, when

27:53

I was doing standup, if the crowd don't

27:55

laugh, it's like,

27:57

it's like your soul falling out of your ear

28:00

holes or your arsehole even worse, you

28:02

know, you just feel this huge

28:05

wave of we are disappointed

28:08

in you. No one else, just

28:10

you. Taking

28:12

that weight on board is crazy.

28:15

So you have to have a bit of a fixed skin for that, but

28:17

it takes a toll. You want to avoid

28:19

it at all costs. So try and make it perfect.

28:21

Yeah, but also I think we've

28:24

talked about this in the past as well, it's that trying

28:26

to disidentify the

28:28

different parts of you. So there is the

28:30

part of you that can go on and be a

28:32

standup and do really well and a part

28:34

of you that doesn't need that affirmation. But

28:36

sometimes you completely identify with

28:39

if I don't get as big a laugh as I got last

28:41

night, then I as a person and I'm

28:43

a complete waste of space rather than, oh,

28:45

well, that particular

28:47

night didn't go as well. You

28:49

kind of, you can't, you can't disidentify

28:52

you from the performance. Yeah,

28:55

but that's what we see here with these

28:58

guys. If I can get the perfect donor, he gets perfect

29:00

donor and is just smashed to the floor.

29:02

With men that we

29:04

know from other shows that we've looked

29:06

at, you know, I'm thinking specifically about masculinity

29:09

and coming to terms with these feelings of vulnerability

29:12

and anxiety and what we're scared

29:14

of, which is always a difficult thing for a man to

29:16

say, I'm scared of that. I'm

29:18

thinking like Jamie in Top Boy

29:21

we looked at recently, Don Draper, when we were

29:23

back looking at mad men, you know, how

29:25

far these guys push it. Is there something similar going

29:27

on

29:28

in the kitchen?

29:29

Yeah, so I think everybody, men

29:31

or women, but I think for men it's harder

29:33

to be exposed for people to see you not

29:36

being at the top of your game. The defenses

29:38

and the masks that we have to put on

29:40

to stop people seeing that

29:43

are huge and everyone's got their version

29:45

of it. And I think for some men in some

29:47

environments, it's really important

29:50

because it can feel like life or death. You

29:52

know, all of these people, I mean, Richie's on pills,

29:55

he's on Xanax, which is, as you kind of mentioned

29:57

in the tease there, that kind

29:59

of leads to to kind of worrying

30:01

results when he accidentally puts it into the kids

30:03

punch at a kids birthday party. They

30:06

all fall asleep. So yeah, he's

30:08

on pills. It could have been worse as well. Well, it could have

30:10

been worse. Yeah. I mean, they make a bit of a joke of it,

30:12

but you know, so he's on pills, even Sydney,

30:14

the calm, you know, regulating

30:17

fools, she's on pills to calm them down

30:19

because they can't ask for help. They can't say,

30:22

guys, this is nuts. Why are we living

30:24

like this? And again, I don't think it's just about

30:26

that kitchen culture. I think on many levels, most

30:29

of us are looking at

30:29

the society. We live in again. Why are we putting

30:32

ourselves through this? But yeah, I mean,

30:34

I think that that kitchens in particular

30:37

and that part of Chicago, they're in, it

30:39

looks to me like very macho culture.

30:41

I mean, there's even like the tiniest little

30:43

example of when Richie goes off to buy the coke

30:46

at the DIY store and Sydney's like, well, let's

30:48

just ask somebody and you know, I'm not asking anybody.

30:50

I'm not asking anybody. He absolutely

30:53

refuses to show any weakness, even

30:55

like not knowing the right kind of coke to buy

30:58

at the DIY store. So from- He

30:59

must get lost on holiday a lot. Yeah.

31:03

Well, yeah, I mean, I think he's

31:05

very lost, a generally poor,

31:07

poor man, but you know, they grapple

31:10

their way, they grope their way towards

31:13

a slightly healthier way of interacting

31:15

over the course of the series.

