Ty Watches “The Bear”

Last night I started the show "The Bear". I had heard a ton of good things about it, some people I follow on social media were singing its praises.

I like what FX does in the world of TV and I am a sucker for cooking shows. In our house we watch a ton of cooking shows in fact. We like them all. Be it Ina Garten or some kind of competition show, we will usually watch. Hell, I even really enjoy a show like "Carnival Eats". That may be one of my favorites.

The problem with those shows, for the most part, is they are very nice. Even the reality competition ones. Sure they have their "villain", and there have been plenty of contestants I don't like, and my goodness do they take themselves far too seriously, but in the end it is all happiness and fun and games. "The Bear" is not like that, and I think that has been what has drawn me in so much.

Over the past day and a half I have watched the first four episodes. It was all I was thinking about watching this morning when I was out running errands. It stayed with me. To me that is a sign that this show works. This is what I am looking for in a show about food. The cast is amazing. It is an ensemble, but that ensemble is led by Carmy, played by Jeremy Allen White. He is so good. He is a once in a generation chef, but he is back home working in a sandwich shop. We find out more and more about him as the series is going on, and I cannot wait to see where they take him. His "cousin", to whom there is much discontent, is skillfully played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach. He is so good at being the hot headed "know it all" who doesn't want any change to his "system". Ayo Edebiri is so good as the new up and coming chef who wants to learn from Carmy. She is awesome in this role. She really gets to stretch and try some new things. She should get way more work after people watch her in this. The rest of the crew is great. Lionel Boyce is Marcus and he wants to be a pastry chef so bad. Liza Colon-Zayas is Tina and she has no time for nonsense and has been at the shop since day one. Edwin Lee Gibson is the old soul that likes having stuff to do. And the rest of the crew is there to crack a few jokes every now and then. We also get a nice turn from Abby Elliot as Carmy's sister. It is pretty cool to see her do drama. Oliver Platt has been in a few episodes and he does a low leverage gangster pretty well. And Joel McHale is there being a total dick, which he thrives at doing.

This show has me hooked. Outside the cast, the food looks amazing. They do long, slow motion shots of people cooking and the finished product, and I get hungry just watching. I love Italian Beef sandwiches, and the way they make them look on this show makes me want to travel to Chicago right now. They also have some of the best shots of donuts I have ever seen. They look better on this show than they do on some Food Network or Cooking Channel shows. The sandwich shop is old and dingy and perfect for what they do. The kitchen looks and feels real. The alleys are grimy. Some of the neighborhoods look sketchy. It all works.

This is the best cooking show on TV. It is also one of the better comedy/drama shows that are out there right now. It is also unique and new. It is not a reboot or a retread. It is a new idea that they are nailing. Go watch "The Bear". It is really for anyone that likes cooking shows and great TV. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": St8 Pub Edition

"Bar Rescue" is back. I know that I'm a little late on my review of the mid season premiere, but other stuff has come up. Do not worry, I will be here every Monday from here until this season ends to update you on all the new episodes of the fifth season of "Bar Rescue". I have to say, with what is going on in the world right now, a show like "Bar Rescue" lets me escape the nightmare for at least an hour, and I am very grateful to Spike TV for this. So, lets get to it. 

On Sunday, Taffer and crew were back to rescue a bar that was in disarray in a small suburb of Denver, Colorado. The bar was called St8 Pub. I do not like this name. I'm not a fan of using numbers in place of letters. If this makes me a curmudgeon, so be it. I don't use emoji's, any abbreviations or numbers when texting, writing, or talking. I use full words and something like this seems lazy to me.

Anyway, this bar was small. It was only about 1500 square feet and only had one of each, a speed well, bar top and POS system. That is incredibly tiny. Anyone that has worked in the food industry knows how small that is. To make matters worse, the owner of St8 Pub was given the bar as a gift. He had to pay nothing for it. It was handed to him with the caveat that he would furnish it and pay the bank monthly rent. Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, this guy decided that he would rather forgo paying any rent and just get absolutely sloshed every night. When Taffer and crew arrive at the bar in their car and watch from outside, as they always do, all they see is the owner pounding drink after drink and shot after shot. To make matters worse, he would berate customers and kick them out if he didn't personally like them, and he let his friends drink for free, as long as he could get wasted with them. He also only had one other employee. It was him and a lady named Caitlyn working there. Caitlyn, to her credit, worked her tail off. She would tend bar and do anything that she could do to keep this bar afloat. She was the one who called the people at "Bar Rescue" to come and save the bar. The owners mom was there all the time too, but she was more so there to help out and continue to feed into her sons ego and alcohol problem. She was an enabler. I'm sorry to say that, but it was clearly evident that she saw nothing wrong with what her son was doing.

