Kermode & Mayo’s Take - SYDNEY ADAMU: when will she reach her boiling point?

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Ben and Nemone put sous-chef Sydney Adamu from The Bear into therapy. She helps whip the team at the restaurant into shape, she’s nurturing but anxious and riddled with self-doubt, not to mention a person of colour with the highest of ambitions in a profession dominated by white men. Mouthwatering, no?    We want to hear about any theories we might have missed, what you’ve thought of the show so far and your character suggestions. Please drop the team an email (which may be part of the show): [e-mail]  NEXT CLIENTS ON THE COUCH. Find out how to view here   Tyrion, Game of Thrones (seasons 1&2).  Alex and Bradley, The Morning Show (Season 1)   Tasha, Orange is the New Black (season 2)  Polly, Peaky Blinders (seasons 1&2)  Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins, The Wire (Season 1)  Moira Rose, Schitt's Creek (Season 1)  Raymond Holt, Brooklyn 99 (selected episodes)     CREDITS  We used clips from season 2 of The Bear, available on Disney+.     Starring  Jeremy Allen White as Carmen Berzatto  Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Richard Jerimovich  Ayo Edebiri as Sydney Adamu  Lionel Boyce as Marcus  Liza Colón-Zayas as Tina  Edwin Lee Gibson as Ebraheim  Corey Hendrix as Gary Woods  Richard Esteras as Manny  Jose M. Cervantes as Angel  Abby Elliott as Natalie Berzatto    Created by: Christopher Storer  Written by: Karen Joseph Adcock, Joanna Calo, Rene Gube, Sofya Levitsky-Weitz, Alex O'Keefe, Catherine Schetina, Christopher Storer  Directed by: Alan Myerson, Peter Bonerz, James Burrows, Kevin S. Bright   Produced by: FX/Hulu/Disney+    Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts.    To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail].    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, it's Simon here. And Mark. Thank you for listening. There's a special thing in our feed here and it's shrink the box. This week Ben Nome will be putting Sydney Amadou in therapy. Now Sydney is the sous chef, the fantastic sous chef from The Bear, a wonderful comedy drama set in a ramshackle Chicago restaurant run by a former Michelin-starred chef. Sydney has never held down a job for

long, often because her impossibly high standards, ambitious dishes and self-belief have meant she prefers to plough her own furrow. On with the show. No, I'm sorry. I just missed him. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I feel like at this point, I'm putting so much into this. And I don't know, man. It's the same thing that you've been saying. I know, I know, I know.

I'm not trying to... I just need your focus like you need mine. I don't want to share it. I'm sorry. Ben Bailey Smith here. And I am the moment axis. And you're back with us in the hot seat, on the hottest couch, in podcasting, for Shrinking the Box, where we put TV's most intriguing characters into therapy.

Nimone, how are we doing this week? We good? Yeah, all good. I was just slightly sidelined by Hot Couch. Yeah, I don't know. I never know with intros. Yeah. You just think... What? But it is a hot couch. I mean, we're here again. I know. And we're in a hot... we're about to be in a very hot kitchen.

Yeah. Tell us about that opening clip. Oh, that was Sydney. This week's main focus, played by Ayo Adebary, telling her boss, Kami, that he forgot to call the fridge guy. Ah, the fridge guy. It's important. We'll get on to it. It's key, isn't it? If you've seen season two, if you haven't, we will spoil it for you. So I said just go and watch it first and then come back after you've seen it. And there'll be full credits for all the clips we use in the program notes of this episode if you want to find out more. Great show and I really really was

impressed by the first series. Love a bit of family, history, like being dredged up. That's right in my wheelhouse. And season two felt like it did everything sort of bigger, for better or for worse. I think maybe for better. Definitely on the family front. I mean, they really get stuck into the kind of background for Kami and Atom.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's a much more specific focus on the arcs of everybody, even the smaller characters. And an amazing amount of care is given from the writers. I mean, particularly Christopher Storras-Bozos, who's done the bulk of it. You can feel that. He's really caring for every, do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's like he's got a box of chicks from the nursery.

And he's just making sure they're all going to be okay. Before we end. And the whole thing, like you say, you're right to mention season one, I think, up front. If you are of a nervous disposition, you haven't seen any of The Bear, like we say, please go back and watch both, but it may not be the show for you. It's high anxiety. I was on the edge of my seat from the off in both series, actually. It shows, like you say, the care that he's put into the script. That's written by Christopher Storer, but the dysfunctional family atmosphere, which I think has elements that we can all relate to at various times along the way. And characters that are lovable and relatable,

despite some of their more challenging behaviors. There we go. We're going to be focusing on Sydney this week. A reminder, of course, we're going to be covering adult issues as an adult show. So it may not be suitable for all listeners. We better get on with it. Every second counts, right? We're going to look at forgetting to mention that your mom's dead,

what you do when your boss locks himself in the fridge and spewing chunks behind the bins. Yes, chef. Yeah. So in the words of Sydney, do I have time to go outside and scream? No? Well, then let's hustle.