31:16

Yeah, which is a nice, that's a nice sort of arc

31:18

to have. But up until then, you see

31:20

that if there's negativities that you can't

31:23

deal with in yourself, you know,

31:25

you pass someone, someone else to kind of make

31:27

you look a bit better. Like the

31:29

essence of bullying, like with the disdain

31:32

we see of Pete.

31:34

Natalie's husband. Is it a husband? Yeah.

31:36

It's like you're not living up to the image

31:39

that we think a man should look

31:41

like. Makes a man powerful, yeah.

31:42

But actually, it's Natalie and Pete that

31:44

offer in many ways a way out.

31:47

Pete is a gentler

31:49

sort of a man and he goes with

31:51

Natalie to the Al-Anon meetings to help

31:54

them kind of come to terms with Mikey's

31:56

addiction that led to his death and his alcoholism.

31:59

Al-Anon is part of the AA

32:02

therapy groups where people recognize

32:05

they have a problem and they can go together to talk

32:07

about it. And obviously with Alcoholics Anonymous, it's

32:09

shared addiction. And Al-Anon

32:11

is for the relatives of people who have

32:14

addiction. So they can talk about what that's

32:16

like. And from the beginning, Natalie

32:18

is saying to Kami, why don't you go,

32:21

you need to talk about this? And Kami's

32:23

very resistant. Again, that sort of match, I'm

32:25

not going to do it. I don't need to get into talk about it. I

32:28

just want things to be calm. I

32:30

just want things to be on solid ground.

32:32

I want things to feel... Consistent.

32:34

Yeah, consistent. Yeah.

32:39

That's totally reasonable. Well,

32:45

I appreciate you saying that. Um,

32:51

I guess all the time I feel like I'm kind

32:53

of trapped because

32:56

I can't describe how

32:59

I'm feeling. So

33:01

to ask somebody else

33:04

how they're feeling, that just seems, uh,

33:10

I don't know, insane.

33:12

If we're thinking about Richie

33:15

being stuck in the past and Kami just projecting into a sort of escapist

33:17

future where everything's fine, Natalie represents that sort of the

33:19

middle ground. She represents

33:22

the present. She's saying, how are you feeling now? You

33:24

can talk about it with me. You can talk

33:27

about it at Al-Anon. These are the things that help

33:29

Kami kind of back away from the constant activity.

33:34

They allow him to be with, this is what I'm feeling.

33:39

In this moment, I don't need to escape into

33:41

the future.

33:44

And you mentioned escape. What's this

33:46

fantasy has about burning things down?

33:49

So the oven does actually catch fire

33:51

and it's like he's paralyzed. He's just standing there

33:53

watching it almost like, Oh, if I just

33:55

let it burn, all the worry will go

33:58

away, which you sort of think, well, possibly that's it.

