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‘The Bear’ S4E6 Review: Rocks and Isolation - Substream Magazine

“Every customer gets treated like one of us. Every customer is family.” 
The Bear is a pressure cooker, as any restaurant would be. As in many workplaces, camaraderie develops through the highs and lows of the business. With Carmy and co, they’ve all been through the ringer together; a complete tear down of an old establishment, the stresses of building a new one with ridiculously high standards, and everything in between. 
In “Sophie,” various characters are experiencing that “everything all at...
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‘The Bear’ S4E5 Review: Nothing To Prove - Substream Magazine

Sometimes it takes a person you love to pull you aside and offer you some simple words of wisdom for things to fall into place. Carmy has been trying to set himself free from the extreme expectations he’s placed upon himself. If it’s not chasing that Michelin star, the menu always has to change. When you are a driven person, it’s easy to become tunnel-visioned. Carmy’s stress became everyone else’s burden, and the restaurant was an amalgamation of all of it. But there’s a slow, calm transformati...
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‘The Bear’ S4E4 Review: A Big Decision Over Hamburger Helper - Substream Magazine

For as great as it is to see “The Bear” have a collective calm around the restaurant as Carmy transforms, we need a break from that. Better to get it in one of the show’s specialties, a character episode, separate, but adjacent to the main story at the same time. “Worms,” co-written by Ayo Edebiri and Lionel Boyce, delightfully centers Sydney’s character as she’s mulling over the decision to stay as a potential The Bear lifer or to start anew at Shapiro’s new restaurant. It’s the most crucial de...
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‘The Bear’ S4E3 Review: It's Hard For Me To Say I'm Sorry - Substream Magazine

Carmy is slowly, but surely letting go of the reins of “The Bear” – thus, also learning how to try to become a whole person outside of the kitchen. As a result, the restaurant staff is emerging from the doldrums of “Soubise” and coming more into its own in the third episode, “Scallop.” Ebraheim has taken the initiative on his own and consulted a business consultant named Albert (with a cool cameo from Rob Reiner). Richie has command of the front-of-the-house and makes a family’s snow dream come...
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‘The Bear’ S4E2 Review: Love Is Not Enough - Substream Magazine

Could “The Bear” exist without…the bear? If “Groundhogs” showed Carmy’s passion lit to the hottest embers, “Soubise” is the restaurant and its dream matriarch at one of its lowest points. You can’t shake the overall dourness that permeates throughout this entire episode. Budget cuts have extremely limited what The Bear can do. They are in a deficit with the farms to which they are paying the same amount, but getting half the produce they need. Richie is having trouble finding a Vince Lombardi-li...
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‘The Bear’ Season Premiere Review: Two Minute Warning

At the very end of The Bear’s season three finale, “Forever,” the verdict is in and the review has been published. Of course, it wouldn’t be a television show if it didn’t leave viewers in suspense.  It turns out that the review in the paper was less than stellar, as we see in the season four premiere, “Groundhogs.” There were bright spots, looking at Ebraheim’s sandwich window (that’s the money in terms of the restaurant). But the constant changing of the menu and the overall chaotic atmosphere...
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‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 6 Review: A Cost

This review includes spoilers for “The Last of Us,” Season 2, Episode 6. 
The biggest question up for debate in the aftermath of the season one finale, “Look For The Light,” is whether Joel is correct in what he did during the (let’s say) “siege on Salt Lake City.” The game allows for ambiguity because it doesn’t cover as much of the in-between backstory. The Last of Us‘s penultimate episode, “The Price,” shares the 16th birthday celebration at the museum and the porch conversation with its digi...
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‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 5 Review: No Turning Back - Substream Magazine

This might feel weird, but I think the proper way to discuss  “Feel Her Love” at first is with song choice – particularly during the end credits. Pearl Jam’s 1996 song “Present Tense” is the last of two of their songs featured in the episode (we’ll reevaluate to “Future Days” in a minute). As the sixth episode signs off, it plays the song’s first verse (feel it’s very intentional), “Do you see the way that tree bends / Does it inspire? / Leanin’ out to catch the sun’s rays / A lesson to be appli...
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‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 4 Review: Together - Substream Magazine