Please and thank you. Welcome to Shrink the Box. ["Shrink the Box"] By the by, if you want to hear Mark Kermode's review of the bear too, go to Kermode and Mayo's take on YouTube Where you can watch the whole thing is seven minutes long We'll try and do a slightly shorter recap to refresh your memories Kami, Kami Basato, Jeremy Allen White's character is this Michelin-starred chef

Who returns to his hometown of Chicago to manage his deceased brother's sandwich shop the original beef of Chicagoland It's a very sort of neighborhood-y kind of downtrodden, but lovable, you know, sort of the earth deli. Sandwich shop, yeah. And at the end of that first season, Kami's found hundreds of thousands of dollars. A lot of money. Yeah, stuffed into these chopped tomato tins. His brother's hidden them there.

And this was the money loaned to him by Uncle Cicero. And now we rejoin the crew in season two. Kami wants to turn the old sandwich shop into something upmarket with the help of his sister, Natalie, and our focus this week, the sous chef manager, Sidney Adamu. They borrow more money from Uncle Cicero. They want to open a new place as soon as possible, which they will call the Bear, which is kind of a nickname for all the Bezarto kids. And so they can earn their money back. And getting the place up is a huge, huge challenge.

From the off, like refurb, like everything. From the jump, it's a full refurb. Everybody's getting re-educated. So Sydney sends Tina and Ibra to like a culinary school. She sends Marcus to Denmark to study pastry. Richie gets sent to like an upmarket restaurant and everybody who the team meets are kind of like, they're almost like ghosts, the ghosts in Christmas Carol, do you know what I mean? Like Olivia Colman, Will Porter, all these kind of like sage people in the industry who just like give a little bit of really great advice and then just disappear. Meanwhile we get these views into Kami's past and the Basato family, the very dysfunctional Bezato family headed by matriarch Donna Bezato played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who absolutely goes for it in this.

It's an unbelievable performance. She goes for it. Yeah. So anyway, that's the sort of background to what's going on in the Bear Two. Nimone, tell us a bit about this week's client. Okay, my client this week, Sydney Adamu, female, African American, mid to late 20s, chef, single, I think at this point, hugely ambitious, trained at the Culinary Institute of America, which of course shortened to the CIA, whilst driving for United Parcel Service.

Now she did run her own catering business called Sheridan Road, which she operated out of a garage. That didn't work, it failed, It got too big too fast. So she had to move back in with her dad. She's an only child and her mum died of lupus when she was just four years old. But that might not necessarily be the first thing that comes up. What do you think is the first thing you clock as she settles down in front of you? We see her initially, and this is right back in series one. She came to see Kami because she admired him as a chef. She, she's going to throw a whole life into this project.

Very high stakes, despite the risk that it won't work. So as she tells her dad at some point, my pay is going to be withheld for six months until we actually open and he's like, so you don't actually have a job? Which is a fair, fair point, but she is totally committed and sure that this is going to work. So I'd be thinking about, are there risks involved in this that she's going to push herself too far or is she so ambitious and this is the only thing that she wants and this is the place that she thinks is going to work and it could well work for her. Working in the kitchen, you can feel it from the off,

means everything to her. And to such a point that there's no life outside the restaurant for Sydney. There aren't for many of them actually. She feels strange when she's not there. Similarly to Kami. I mean, their ambition is kind of mirrored. And there's a clip early on in season two where they're setting up the restaurant. It's not open yet. They've got a lot of organizing to do. They finally get ready to go home and they're setting up the restaurant. It's not open yet. They've got a lot of organising to do. They finally get ready to go home, and they're standing by the lockers a little bit lost. Good night.

Thanks for today, Bear. Yeah, you're welcome. We'll see you tomorrow? We'll see. Okay, well, I'm choosing to believe. Really gonna leave early? I mean, there's only so much we can do without permits. Feels weird though, right?

Very, yes. It's too chill? Well, I don't know, I can go home early. Right. Um... What are you, uh? Oh, uh, I don't know. What are you gonna do?

No idea. Yeah, you're spot on. Like once they've clocked out, they don't really know how to clock in to their actual lives. Because Kami goes home, doesn't he? He just comes straight back. And when he comes back, Natalie and Sydney, they're there. Because that's Nat you can hear who hasn't quite committed to working back with Sydney and Kami. She's Amin and Arin's Kami sister. But they've all, you're absolutely right, they've had the same idea and then they make a plan to stay up all night.