33:59

that's the situation Mikey was in when he did

34:02

decide that the only way out was to shoot

34:04

himself. And luckily,

34:07

Kami is rescued by the others. They do work

34:09

as a team, they do come in and say, you know, what the fuck

34:11

man? And they put the fire out. But

34:13

in some ways, it's also

34:15

representative of a purifying,

34:18

I think of we have to let something

34:20

go in order for the like

34:23

Phoenix like for something to come out of the flames,

34:25

because you can't just get stuck in the past, you can't just

34:27

say, right, this is how it's done, you have to

34:30

kind of evolve. And I think that's what is happening

34:33

as as Kami starts to

34:35

address his own grief. And Richie

34:38

is forced in a different way, not with a fire,

34:40

he's forced to confront what's actually going

34:42

on. He gets his aggression gets him to the

34:44

point of punching somebody to the point that he's

34:46

in jail, because the guy might be might

34:48

die, he might have killed somebody. And

34:52

he has a sort of long dark night of the soul

34:54

in a in a jail cell where he's here to confront,

34:57

I can't just

34:59

keep being aggressive all the

35:01

time. They start to share their

35:03

grief, they start to say, I really miss

35:06

him, I really miss him, he's left a huge

35:08

hole in our lives. And then once

35:10

they recognize there's a hole there, they can start

35:12

to fill it or to

35:15

create a different shape around

35:17

it. How I depict grief and I've

35:19

written about this and I've experienced it, I

35:22

kind of think it's about

35:23

changing it for being a sort of a person shaped

35:25

hole that you might fall into and drown

35:28

in. It morphs into a sort of a

35:30

light that can guide you and power you

35:32

power you on. So right at the beginning

35:34

of the series, Richie finds a note

35:37

that Mikey has left for Kami and

35:39

he hides it such as his rivalries,

35:41

such as his hatred of the fact

35:44

that Kami's been left the restaurant that he hides it.

35:45

And right at the end, he pulls it out.

35:47

And right at the end, he pulls it out, he

35:50

gives it to Kami. They've reached

35:52

enough of an understanding through the fire

35:54

and through the night in jail that

35:56

he's able to say, okay, I don't need to

35:58

try and hold Mikey's life.

35:59

all to myself. I can accept that he

36:02

loved you and me. We don't have to be rivals

36:04

here. He can have loved us both. He gives

36:06

him the note, which ultimately

36:09

leads to them finding that Mikey had hidden loads

36:11

of money in bloody tomato

36:13

tins, tins of tomato, which is really

36:16

strange. But it's like, okay, Mikey can

36:18

now show us the way. He has, his

36:20

legacy can fuel us to go forward. We've

36:22

got the money now. We can make the changes.

36:25

And so Mikey is like guiding them. He's not

36:27

this thing that's holding them back. He is like showing

36:29

them the way forward. So I think it's a really, really beautiful

36:32

metaphor of if we can be

36:35

together in our grief, if we can allow Mikey

36:37

to be something that can show us the

36:39

way rather than hold us back, then

36:42

we can create a new estuante.

36:43

Yeah, it's a whole bunch of hope there. And

36:45

yeah, we can sort of backtrack this

36:48

hope, this growth almost all the way

36:50

back to his sister, who is also

36:53

bereaved, it's easy to forget, it's not all about

36:55

Kami, you know, but she's

36:57

able to be in touch with these emotions a bit

36:59

easier, which is crucial to him. And actually,

37:02

when we think about the female relationships in

37:04

Kami's chaotic life, they are kind

37:06

of like rocks in a, you know, a storm filled

37:09

ocean and they really show us

37:11

some real growth.

37:12

So it's really interesting that you brought up the metaphor

37:14

of an ocean, because I

37:16

was talking earlier about how the

37:18

kitchen seems to represent this heightened state of

37:21

nervous system kind of arousal,

37:23

and Sydney being the one, the calming influence

37:26

that brings it back down. So

37:28

there's a Vietnamese Buddhist

37:30

monk called Thich Nhat Hanh, who

37:32

was one of the Vietnamese boat

37:35

people back in the 70s, a refugee that

37:37

had to flee the Vietnam War. And

37:39

he went on to found a monastery. And one

37:41

of the things that he

37:42

always used to say was that

37:45

when those tiny little boats were rocked

37:47

in the oceanic kind of storm,

37:50

and they were trying to cross the safety, if

37:52

everybody in the boat panicked, they would

37:54

just completely capsize. If

37:57

one person in the boat could stay calm

37:59

and stay calm,

37:59

grounded. They could lower

38:02

the temperature of everybody else via

38:04

their nervous system enough that the boat stayed

38:07

stable. And it just takes one person,

38:09

he always said this was like one of his teachings, to

38:11

keep the boat on course and keep it from capsizing.

38:14

And it feels like Sydney provides

38:16

that regulating presence. Her

38:19

nervous system is regulated enough. She's

38:21

calm enough to be the one person that keeps

38:23

the boat from tipping over until

38:25

the point of which I think is another one of the things that

38:27

pushes Richie into realizing

38:29

that he has to change. He aggravates

38:32

her, the karmy force, to such an extent

38:34

that she stabs him in the bum and is bumbly.

