#jj.post

[let-it-rip-bear]

The Bear dir. Christopher Stone, season 1 & The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miler, pg. 5 ("The Poor Rich Child")

screencaps from @neverscreens (tysm for your service)

[let-it-rip-bear]

I KEEP FORGETTING TO POINT THIS OUT but in "System", when Richie calls Sydney "sweetheart", Carmy immediately goes "Don't say sweetheart, you fucking weirdo". I didn't think anything of it at first, especially because the this is your brothers house then why didn't he leave it you argument happens right after. But then, there's a moment in "Hands" during Carmy's nightmare in which he hears NYChef say "Take a break, sweetheart" and honestly the possibility of there being a connection is chilling to me.

[let-it-rip-bear]

Two pieces of trivia that elevate the monologue scene in "Braciole" for me (in a sort of, meta-analysis way) are:

#1: Jeremy Allen White didn't know it was going to be shot all in one take, and he's glad he didn't:

"It was the last day of filming, almost the last scene shot. So, I had this sort of like monologue in my head for the whole show. I had it folded up in my back pocket. I would look at it all the time because I felt like it was such a kind of like blueprint to Carmy's sort of brain. But then, I knew it was really important to deliver it in a way that was sort of like Carmy like making these discoveries. Like, Carmy's not a, not a vocal person, not a great communicator, and so I felt like it was important that while maybe he's thought about these things, he's really coming to realizations as he's kind of speaking to the group, speaking to himself [...] And, yeah, they shot it in one take but they did not tell me that, which I'm grateful for. I think if Chris [The Bear showrunner] had told me that we were going to try to do it in one, I, I would've gotten in my head." (via Gold Derby Interview on YouTube: "Chef Carmy is 'addicted to the possibility of everything falling apart')

And #2, he cried after the scene was shot:

"The power of that scene is palpable through the screen as a viewer, and that's precisely due to White's insistence that he give every take his all. "I was putting a lot of pressure on myself throughout the shoot," he says, and on his last day on set, that self-inflicted pressure came to a head. "I was really feeling like I let Chris [The Bear showrunner] down. I guess he sensed that a little bit, and he did that thing that just wrecks you when you're really close to crying, which is he just started gently rubbing my back a little bit." Naturally, the tears came flowing; a release White says he'd been building up to while carrying Carmy's trauma throughout the production." "(Jeremy Allen White Is Not Afraid to Cry", by InStyle's Ondine Jean-Baptiste)

To be clear, I'm not the kind of guy to conflate an actor's playing a character with an actor being a character—these tidbits just let me see the scene in a new view. At the core of it, the knowledge that JAW was so deeply affected by that scene and that he views it as a blueprint for Carmy's character is so significant to me because I think it's a sign of truly earnest storytelling. It illustrates the love, care, and thought that were put into creating the story as well as the passion and consideration that were put into telling the story. That earnest love for storytelling is one the biggest things that makes The Bear special.

[let-it-rip-bear]

WIP of a 'cover' for my pneumonia fic "did he jump or did he fall?'

summary:

"The urge to cough hits him like a train, forcing him to sit up in order to obey. Carmy does his best to take a deep breath before he lets out a long series of painful, deep, wet coughs. It’s starting to feel like he can’t breathe at all." Or: Carmy gets sick, and then sicker, and then really, really sick. It's as good a time as any for him to learn what it means to be taken care of.

[let-it-rip-bear]

EHEHEHEH i've been writing on and off all day (stuck in court, did NOT get chosen as a juror) til i got home a few hours ago. now i'm hunkering down to do a final edit before posting chapter two of the pneumonia fic!!!

[let-it-rip-bear]

I'm actively working on the second part of "Did He Jump Or Did He Fall?" (aka the pneumonia fic) but it'll take me a while to finish it completely because I realized it's a really good vehicle to have Carmy and the people in his life come to terms with his awful self-worth and the way that it hurts him and others. Which is a...big topic to write about.

Also, a fun fact as a teaser for the next part: pneumonia relapse is a real concern when a patient is in recovery; it's very important to take it easy and ask for help throughout recovery, or else you're at risk of getting sick again.

If anyone feels like it, you can ask for WIP snippets :) I think it's fun to give people lil crumbs of writing <3