There's too much to do. There's too much to do. They know it. They're not going to be able to relax sitting at home trying to watch TV. To your question earlier on, I think what I might notice is her connection to this place, this set of people. She's going to start talking about it in a way. How high up it is in her life priorities. It's not an easy path to choose. I mean, it's a, we've seen often on screen and you've already referenced Boiling Point in life and the career in the many TV shows that we've witnessed and the column inches that have been written about chefs, it's fiercely competitive environment. Yeah. And the sacrifices that you make on a personal level can be huge and quite troubling.

You see little snippets of that. It's not spoken about explicitly, but I don't know if you remember that scene, which episode is in one of the early episodes in season two, where they're just practicing some bits at Cami's flat. But when Sydney first walks in there, there's a reaction on her face. It's quite clear. She looks looks around the walls are bare. There's nothing anywhere. It's just a couch, a table. Do you know what I mean? It's like he's not there. He's not there very much. You can see in her face like this is my future. It's inevitable.

Well, there's a lovely point at that moment as well because she goes to turn on the oven in Kami's flat and he says, wait a minute. He's got jeans in there. He opens the door. Exactly. And he takes out these similar jeans, they're folded gap style. And then she catches sight of his chef whites and the ones that he had from that posh restaurant in New York. Yeah, with the initials. On the collar. Exactly.

And then she says, I want to ask you something. And you can tell me to flip off if you want to. But when you got the call for the star, and this is, I think, I think they're Michelin stars are equivalent to. And then he explains. Really want one of these bullsh** stars? Yeah. Yeah, I really do. You're gonna have to care about everything more than anything. Hmm. And she knows, she knows, right? Deep down, she, she knew already.

And she kind of goes on to explain that about her own experience of running a restaurant, it all went pitong in the self-catering business and that's how she had to move in with her dad. He do really get a sense of her ambition at that point and how she might be willing to give up everything for it. And will that be okay? I mean that might be okay, but that's the sort of thing we might be exploring and kind of peeling back the layers on is, is she aware of the impact of what she's about to give to this lifestyle and what that might mean is not possible in terms of a personal life or whatever. Mason Hickman Emotionally, you are at risk of being isolated.

And we've talked many times on this show about the dangers of isolation and the, you know, the positivity in health terms, mental health terms of connection. So like, is it a worry that she has no one outside of that headspace, that belief to talk to you about? I mean, she's got her dad, I suppose. And he does provide a grounding point. Yeah, he says more than once, doesn't he? Look, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You're still young, there's loads of things you could do.

And is it worth it? Is it the thing? I think you've just pointed to something as well. They've all bought into it. There's a kind of normalising of this crazy, really highly stressful environment. I mean, she is a fascinating combination of really ambitious, really resilient, incredibly self-aware, and yet quite anxious. It's a kind of belonging and togetherness, but it also amplifies the pressure.

And she's found a happy place in the restaurant as well though. And it's hard because I suppose that might be what brings her to therapy in the first place is this is where I feel like I want to be. It's also hard. Is there some way of those two worlds being together or me kind of incorporating both? And we could be thoughtful together about how to have a healthy relationship with this environment because it's not always the healthiest. It's not always caring back to her and she cares an awful lot. I mean, the same goes for Kami really and several people there is what does regulation look like for those two? Sometimes it feels like they really feel that can

only make it work and be successful because they're under extreme pressure. Like they could be punishing themselves. They both might be. Sydney for her mom's death or still being alive while mom isn't. Kami for the traumatic environment he grew up in and his mother's alcoholism. Both have had traumatic childhoods. But there's also a buzz around those environments. Yeah. But there's, you know, when they're screaming at each other though, and it gets out of control really, really quickly, to do that every day for hours, that's going to be an early grave. Do you know what I mean? Well, it's interesting because for some people,

that is a normal way of relating and it won't have the same physiological effect as it might do. We look at it and go, how can they get me in a relationship where they scream at each other like that? And for some people, it might feel like that's how a relationship needs to be. Or that might be a perfectly healthy relationship.

Again, you'd want to kind of think about that with her. And also if you're running yourself into the ground, again, that might be the bit that brings her to therapy might be good ideas to bring awareness to how sustainable that is, and it might not be you that notices it might have to be a friend, a family member, her dad. He says, is this okay? I think she's quite good at deescalating.