38:37

So, you know, everybody's got their breaking points.

38:44

So, you know, we've mentioned the note a couple

38:46

of times, but I think we need to dig into

38:48

it a little deeper because

38:51

where is Richie's

38:54

head at? What's it like for karmy

38:56

seeing that note? And then also what we find

38:59

out is in the note how

39:00

that affects him. I mean, there's so

39:02

much psychologically going on in

39:05

just those moments. What can happen a lot

39:07

in grief is that people

39:09

want to hang on to the love and

39:12

they take it out in terms of possession.

39:14

So that's why there's so much fighting over wills

39:17

because they like to see what they've been left as

39:19

being representative of this is how much I was

39:21

loved. And Richie,

39:24

I think, hated that

39:27

karmy got the restaurant because to him it meant, oh,

39:29

he loved him more. But when he

39:31

can see that they were both loved, he's able to hand over

39:33

this note, which basically is like the key to the treasure

39:36

map. Yeah, it's like, follow

39:40

the signs. And the note talks about

39:42

the old family recipe, which leads into the tins

39:45

of tomatoes, which leads into all this money that he's

39:47

hidden in there. Sorry to cut

39:50

you off there. But there's also an important

39:52

moment when he does open it and sees it's a

39:54

recipe, because when I was watching that for the first time,

39:56

obviously I didn't know there was going to be money in the tins.

39:58

So, So there

40:00

was this kind of weird, I almost laughed,

40:03

but it was devastating as well. Like,

40:05

is it just a fucking recipe?

40:07

Yeah, yeah. It's like all

40:09

of that. Is that what we've been there holding

40:11

out for? I thought it was maybe that. So you can see

40:13

that, you can see Kami going through

40:16

all those emotions. You kind

40:19

of go through them with him. It's a great moment

40:21

anyway, sorry, continue. Well,

40:22

no, no, I think that's really

40:24

important because yeah, there's a both

40:27

kind of a disappointment of, oh, is that

40:29

it? But also I guess food is

40:31

their method of communication. And

40:34

so it is a communication of sorts, even

40:36

before you know quite a valuable communication

40:39

it is, but then you have this lovely

40:41

scene where the whole team comes

40:43

together and as a team they unwrap the money

40:46

and it represents their future that now together

40:49

the restaurant can survive. And I love

40:51

that moment when he puts

40:54

the sign in the window and it says, the beef

40:56

is closed, the bear opening

40:58

soon. And it is like, he's

41:00

owning it. The bear has been let out of his

41:03

cage.

41:03

And the team is good and it's expanding.

41:05

The team is good, it's expanding. And I think

41:07

it also represents Kami's inner bear,

41:11

his inner power that he has kept

41:13

hidden because he wanted to keep that dynamic

41:15

of younger brother and older brother. It's like,

41:18

no, Mikey's gone. I can own my own

41:20

power. I can own my own bear like

41:22

nature and I can make this what

41:24

I want through Mikey's guidance. So

41:27

yeah, I love it. The bear has come

41:29

out, the bear representing grief and the bear representing

41:32

the opposite of his passivity. It's like, yeah,

41:34

we're here.

41:35

The path they take is super rocky, but then

41:37

the obstacle is the way, right? Yeah,

41:40

it's a lovely phrase. I

41:42

love that arc. Obviously I haven't seen any

41:44

of the series, but it does make me wonder like what,

41:47

that's such a nice contained journey from

41:51

helplessness to hope. I

41:54

guess they're gonna be challenged again and it's

41:56

gonna get hotter. There's gonna be more sandwiches.

41:58

I don't know, but I love it.

43:59

extra stuff that they do as well. You can do a

44:02

free trial right now. Click try free

44:04

at the top of the shrink the box show page or

44:06

just by visiting extra takes.com. Big

44:09

thanks to the production team. Production

44:11

management is Lily Hambly. The assistant producer is

44:14

Marnie Woodmead. Social media is Jonathan

44:16

Nimieri. Studio engineer is Teddy Riley.