“The Path” was the eulogy to “Through The Valley,” where the audience and characters alike said their proper goodbyes to “The Last of Us” of season one. It was emotional and heartwarming but foreboding. With “Day One,” Ellie and Dina embark on a journey that will change them forever. In the literal sense of the word, their relationship dynamic changed, and they could consummate their love for one another. Something about the thought of losing someone for good drives that point home: there’s the...
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‘The Last of Us’ S2, Ep 3 Review: In The State of Mourning

With how emotional most of “Through The Valley” was, “The Last of Us” was due for a bit of respite. That’s not to say “The Path” is a conventional, somewhat low-grade transitional episode. Not in the slightest. The third episode displays incredible character work from Bella Ramsey, both in dialogue and from facial expressions. If anything, look at the first two episodes of season two as a prologue for what’s to come. We are posed an important question to ponder, echoing as we go through the post...
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‘The Last of Us’ S2, Ep 2 Review: The Shadow of Death

“Through The Valley” was the episode that people who played the game iteration of “The Last of Us: Part II” had circled and dated. One, because we all wanted to see how people who are experiencing this story for the first time feel about “THAT MOMENT” happening. Second, it’s reliving that moment in a live-action capacity and seeing if the despair translates. For the most part, it does. For someone like Joel, who is always prepared for the worst in combat situations, to die in that way is horrify...
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‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 1 Review: Sins of the Past

There are a couple of storms on the horizon in “Future Days,” but the one most harrowing within the first episode is one of resentment and longing. Parents and their children naturally experience a period of uneasiness when both entities don’t understand one another. A mother and/or father is inclined to protect their children from all the evils in the world – but the day will come when their child will want to cut the chord. With Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal), there’s a different...
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‘Yellowjackets’ S3, Ep. 4 Recap: That's Power

Even if Yellowjackets hit a snag with “Them’s The Breaks, “12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis” feels like it gets things going again—at least from the standpoint of the past timeline. There’s a trial that personifies more than Coach Ben’s guilt and innocence concerning who burned down the cabin, a shocking death, and the personification of karma in discussion and perhaps psychosis. At least in the present storyline, the deck is being reshuffled to have each of the four survivors on side missions....
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‘Yellowjackets’ S3, Ep. 3 Recap: All Gas, No Brakes

“It can be easy or hard. Either way, it gets what it wants?” The grand question residing within ‘Yellowjackets‘ is if all of these horrific things are shared delusions of trauma or if they happened at all. If your plan crashes, you watch a good chunk of your friends die and had to do unspeakable things to survive; that would mess you up. The third episode of season three, “Them’s the Brakes,” is caught in this weird in-between where it’s adding weird layers, having intriguing conversations, inje...
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‘Yellowjackets’ S3, Ep. 2 Recap: No Governance

“This place doesn’t want to be governed.”
It’s not so much that absolute power corrupts absolutely in ‘Yellowjackets,’ but rather, the pursuit of it is intoxicating. Natalie’s “Antler Queen” administration has been thriving, as shown in “It Girl,” complete with food, a (somewhat) established order, and an emotional support duck. However, the fissures within this peacetime would never remain that way. She’s facing pressure for a variety of reasons. 
The most intriguing aspect of “Dislocation” is...
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‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3 Premiere Recap: Flash Forward

I like a well-placed time jump and a good fake-out. “It Girl,” Yellowjackets’ entry into the third season has both. A question plaguing the show’s devoted viewership is the identity of “pit girl.” We (kinda) got an answer as this episode pulls the visceral, opening scene in two halves and places Mari within it. It’s been roughly two years between seasons two and three, and the Yellowjackets mysteries are still fresh. Given Natalie’s shocking death at the end of season two, things are moving cons...
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Star Wars Doubles Down On Nostalgic Adventure In First Two 'Skeleton Key' Episodes