I think she is the one of all of them who will be like, just like take it down a notch. Yeah. I think she says that at several points. Yeah, she definitely does. She's got a sense of humor about herself. Could that kind of humor be a way of covering her anxiety and nervousness or? Oh, there's no doubt that Sydney has anxiety. I think in real life, Io's spoken about how

she has a lot of anxiety and how that actually fed into the character. There's a lot of Io, I think, in Sydney. There's definitely a coping mechanism that is connected to humour and kind of breaking that kind of tension. Yeah, for sure. And she was a stand-up for a while, IO, for quite a few years. So is this something that resonated between the character and IO and you? Yeah, standups, we tend to be, you may be not the best in social situations, IRL. You could be very anxious, very nervous, but then at the same time, if you can have this controlling, sort of domineering situation where everybody has to shut up, it's like,

it's like your dream social function, like you don't have to come in there and go, Oh, how do I get in this conversation? You are the conversation and no one else is allowed to interject. So even though it's, it's anxiety inducing in a way, it's nerve inducing to go up on stage. It's also, it's quite cathartic for a lot of standups. Their natural position in life is quite anxious. Sydney clearly has issues with confidence and self-esteem. She has to convince herself that she's okay or she's looking to others for validation. You see that quite early on. She is worried about what her dad, Emmanuel, thinks of her career choice.

And he's supportive. He is supportive of his daughter, but he is worried about this environment, about being told that she's not going to get paid for six months. Is it a job? Isn't it a job? And still tells her that there's a family job waiting for her at the airport, which of course for her is just like, you just don't get it dad. It's not just a job.

Journey is, you know, it's a life choice. It might be her family. The Bear and Carmy and Natalie and Richie in fact,, Tina and Ibra. I mean, dad gives her this book to read. I think he's, it's a lovely relationship because he totally cares about her, but I think he understands that he doesn't get it. And later there's a payoff for that in this season. And he gives her a book to read about leadership by Coach K. Yeah, Coach K. And someone in the restaurant quotes it back to her,

courage and confidence lead to decision making. You can see her kind of starting to think about it as if she's trying to convince herself that she might be able to, she could lead. She's definitely not taking that role immediately. Even though, Carmée, I think has seen that in her really early on. And I suppose this is, it's kind of an imposter syndrome and it's connected to idealisation. So she's looking around, she's like, car me, definitely a leader. All the people she goes to see in the other restaurants when she's doing the tasting.

The idea that people are doing something that you can't. And there's a bit of magical thinking in there as well, which comes from quite a young place. Which of course, earlier on in your life, you can't do those things. But later on, they're not doing anything that you can't do. But that is the belief or the feeling. Working with imposter syndrome can kind of include working with the anxiety of getting it wrong, so people who are fearing failure and the thinking that they're not making mistakes. But, you know, if I try and do that, it's going to be an absolute car crash.

So there's a lot of assumptions in the thinking as well. And I'll quite often say in a therapy session, where are those perfect people? And when you actually ask people, there is a point of like, oh, actually maybe that is an assumption. Yeah. Hard for Sydney though, isn't it? Because with her mom dying when she was so young, she can imagine a perfect mom, if she wants. To what extent is all the caring and all the ambition, all the need for success shaped

for Sydney by the death of her mother? I mean, has she had to mother her father? Has she had to mother herself? There's the drive for success, which can include a negative mother complex at work, which is kind of inevitable. She hasn't had that mother. And that drive is telling us she's not good enough in her being. So perhaps she can prove that by being good enough at work.

How does it affect all our relationships? I mean, it does sound like she has and looks like she has an anxious attachment style, certainly in the workplace. We don't really see it in personal life. So she might be using caring as her way of relating in order to feel secure. And that will be completely understandable. And lots of people do,

and there's the food element of that as well. But what would it be like not to do the caring and focus on herself, which is required. Actually, that is required at the end of this season with Richie, she has to leave Kami where he is. She can't help him. And she has to get on with it. You did ask me about the kind of impact of her mother.

It's interesting, it comes up at several times and we'll see how she handles it. What's your relationship with your mom like? Okay, where'd that come from? Um, Nat invited our mom to, uh, to dinner, so... It's not, not, not good? It's not good. I mean, it's, um, it's fine. It's fine for me, because I know that it's like a... disaster. I know what to expect.

But for Nat, it's... it's really not good. She, she expects like some kind of... miracle or... something. Well, to answer your question, I, I don't really have a great relationship with my mom. She's dead. She died. I could have probably said that a bit smoother. Yeah, she died when I was like four. Lepus. I'm sorry. I feel like I should have known that.