When Taffer sent in his spies, he first had them order a beer. The beer was served in a mason jar, and the bar expert blew his stack at this. This was an act of terrorism in his eyes. Then, Taffer had the spies order food, and what they saw next made them, and me for that matter, sick to their stomachs. The owner doubled as the chef, and prior to making the food, he smoked a cigarette and took out the trash, never washing his hands before touching the food. That is disgusting. He did put on gloves when making the food, but he kept touching the cutting board and kitchen top and wiping sweat off his face and forehead, rendering the gloves useless. The food he made, a sloppy joe, looked disgusting and looked like mystery meat, which he microwaved. It was gross.

This was when Taffer and crew blasted into the bar and proceeded to destroy this owner with words. They called him every name that every episode of "Bar Rescue" uses. He was a failure, a loser, a drunk, a low life, all bad things, this guy was called. It was brutal and I could not look away. Taffer even went as far as to mock the guy by taking his hat off his head, put it on his head, do an "impersonation" of the owner, and it was one of the most glorious moments ever on any episode of "Bar Rescue".

During this magnificent attack, we come to find out that the owner has not paid rent in 13 months, the exact amount of time he has owned the bar, that he was in debt 35,000 dollars with the bank, and had he not paid them in full by the first of the month they were going to shut down the bar, and that his mom was paying his rent for his apartment. This dude was a real piece of work. He tried to fight back when Taffer was crushing him, but he was too drunk and I genuinely feel like this talk opened his eyes. This was a berating that actually held some weight.

After Taffer closed the bar down, he had everyone come in when they sobered up so they could have a talk. This was when the owner owed up to everything he had done, and was doing, was wrong. He laid it all out on the table. Taffer and crew also proved that he and his one employee knew nothing about craft beer, which they claimed to be experts in. They immediately began training, and also had the owner hire some help. Of course they got up to speed and they got some fresh faces the day before stress test.

Needless to say, stress test was a nightmare. Nothing went right. Drinks were poured wrong. Beer was poured improperly. Food died in the pass. Tables never got drinks or food. It was your typical stress test. They shut it down, got to the root of the problem, and Taffer brought in his people to fix the place up. There was the heart to heart with mother and son. Son owned up, once again, to his mistakes and Taffer had that creepy smile on his face when they resolved their conflict.

When they came back for the re open, things seemed to be much better. Taffer renamed the bar Downstairs Pub and Grill. I very much dislike this name. He wanted a whole "man cave"(I despise this pairing of words), vibe, and he figured downstairs was where these man caves exist. He also put up fake pornography magazine cover photos on the wall. It was so god damn stupid. Other than those two dumb things, the inside of the bar looked much better. They had a new bar top, new stools and chairs, more POS systems, a better draught system and easier, better cocktails and food. The kitchen also looked much better. Smaller pots and pans, most everything used a pressure cooker and a fryer, so it was much less clutter. The kitchen was cleaner too. During the re open, everything ran much more smoothly. Food and drink was getting to the tables in correct timing, and everything, according to the customers, tasted very good. It was a great turnaround, as it usually is with most bars on "Bar Rescue".

When they did the 3 month check up, the bar was running smooth, the owner did not drink on the job, was paying his own rent and had a plan in place with the bank to pay them back in smaller increments over a certain period of time. It was your typical "Bar Rescue" ending.

We all need our heroes in dark time, and the crew of "Bar Rescue" are my bright knights. I'm very happy this show is back for me to review for everyone, and I cannot wait until next week to watch the new episode and write about it next Monday. "Bar Rescue" is back. Woo hoo!

