The series about a group of sandwich shop underdogs turned Michelin star hopefuls just launched its second season on Hulu.
“The Bear” massed a significant following in its premiere season inspired by the Chicago joint Mr. Beef, earning it the quickest second-season green light in history. Starring Jeremy Allen White as the neurotic chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto and Ebon Moss-Bachrach playing his right-hand Richard “Richie” Jerimovich, “The Bear” is the ultimate underdog story set in Chicago, Illinois.
Anyone who’s set foot in the restaurant industry has been gripped by “The Bear,” and the characters’ transformational journeys resonate with just about everyone. Kicking off its second season on June 22, “The Bear” gives viewers a look into the upheaval of opening a restaurant. Duct tape bear-ly holds the walls together on the joint, and according to Moss-Bachrach, there was almost a scene revealing Disney’s favorite critters behind them.
On the Chopping Block
In an interview with Collider, the actor behind Carmy’s late brother’s best friend, Moss-Bachrach, he brought viewers behind the “The Bear” scenes. In one of the new season’s ten episodes, a moment drove home the message that this restaurant group’s pursuit might be more than what they bargained for.
Not only are the walls crumbling down on the crew’s dreams of becoming a certified culinary hub, but the ceiling also implodes on Richie’s head in one of the scenes. While Moss-Bachrach emphasized the 45-minute reset required to shoot the scene in the episode twice, there was an unexpected Disney crossover that Moss-Bachrach told Collider he wished made the cut:
Loathe as I would have been to do it, but I thought it would be amazing, if just a bunch of live rats and mice fell down, and then ran away, and everyone freaked out. I thought that would be incredible and shocking.
When his idea escalated to Disney execs, it appeared they didn’t want their Mouse mascot to make an appearance in “The Bear 2” that way:
Somebody said, ‘No, we can’t use live animals.’ I also think that, perhaps under the Disney banner of Mickey Mouse, they didn’t wanna have any mice. But that also might have been a total lie, and they were just like, ‘No, we’re just gonna stick to the script.’
Although the shocking meeting between Mouse and “Bear” would have made for great TV, Disney’s stake in Hulu left the scene on the chopping block. Created by showrunner Christopher Storer, the popular series “The Bear 2” is now available for Hulu and Disney Plus streaming.