No, don't. Don't do that thing. What? I'm sorry for your loss thing. It's okay. It happened a while ago. I don't know. Right, well. I was young, I'm sorry for your loss thing. It's okay. It's happened a while ago. I don't know. I was young. Sorry. Thank you. Yeah. So we don't really have the best relationship just because of the whole like dead thing. That'll do it. Really do it. Yeah. Clearly she doesn't talk about it much. No. If you talked about it a lot, you'd have a stock phrase for when people asked you, you know. They are being thrust into this intense environment and it's hard for her to be vulnerable in

that environment because vulnerability might have been linked to weakness for her. Yeah. And I think Kami would see that in himself too, because he's got to be strong. He's got to be strong. He stepped up for himself. He's looked after himself as we see later on in the series. He doesn't have time to be vulnerable. He's got too much he's responsible here for. And perhaps she subconsciously leans towards Kami in terms of sharing, because he also has that kind of sort of absent mother grief.

I know his mom's not dead, but... Yeah, the similarities between missing mother figures for Kami and Sydney is kind of writ large, isn't it? And like you importantly say, Kami's mom is still alive, and yet there's something missing for him, a sort of solid mother figure. I wanted to point out, I mean, the effects of losing mum will be different for everyone. And we're not attributing mothering only to a female role held by a female partner. Mothering is a verb, it can be done, it is done by everyone in various different ways. Mothering and nurturing,

we all do. We often talk about primary caregivers, but there will be the effects of being cared for or not. And the loss that is experienced by the feeling of not receiving adequate or any care from the person you expected to mother you. So there's, there's another sort of elephant in the room with, with, with Sydney's character, which is that she's black and female and young. And she's going into a world that's white and male and old. You know, those are the guys that are really running things, especially in big cities like Chicago, New York. You're not going to get like a mid twenties black girl running a, you know, an empire restaurant empire.

Yeah. But this is where we sort of see Sydney heading. You can, you can feel it. She's, she's got that ability, but she's going to come up against it, surely. And that must add to like, oh, I don't feel like I'm saying the right thing or I'm doing the right thing. If you also got the thing of you're standing out like a sore thumb. I don't think we can look at the bear without the lens of race and privilege. Can we really? Because you can't look at the bear without the lens of race and privilege. Can we really? Because... Yeah, I mean, you can't look at anything American without it. No.

Really. Kami and his sister Nat are white and a different culture. And the wider culture they come from is different to Sydney's, has implications as inherent white privilege. And some of the interactions between Kami and Sydney, it's almost like he kind of can't understand why she might not be able to step up. And that might just be a blindness because it's like, can you not see the difference here? What she might believe is possible.

What she senses can actually happen in reality. I was thinking about this in terms of the timidity in her voice. Sometimes it comes across to me sometimes like she doesn't expect to be heard. Yes, yes. Or listened to. That might be lived experience, that might be generationally passed down experience. How can she then reach the place where she fully believes that she deserves to be running the successful cool restaurant in Chicago? She really benefits from the quiet kinship with the other people of color in the restaurant.

So before things get awkward with Marcus, that's a big sort of place of safety for her. And then the sisterhood that she sort of builds over time with Tina because they clash up first in series one. There's a lovely moment as well when Sydney asks her to be her number two effectively. And you can see Tina grows almost in that moment of, wow, you, who I'm also admiring doing something that I think is really difficult and I didn't believe was possible, think that I can do this. Yeah.

That sort of points to the importance of seeing people like us do, you know, people who are like us do the things that they can do. Yeah. And in this way, she's building this, whether she knows it or not, Sydney, this new family, people who she's very close to, who are experiencing the same things as her, who understand the challenges and the stress of it. Yeah. And there's such a family feel to the bed, a wider kitchen staff are being welcomed into

this dysfunctional relationship between Richie's definitely part of this kind of inner circle family even though, and he's called cousin even though he isn't actually. That outsiderness coupled with the feelings of anxiety that we see Sydney display, kind of go to show why it's such a big deal for her to try and enter this. To make her mark, yeah. To kind of. Enter it, prove herself, all of those things. Lead.

And lead, and lead it. Lead that group who've been together since they were kids. Crazy. And they just keep coming as well, like with Claire and you know, the more... I never realized Fac was... went back that far with them. So it's like... You don't get that until the end of that episode. It's quite intimidating. It's huge. All right. Well, look, after the break, let's get deeper into... we'll dig a bit deeper into Sydney's nurturing side and we'll ask exactly what it is she's trying to fix. And of course we'll get into the fridge. Where should we go in the fridge?

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every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. The Frankies were a picture perfect influencer family, but everything wasn't as it seemed. I just had a 12 year old boy show up here asking for help. He's emaciated, he's got tape around his legs. Ruby Frankie is his mom's name. Infamous is covering Ruby Frankie,

the world of Mormonism, and a secret therapy group that ruined lives. Listen to Infamous wherever you get your podcasts. ["The Bear Hungry"] Right, and we are back. There's a huge warning that we didn't give at the top of this show. I just realised, don't watch the bear hungry. You need to have eaten.

