I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball.

I don't know how you decide which television shows to watch, but for some reason, subway ads actually have a giant influence on me.

They're definitely the reason I started watching The Bear three years ago, because I was seduced by a great poster.

Every time I'd go into a station, Jeremy Allen White's silent movie eyes. Two joyless planets

would be rolled upward as I had it down. His hand on his forehead. That original

poster was just a marvel to me. There was something about the combination of people in it

and how Renaissance or maybe

even medievally religious it looked. The one character making eye contact was a young black

woman who, to me, looked like a saint. Lo and behold, the show turned out to be almost precisely

what the ad was glorifying, dining as

a religious experience. And the people who are doing that cooking are angels with personal

demons who might be suffering like Christ himself for our dinners. The person doing the most suffering is Carmen Berzado,

or Carm, or Carmi, or Bear,

but also sometimes the way Jeremy Allen White plays him, at least, asshole.

Carmen's this talented Chicago kid

has been out working in the world of fancy restaurants,

and he comes back home to take over his family sandwich shop after his brother's suicide.

What felt so special to me about the bear is that it really is about the work,

that there can be artistry in the labor and sacrifice of working.

But it's also about the stress and toxicity that can come with that.

Does excellence require single-minded pathological obsession?

Or can it be achieved through nurturing and communication?

...