Kids have it hard in the Star Wars universe. Take Anakin Skywalker, for example. He was born into slavery and later has to leave his mom because he’s at the center of some fate-of-the-world prophecy. If you’re a Jedi youngling studying at the temple, you barely have time to be a kid and must learn to suppress emotions we’d associate with that age. With the vast amount of planets in these galaxies, there must be a place with a healthy sense of fun and innocence paired with adventure. The first tw...
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The Listeners Review: Rebecca Hall Intrigues in Buzzy Mystery Series

It’s amazing how a cross-section of people can interpret one singular phenomenon with so many different explanations, and how each explanation can create a community, for better or worse. An earthquake, a shooting, a disease, a feeling — most people look to science or common sense, others to political conspiracies, some to God, some to scapegoats. HBO's underrated The Leftovers is a phenomenal example of depicting this, how hubris, power (or the lack thereof), fear, and ignorance can create diff...
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'Napkins' Is The Bear's Way Of Fighting Off Runaway Ambition

In a world that feels like a never-ending hamster wheel of ambition, sometimes you want the comfort of routine to get you through the day. You could even argue The Bear itself could use a bit more routine to balance Carmy’s unrelenting need to get a Michelin star. Until ‘Napkins,’ everyone gets caught up in the tornado of Carmy’s anxieties, falling in love with the wrong kind of process. It’s unclear if the partnership between Carmy and Sydney will survive or if Cicero might decide to up and pul...
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'The Bear' S3E3 Review: Repetition Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be - Substream Magazine

With The Bear, you can bank on an episode chronicling the heightened anxiety and anguish of running a restaurant. In the first season, there was the way-too-many-order meltdown of ‘Review,’ last season; it was the family and friends night gone wrong with ‘The Bear,’ and now we have ‘Doors.’ Carmy finds solace in structure because it’s the only thing he seems to have a grip on in his life. This is why he creates the non-negotiable list as a personal set of commandments to abide by. But the funny...
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'The Bear' Season 3, Episode 2 Review: A New, Shaky Chapter Is Non-Negotiable

“Take us there, Bear.” That’s a lot of pressure upon the shoulders of someone who is barely holding it all together in the first place. Is it possible Carmy is the capable leader The Bear needs him to be, considering he’s locked inside a routine that doesn’t allow for any malleability to be considerate to the others around him? “Next” perhaps feels like the collective of The Bear is looking to move forward, but not with a sense of identity other than Carmy’s quest to get a Michelin star. There’s...
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'The Bear' Season 3, Episode 1 Review: 'Tomorrow'

It’s all about what you can control, which is exactly why Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) finds his home in the kitchen preparing food. In ‘The Bear’s’ season three premiere, ‘Tomorrow,’ Carmy is writing a list of non-negotiables drawn from his previous travels and experiences. They run the gambit of saying “perfect means perfect” and “not about you,” a lot of principles that one would think are pillars of a successful restaurant. One of the very first ones he writes down is “less is more” –  somethi...
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The Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show's Intimate and Thorny Portrait Is Still Curated

It’s okay to start watching a reality television series with a healthy skepticism about what scenarios are based on fact. Who in their right mind would subject themselves to a Truman Show-esque setting where the world can see them fully, warts and all? Even in the early days of MTV’s The Real World, cameras were present, and specific edits were made to elevate drama or perhaps infer romantic liaisons more than they were for storyline purposes. I almost want to ask if people would be enthralled t
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Euphoria Ending With Season Two Wouldn't Be The Worst Thing In The World

It is March 25th, and to say that most of the main cast of HBO’s hit show Euphoria is busy would be an understatement. Zendaya is coming off the first big hit of 2024, Dune Part II, Sydney Sweeney is riding high from the successes of Anyone But You and Immaculate, Hunter Schaffer had a supporting role in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and her first starring role in Cuckoo comes out in little over a month. Then there are Jacob Elordi’s roles in last year’s Saltburn and Pris
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