Because even last night when I was watching that, I had leftovers from the weekend. Those are the ones that you cooked. It was my own cooking. Yeah, I heard you cooked them. There's ackee and saltfish, coconut rice and peas, fried dumplings. So my favourite dish, and I was so happy to see that there was still some in the fridge because I was on my own. Loved it. I was so full going to watch the bear. It was like perfect. But within a couple of episodes,

you might not like me be able to get to sleep because your belly's over. You've over indulged. But the bear will do it to you because like these little cutaways of, oh. So I mentioned just before we took a break there, Sydney's nurturing side, and we touched on it very briefly at the top of the show. And you've already made it clear that anyone can be a mother. I mentioned how she can bring a confrontation back down to a normal level, but also she can really boost people like she does with Tina. She can do it with everyone, I think, even the toughest nuts like Richie.

Rather than get new people into this new venture that they've got, she sees something in all of the people that are there. She's kind of clocked that there's love and there's care from the gang that they've got. Marcus, I mean, she clocks the stress that he's under from going to hospital visits and having to do the caring that he's doing. She sends him to train to be a pastry chef in Denmark to get away from caring for his mother. Well, I'm wondering about her and her needs. I mean, she's trying to create the best environment to work in. She's really trying to develop something that moves away from that stereotypical shousy pressure cooker kitchen that we see across lots of professional

kitchens that are shown on screen. And she's looking out for the people that work there, but her own needs seem to come way down the list. And I'm not even sure she knows what they are. Her first position is, I don't need anything. Like, Kami right at the bitter end of the series says that heartbreaking thing about, I don't need enjoyment or amusement. You know, and you're like screaming at the telly, dude, every human being needs those two things at some stage. And I think that is like a default position for these guys.

Like, so like you say, I agree 100%. I'm not sure if she even knows, but even if she did, she'd be like, yeah, like I really do would like to go to the cinema and see that movie. That's like in position 179 on my list. Compared to all the others. Can she learn to prioritize her own needs over others? Because lots of people will say, and certainly in the therapy room when they come, my needs aren't important, it's overindulgent to think about myself. It's too much. Can she fit her own oxygen mask type thing before fitting other people's? And I'll often use that however trite it is, because it's so counterintuitive. People look, even you're sat on a plane and you're like, why would I fit my own mask? And then it suddenly dawns on you because if you don't,

you aren't going to be any good. And that's the bit that people miss often. And oftentimes carers do not know how to be cared for. They can't receive it and they either find it hard to accept care or even recognize when care is being offered and how it could be beneficial to them. So I'd be worried about her not giving herself enough care. Also is she trying to fix this system? Because there's no doubt that it's toxic in lots of ways. In the restaurant?

Yeah, in the restaurant. And she could be, like you say, trying to care for her work family. Well, you know, where did you get your cuddles? Where did you get your kisses? Where did you get your laughs? You might not even know you need them. Yeah, but that's, I think this is why, like, everybody I know that works in that business,

they take huge breaks, like sabbaticals. You mean months off? Yeah, yeah, or years. And then they'll go into a different kitchen. Because the burnout is real. Massive. Even though she's so young, if you don't recognise what you need for your soul, I mean. Yeah, I'd want to be talking to Sydney about the sustainability of that lifestyle and what

else might need to be in place, like you say, breaks, how she supports herself, how she steps away from it in the short term and then how she gives herself some space. To get some crucial physical love actually from Nat now that I think about it. When she makes her the omelette, that hug, I don't know if she knew she needed that hug. She sees something in Nat as well, Sydney. Yeah. She wants to bring her in as the sort of operational manager of the whole shebang. She was there.

So there's a lovely scene towards the end of this season. Kami and... Oh, when they're under the table. ...are under the table. So what's great about this is there's a physical need to mend the table. Yes. Which Kami is doing. And the physical positions they're in are very strange.

Think Spider-Man and MJ. Yeah, exactly right. They are literally under the table with a screwdriver trying to fix this thing. Weirdly intimate. It's hugely intimate. It's a great setting for this conversation to unfold. You could do this without me. I couldn't do it without you.

Yeah, you could. I wouldn't even want to do it without you. You know, you... You make me better at this. You make me better at this. You make me better at this. This is where, unbelievably, moments from opening or kind of dress rehearsal night, they found space for a moment of vulnerability, but it has to be squeezed into this moment of also fixing the table. So there's kind of worth in noting that it can't happen in a more spacious environment.

They have to be, like you say, physically, pretty much almost on top of each other. Yeah. I mean, my teenage self just took over. By the end of that scene, I was just like, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss. You are going to be so disappointed. But also, I think she was lying when she said she wasn't jealous. Well, we'll come on to that. I mean, I really I'm not sure about the world, I won't.

