When it comes to some of the best shows on Hulu, there are plenty that I instantly think of that stand out amongst the rest, whether that be a show like The Great, or one such as The Handmaid's Tale. But, the one series that I’ve been falling deeper in love with for some time now is The Bear.
A part of FX on Hulu, the original show has only grown on me with its two seasons so far, telling the story of Carmen, a chef who decided to step in to take care of his brother’s sandwich shop after his death and revamp it into a fine-dining establishment. Season 2 was even crazier than the first season and I found myself loving more of the characters from Season 1 – but I also discovered that I began to like one character even more: Richie.
Hewas brash and hotheaded in Season 1 of The Bear – and to an extent, he still is, but I can’t tell you how quickly my view of him suddenly changed when I watched him in Season 2 of the show. Let’s get into how Richie, played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, has somehow captured my heart in just a few episodes.
We Get To See A Little More Of His Past, Showing That He Really Does Have A Heart Underneath Everything
Something that I really did like about Season 2 is that we really get to dive a lot deeper into the personal lives of many of the characters that were introduced to us in the last season. We get to see Marcus and his story with his mother and how he’s constantly trying to improve for her so he can take care of her. We also get to see Sydney and her dad, with all their incredible interactions.
Heck, we even saw Carmen, otherwise known as Carmy (played by Jeremy Allen White), step out of his shell a little and become involved with Claire, a girl from his past and someone who played a really important role this season. However, the one person we really got to learn more about was Richie.
I have to admit, from the beginning, I never really cared for him because he felt like the epitome of a walking red flag – brash, in your face, a huge curser, and someone who didn’t really know how to take “no” for an answer. Honestly, to an extent, he still is that way in Season 2, even after what he goes through, but just less so.
Specifically during Episode 6, “Fishes,” we get an entire flashback episode that shows Carmen’s entire family, and it’s there I started to see that Richie really does have his heart in the right place, but he doesn’t know how to achieve what he wants. He lied to his then-wife (who was pregnant at the time), saying he got a job so she could be happy, but it ended up backfiring on him, even though he had spoken to his uncle to see if they could make the gig happen.
I’m not saying that lying is good, because it never is, but it’s moments like that, where he wants to try and make people happy but doesn’t quite know how, that makes me reevaluate him.
He’s Begun To Care More For New People
I mean, this was pretty inevitable in any character development for someone that started off pretty terrible. Heck, we’ve seen this type of character development for people in other shows, like Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender or even Negan in The Walking Dead.
Granted, I never saw Richie as a “villain,” per se – I really only saw him as a nuisance who was constantly in the way of Carmen and Sydney. But in Season 2, you really start to see him actually care for new people in his life, regardless of how long he knows them. Season 1 Richie was very closed-minded and didn’t trust that many people he didn’t know well, but the second season showed a new side of him.
For example, he didn’t really know Claire that well, just that they grew up together, but he was still so kind to her towards the end of the season and it was refreshing to see that side of him. The same goes for Sydney, especially in the finale episode, where you can finally see that there’s some connection there, that he trusts her and she, in turn, trusts him to make sure the night goes smoothly after Carmen locks himself in the walk-in by accident.
He’s Finally Started To See The Value In Great Service
Episode 7, “Forks,” was arguably one of the best of the series so far, because that’s where we really started to see Richie begin to just get it. For a good portion of Season 1 – and Season 2 – Richie didn’t really understand what Carmen was doing and was still just being sort of a hothead, but Carmen took it upon himself to get Richie time at an upscale restaurant to learn how to be better in the service industry in general.
From there, he finally learns the value of good service; how making the night special for someone can seriously change the whole vibe of the restaurant, and how essential it is for the survival of said establishment. After working there, he takes all of those lessons and brings them to The Bear, in order for them to succeed on their first night.
You want to know what? Richie killed it. The entire time he was working the front, he was excellent in his job – with his own flair, of course, but it’s because he finally understood why it’s so important that the night could go as smooth as it did.
And He’s Beginning To Work Better Under Pressure
I think anyone who works in the restaurant industry really needs to work well under pressure, and in Season 1 of The Bear, we never knew if this team was going to be able to pull it together to do just that, especially Richie.
Just in the episode, “Review,” from Season 2, we see what happens when something goes off the rails in the kitchen. In the finale, though, we see just how far Richie has come in terms of how he keeps his cool. When Carmen is locked away in the fridge, he doesn’t freak out – instead, he steps up and takes on the role of being in charge of the pass, making sure orders are expedited the whole night.
This is such a different version of Richie that we see in Season 2 vs. Season 1, and honestly, I am here for it 100%.
Richie Is Genuinely Trying Very Hard To Change Into A Great Dad And Better Person
The last thing I definitely want to talk about is that you can constantly see Richie trying. Even in the first episode, with him saying that he was trying not to say offensive things, that was just a decent first step – even if it was meant more as a joke.
As the season goes on, however, we see him grow even more as a person to try and change himself – especially after he goes to Carmy’s old restaurant. He goes out of his way to try and get those Taylor Swift tickets for his daughter – with an adorable “Love Story” sing-along scene. He doesn’t freak out when his ex-wife says that she’s been proposed to, and has a calm conversation with her about it. Heck, even his talks with Natalie have gotten better by the end of the series, where he assures her that they were going to figure out a way to make sure The Bear stayed open with reservations.
He’s always trying to make himself better, and while he still has his moments of explosion – such as when he snapped at Carmen after the successful dinner service for what he said about Claire – he is constantly growing and changing, and that’s all we can ask for.
I truly hope this is the start of something really good for Richie, and I actually pray that he succeeds. To be honest, I’m almost liking his character development more than Jamie Tartt’s in Ted Lasso. Who knows? He might end up working for that fine-dining restaurant by the end of this series and sharing the screen with Olivia Colman again. Either way, I’ll be rooting for him.