44:18

The senior producer is Selena Ream. Producer

44:20

on this episode was Bethany Hawken

44:23

and executive producer Simon Poole. Shrink

44:25

the Box is a Sony Music Entertainment

44:27

production. So this

44:29

is the last episode of season one. Our

44:34

character arcs. There's

44:36

a lot of unresolved tension. Yes,

44:39

our character arc has been

44:42

curtailed too early.

44:43

It's nuts. But yeah, so we're gonna have a bit of a break,

44:46

summer holidays and all of that. As usual,

44:48

we'll be answering your questions when they come

44:50

in. We'll definitely do some shrink the inboxes.

44:54

We got to give you guys your time to shine.

44:56

What can we expect in the first one coming

44:58

up? Some of the characters suggestions that

45:01

you've sent us that we haven't thought of yet. And

45:03

I want to go back to we talked to

45:06

Kyle Smith-Bino about

45:08

his character in Ghosts back when we did our live

45:11

episode. But we didn't really have time to talk

45:13

more about the other ghosts and they

45:15

are so fascinating and there's so many of them.

45:17

I quite I'd quite like to do a bit more, you know, spend

45:19

a little bit more time on the ghosts.

45:20

I need a reason to watch more ghosts.

45:23

That's such a great ensemble

45:25

piece. So yeah, maybe talk about them

45:27

a bit more. I mean, one email asked

45:29

us why we all root for the psychopaths

45:32

or the seriously bad people in TV series.

45:34

Is it because they're gorgeous? Well, I think it probably

45:36

must be because I don't know why else anyone

45:39

would root for a psychopath. And

45:41

it's just funny how they always seem to

45:43

cast the good looking ones as the psychopaths.

45:46

Interesting. Yeah, that's

45:48

definitely worth digging into. I've got a show

45:51

coming out on the BBC, which will probably

45:53

come out the same week that that

45:55

shrink inbox does. Maybe we could talk

45:57

about it. That's about a psychopath. Oh, great.

45:59

very much about the ugly side

46:02

of it. It basically works

46:05

really hard to avoid that trope.

46:07

Right, great. So as much as I'll say about it

46:09

for now. Right, well I look forward to hearing more

46:12

about that. Yeah, all right. Well,

46:15

another week in the can sash and we

46:17

can go book our tickets now. Get out

46:19

of here for our summer holes. Enjoy.

46:23

Yeah, we'll see you next week, don't worry. Ta-da. Bye.

46:26

All

46:30

right,

46:33

it's time now for the Bear Credits as promised, for

46:36

series one created by Christopher Storra. So

46:38

at the top we had the Kitchen Chaos at

46:41

the family owned Chicago sandwich joint, the

46:43

original beef of Chicago land from

46:45

episode three of the Bear, starring

46:47

Jeremy Allen White as Carmen Kami

46:50

Bearzato. You also heard

46:52

Ayo Adebiri as Sydney

46:54

Adamu. And this episode

46:56

was written by Christopher Storra and directed

46:59

by Joanna Kaloe. Kami being

47:01

tried and tested by the abusive head chef at

47:03

his last restaurant job was episode two. And it was

47:05

written and directed by Christopher Storra and

47:08

Kami implementing a Scoffier kitchen

47:10

brigade system in a last ditch attempt to

47:12

control the chaos was episode three

47:15

written by Christopher Storra again and directed by

47:17

Joanna Kaloe again. The Trippy Dream Kami

47:19

has about his own TV cooking shows from

47:21

episode seven written by Joanna Kaloe and directed

47:24

by Christopher Storra.

47:25

And the heart to heart we witnessed between the two Bearzato

47:27

siblings, Kami and Natalie

47:30

is seen in episode six written by Catherine

47:32

Schatina and Renee Goob. The

47:35

Bear was produced by Super Frog and FX Productions.

47:37

It premiered on Hulu and is now distributed

47:39

by Disney Plus. Thanks for listening and we'll see you

47:41

next week.