I'm really not sure about Eva. And I'm not even sure that she wants him like that, but she wants him. Do you know what I mean? She wants what he sort of represents. It ends that particular scene where he asks her, you still like to cook right? And moments later gives her her own chef whites with her initials on. It's validation from someone she respects. You're right.

It could also be romantic. Be. I like that it's open. It's like I'm shouting kiss, kiss, kiss at the screen, but I don't really want it to happen. Because I hate it when series go all soapy and, oh, now they're married. Now they've got kids. And it's just, you know. Where's the bear going to go if that happens? So season three is on its way very shortly, which is exciting. This is when it's good that I'm really lame at watching shows, because by the time I get around to it, the new one's about to come out. Whereas everyone else has been waiting like for like a year.

I'm on the edge of my seat like when is season 2 coming? Come on. And that speculation that we've just been touching on has been happening in the wider world. So we will get into it in a bit more detail after the break. Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee-Ally Murray. And I'm Leah Prescott. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents the Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel.

Are you ever minding your own business and start to wonder, is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch real? How do the Northern Lights happen? Why is weed not legal yet? I'm Jonathan Van Ness. And every week on Getting Curious, I sit down for a gorgeous conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.

Join me every Wednesday as we set off on a stunning journey of curiosity on a new subject and dive into the archive of more than 370 episodes. Listen to Getting Curious wherever you get your podcasts. -♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, It's sharper than that though, isn't it? It's sharper than that. It's not gonna... Well, doesn't she said she gets a bit annoyed when everyone's trying to pair them off? Does she said that? That doesn't surprise me because it would lessen her character. They're intense after a fairly short time of knowing each other. But I think that is because they see similarities in each other. I think it's more twinning and almost sibling-y.

Yeah, yeah. Could we see them as codependents. They're definitely enabling certain behaviors in each other, but they don't seem to be reflective about the differences between them either. And there's safety and protection in seeing that they're similar. And I see this real sense of belonging for her, but I think that is belonging to Kami and that and Richie's gang as opposed to just Kami. Yes, I would agree with that. I think she's a bit of an ass to him, like for no reason.

Like you know when he doesn't call her about the wall, they break down the wall because they find mould. I don't think she really cares that he didn't call her. I think it's more about he didn't call in general. He is, but I think she feels let down by the joint vision that they have. Absolutely, but she doesn't say that. No. Kami should be more present towards the opening of this restaurant. He is with Claire, but I don't think that his presence with Claire is what's bothering Sydney. I think it's his absence from where she felt he should be.

Like he's promised and intimated that he wants a hundred percent from Sydney. She's kind of expecting that back. And certainly when he starts to be in a relationship with Claire, he's massively losing his focus. Sydney is giving all her time and energy into building this new enterprise with Kami. She's extremely hardworking and understanding and often towards the end of the season, Kami's attention is just not focusing. I mean, this is where it's ramping up to opening time. We get the sense of that. Yes, classic ticking clock situation.

Yeah, ever tightening deadline. And we see her working largely on her own. She's got a taste test on her own because she didn't turn up, like you say. Choose the plates, run the overall movement of getting the place finished. And then as we keep saying, they mirror each other. Maybe that is their connection. They see those things in each other. They finish each other's sentences. They are twinning. All right, let's talk about those final few scenes, Kami's in the walk-in fridge. So it's a massive lock-in fridge that you get in kitchens. Yeah, those huge ones you get. And the handle breaks off, so he's stuck in there. And this is basically his fault, because there's been talk in the past couple of episodes about

speaking to Tony about the fridge. I think it's from the beginning of the series. It might be from the start. Call the fridge guy. Call the fridge guy. Tony, Terry, no one can remember the name. But this is opening night and it just couldn't be worse timed. Almost like a Basil Fawlty moment is it's funny and it's ridiculous.

But actually for Kami it's the ultimate nightmare. Yeah. It's the kind of thing you'd actually have a nightmare about. Completely. You know? So what does this say about Sydney? What does this say about our girl? That she steps up and takes this incredible role of orchestrating this opening dress rehearsal

night, but it's big because all their friends and family are there. They didn't think they'd make it this far. I think it shows she's more resilient than she thinks she is. She draws on this inner strength that Richie's 100% seen in her, as has everybody else. Thriving on the pressure, she definitely shows maturity and a huge capacity for learning. And in a short space of time,

she became able to answer back to Kami. Just refire. You were out there talking about the West. Sid, Sid, Sid, refire the sets. They've been sitting here forever. Refire. Watch it, dude. Way down, way down. You got to take it way down. This sorry signal, he ends up doing the sorry signal to her, the sign language signal where he sort of does a fist over his heart. And that becomes a bit of a motif actually throughout this season. But it really shows that she's, she's able to be vulnerable enough to say, look, I'm really sorry that this has happened. Alongside that, do not ever speak to me like that. You've got to dial it down. And I also do want to talk about her dad in this episode.

