‘The Bear’ Season 2 serves up casting surprises and more chaos

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — The second season of FX’s restaurant-set series “The Bear” returned last week and served viewers ten episodes of “thoughtful chaos,” with an impressive lineup of guest stars.

Season 2 follows Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) as he and his “Original Beef” crew embark on an anxiety-inducing journey to revamp their Chicago sandwich joint into a foodie haven.

Guest actors who made appearances include Jamie Lee Curtis, Chicago natives Bob Odenkirk and John Mulaney, plus Olivia Colman, Sarah Paulson, Molly Gordon, Gillian Jacobs, Will Poulter and Jon Bernthal, who returned in flashbacks as Michael Berzatto.

Curtis’s moving performance as Carmy’s mom Donna Berzatto was featured in the sixth episode, which invited viewers to a Berzatto family Christmas dinner in a chaotic hour-long memory sequence.

The Oscar-winner’s performance of the struggling Berzatto matriarch culminates with Donna driving her car through their home’s living room in the middle of dinner after a heartbreaking moment that saw Donna break down in tears when Mulaney’s character gave a wonderfully sweet pre-dinner speech.

“There’s not a person alive who won’t relate to what it feels like to be around someone like Donna Berzatto,” Curtis said in the caption of an Instagram post on Saturday, adding “I certainly have my own experiences. That’s what makes the show so magnificent. We can relate and commiserate and celebrate all of our communal survival in this thing called…. Life.”

Bernthal and Odenkirk, who plays a Berzatto relative, spar throughout the episode, and as lovable as the “Better Call Saul” star is in real life, his unfiltered and thorny character is a source of the episode’s conflict – and a landing pad for all the forks that Bernthal flings at him.

Colman, also an Oscar winner, appears in Episode 7 as Chef Terry, the head chef of a Michelin star fine-dining restaurant that Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) spends a week training at.

Richie’s transformation is the spotlight of this episode and a highlight of the season. A brief chat with Colman’s character while they peeled mushrooms together gave Richie that boost of confidence he needed after struggling to fit in with Carmy’s new vision. (Colman seems so natural playing a chef one can’t help but wonder if she moonlights as one.)

The fourth episode saw Poulter play a hunky tattooed pastry chef giving the same lesson to Marcus (Lionel Boyce), who was sent off to Copenhagen by Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) for inspiration, and Carmy and Richie both had the benefit of showcasing softer sides during scenes with romantic partners played by Gillian Jacobs and Molly Gordon, respectively.

No word yet if a third season of “The Bear” is being cooked up.

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