Ayo Edebiri

The Bear has been called ‘the most stressful thing on TV’ and I think that’s probably a fair description. It’s set in a Chicago restaurant and – as has become de rigueur in all films and TV series about restaurants – the kitchen scenes are invariably fraught, jerkily shot, uptight, pent-up, explosive, inflammable, past boiling point, chaotic, horrific and generally conducive to the prevailing notion that while war might be hell it’s an absolute picnic when compared to being a chef. It’s also, if you can bear the stress part, possibly the best thing on TV. At least it has been for the first two series, which have built on that ‘cuisine is hell’ cliché to create a strong, character-driven drama that is often rich, rewarding, moving and surprising.

What would an American odyssey look like today? There are too many rabbit holes to go down, too many traps. Besides our fractious politics, everything in 2020s America is busted. Broken self-checkout machines and petty theft are scapegoats for a spiritual and economic crisis — it feels like the end of the world could come at any moment. Non-linear digital media and smartphones have destroyed the monoculture of popular movies and television that used to gird our pop culture. Everyone can find their own niche now, but we have so little to talk about together — not even the dread permeating the country. And it’s been this way for the better part of a decade.  The Sweet East presents the most accurate, from-the-front picture of America today.