Then when they've done their soft open for the restaurant with friends and family, and her dad is so lovely in that earlier clip. I mean, he's really rooting for her. It suddenly lands for dad, why Sydney wants to be here. And he walks up to her, she asks how the food was, and he's able to say, absolutely incredible, baby. It's the thing. It's the thing.

It is the thing you chose the right thing. You were right. Just lovely. And he's acknowledging everything, her talent, her belief in this project. And then she just vombs again. I mean, this isn't the point at which she's, she's round the back of the restaurant and she is hurling because it's just all over and she's, I suppose, relief.

Yeah. She's proved to herself that she can do it. And most importantly, she's overcome anxiety, self-doubt, she stood up to car me. She became as equal tonight. Yeah. So you'd be looking at like balancing out your life in, in general, a little bit more. And that, I suppose, points to regulation, which of course you'd be looking at like balancing out your life in general a little bit more. And that I suppose points to regulation, which of course you'd be looking at, but it might also be how aware of her body is she and what's happening. Because her body, like you say, is purging something. And there might be points earlier in the evening, in the day, where she can kind of pay attention to her body,

certainly mitigate for that happening every time she's in that environment, which you'd certainly want to do. What does she need in the run-up to a restaurant opening? What is, it might be the night off before. On the note of success, what might it mean for her to be successful and what are the implications if that doesn't happen? Because like she said earlier to her dad, I don't know if I've got

another one left in me. So what happens if it takes longer than she might have imagined? Is she allowed to make mistakes? What happens to her internal voices when something doesn't work? What are they telling her? Does she blame herself? Is she allowed to be with it or is it okay to feel the anger and frustration that she inevitably feels when faced with car me when things aren't going right? Are we allowed to be with it? Our frustration, notice the cues act on it. What happens to it? Where does her frustration go?

It might be that her bodily reaction is telling us something, but is she listening? It leaves you quite vulnerable when something's your everything. Because when you place all your self worth. It's like all your chips on black, isn't it? In one thing. Thinking it's never gonna turn red. It's hard if that doesn't work out. And that might be why it's useful for us

to think through in therapy what some of those thought processes are around our validation. And also like, I guess, asking the question why you are so all or nothing with this thing. What does it represent? Yeah, and we've been alluding to season three of The Bear. It is, in fact, dropping on 27th of June.

It might have dropped already, if you listen to this, a few days after we publish it. There will be 10 half-hour episodes in total, and they will all be available to watch on Disney Plus. I am there. Okay, this is it. It's the little imaginary drum roll. Who's going to be our next client? Our next client is Lord Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones. Come on.

He was confessing his sins to the court but perhaps not quite the sins they were expecting to hear. When I was 12, I milked my eel into a pot of turtle stew. I flogged the one I'd snake, I skinned my sausage, I made the bald man cry. Into the turtle stew, which I do believe my sister ate, at least I hope she did. I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel. Silence! What happened next? What do you think you're doing?

Confessing my crimes. Peter Dinklage, I mean, what a performance. Only the saltiest burns there. He's having so much fun in every scene, isn't he? And that voice, normally I'd have a go at the accent, but I think it's just perfect. So casting wise. It's a little pompousness.

It's a little bit like Stewie from Family Guy. It's very like Stewie from Family Guy. I mean, Tyrion has an incredible character arc in that first season, which I almost, well, for me, certainly, and I've been quite honest about this elsewhere, sort of pulled me into Kame of Thrones. He kept kept me watching he was the one that got me into it. Tyrion Lannister. It's gonna be great man. Don't forget we can't cover everything in the short amount of time that we have so please your theories anything. Oh sometimes we just miss it. Yeah exactly we didn't think of it.

So let us know what you think we'd be thrilled as well if you could follow us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your pod to get new apps. And please tell everyone you know so we can make some more. Oh, do you want to be a Shrinker? Do you want to be one of our team? You could get Shrink the Box ad free by subscribing to Extra Takes and you get the ad free episodes from Kermode and Mayo's Take, our sister pod, and all their weekly bonus episodes.

There's loads of them. So, and you can start no stress, no pressure, free trial by clicking try free at the top of the Shrink the Box show page on Apple Podcasts or just visit extra takes.com on the browser. Thank you to our production team as ever. Production management is Lily Hambly. The assistant producer is Scarlett O'Malley. The studio engineer is Gunniver Tical, and the mix engineer Josh Gibbs. Senior producer is Selena Ream, and executive producer Simon Hull. Thank you.

All right. I'm off. Get on it. Cheers.