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. When the world gets crazy, all Ty can do is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Man Seeking Woman"

I'm a big fan of the television show "Man Seeking Woman". I have watched it from the start. I was excited to see Jay Baruchel in a leading role on a sitcom. I've been a fan of his since I first saw him on "Undeclared", and the fandom only got bigger after seeing the excellent movie "Goon", and his role in "This is the End". I am also a Eric Andre fan. I think you all know this very well by now. So, I was pumped to see him in a major supporting role. Other than those 2, I hadn't really heard of anyone else that was going to be on the show, but I really have grown to like Brit Lower, she plays his sister, and the actors that play his mom and dad.

"Man Seeking Woman" has a simple premise based on a book with the same title. Jay Baruchel plays Josh, who is unlucky in love. Eric Andre is his best friend and the first two seasons were basically about their many mishaps when meeting ladies and the things that happened afterward. I thought it was great. I found the show funny, unique and very cool. They took things to the literal point on this show. In one episode, they mention going to a destination wedding, I believe I have brought this up on the podcast before, and the destination is hell. Well, the wedding is literally in hell, There are devils and demons poking and prodding people with pitchforks and everything. Most episodes are like this, and I think that it is great.

Then, when I saw promos for season 3, I saw that Josh had a steady girlfriend. I had a lot of questions going into season three. I thought, were they going to focus on Mike(Eric Andre) more? Or maybe it would be Josh's sister who got more screen time. Side note, there is an episode in season 2 where Josh's sister has an affair with Santa Claus that is so god damn good. Seriously people, go watch that episode. Maybe they would focus on the parents more. I really did not know what to expect.

I have to say, this season has been just as good, if not better than the previous 2 seasons. I know it is called "Man Seeking Woman", and the "man" now has a "woman", but that has not slowed the show down a bit. The show is just as biting and satirical and literal as it has ever been.

They did a whole unwanted citizen type theme for the season 3 premiere. Josh was staying at Lucy's(Katie Findlay, an excellent addition to the cast), his new girlfriend's apartment all the time and her roommates were fed up. So, the writers treated the whole episode as if Josh was an illegal immigrant. It was timely without the show knowing it would be timely, and it wrapped up very sweet, with Lucy leaving her cushy apartment to stay with Josh. I wish some of the monsters we have in government now would watch this episode to see how stupid they all truly are, but I know they would not get the joke.

From there on, each episode has been pretty decent. We have Lucy moving in with Josh and changing his whole place around so it suits her needs, only to realize this makes Josh upset. There was an episode where Lucy and Josh get into a fight and Josh escapes to Mike's "Bro Island", that was hilarious. There was an episode that showed the way different age groups act, like Millennials and Baby Boomers. They have the whole meeting the parents thing, which was a real standout this year, especially the episode where Josh meets Lucy's parents. I loved the whole "Where the Wild Things Are" theme they used.

Then we have this past Wednesday's show. It was real, real good. Josh and Mike are playing video games, and Mike inadvertently looks at Josh's phone for some info. As soon as he unlocks the screen, he sees that Josh has an article up about asking your girlfriend to have, and I'm not being gross, this was what came up, anal sex. Mike is thrilled, but he says that this is something you have to ask the Father of your girlfriend if it is okay, a la marriage. There is a great scene following that when Mike gets Josh's sister involved in the debate, and she agrees with Mike. So, Josh asks, Lucy's mom and dad say that they've been waiting for this day, then nonchalantly, Mike asks Lucy's parents if he can propose marriage to her, and they kind of blow it off and say sure. It was funny. The rest of the episode focuses on how much anxiety something like proposing can cause, and they never touch on the anal sex thing again. I loved that they showed how much terror the person asking someone else to marry them go through. I also love how they show the one being proposed to is overly prepared and just wants it to happen, no matter what. It was a very good 22 minutes of TV.

With all that being said, my fears that the show wouldn't be as edgy or literal as it was for 2 seasons were for naught. It is just as funny, takes just as many chances and the addition of Lucy was an absolute grand slam. I'm a big, big fan of this show and I think many more would be to if they gave it a shot. Go check "Man Seeking Woman" out, it is well worth your time.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is still working up the nerve to ask his wife's parents if he can marry their daughter. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.