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“The Bear,” a story of food and the people who make it, is back. As my favorite new show of 2022, I have awaited its return with a combination of anticipation and trepidation — as one might feel awaiting the follow-up to an album that changed your life, or when bringing friends to a beloved restaurant with the hope it will live up to your memory and expectations, and the fear that it won’t.

The first season (please go watch that now before reading further — I’ll wait) told the story of Carmen, called Carmy, called “Bear” (Jeremy Allen White), a James Beard Award-winning chef who returns to Chicago to run and refine the beef sandwich shop left to him by his late brother, Michael (Jon Bernthal). It ended with the discovery of $300,000 worth of rolled bills hidden in sealed cans of tomatoes, a magic trick that the new season does not bother to explain. (Though creator and frequent director Christopher Storer has, in interviews — it is a feature of “The Bear” that it doesn’t tell you absolutely everything about everything.)

This money, borrowed from rich Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), presumably to expand the business, inspires Carmy to close the shop and open a first-class fine-dining establishment — its creation is the business of the new season, stretched to 10 episodes from eight, along with a smorgasbord of workplace conflicts (and comedy), family issues and a romantic possibility in the person of Carmy’s old friend Claire (Molly Gordon), gorgeous — and a doctor, yet.

As often happens in a second season, the series digs deeper into individual characters, and a couple who seemed a bit of a joke last time are taken more seriously and sympathetically here. As the catalyst of the action, the figure other characters knock against and a person himself in need of renovation, Carmen drove the first season; he barely figures in some episodes this year. His sister, Natalie, called Sugar (Abby Elliott), is now inside the business, managing things. Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), a sous chef at the Beef, the sandwich shop, is now Carmy’s creative partner and head chef in the Bear, the projected restaurant.

Self-improvement is a theme — not an original theme, certainly, but, as with most everything in “The Bear,” expressed through untheatrical human speech and behavior. “We’re all here to learn,” Carmy tells the staff as they prepare for a dress rehearsal. Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) is sent to culinary school to upgrade her skills. (She will sometimes call Carmy “Jeffrey,” playing off her resentful, first-season pronunciation of “chef” as “Jeff.”) Marcus (Lionel Boyce), the baker turned pâtissier, travels to Copenhagen for a new slant on desserts, where he has a fine scene with Will Poulter, as an old colleague of Carmy’s, working dough while they trade histories and talk about excellence. Troubled, troublesome “cousin” Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), very much at the forefront this season, is dispatched to train at a restaurant so evolved it sometimes picks up a customer’s check. A man in a blue skull cap and brown apron places a decorative piece on a dessert with tweezers.

Marcus (Lionel Boyce) is the focus in Episode 4, when he travels to Copenhagen to study under a friend of Carmy’s.

(Chuck Hodes)

The series runs at two speeds — completely insane and unusually meditative — and there’s as much or more power in the quiet moments as in scenes where characters are moving at high speed and shouting over each other and the dialogue is all but incomprehensible. (A double-length flashback scene, set at a family Christmas dinner, is a marvel of organized chaos.) Storer and his editors know when to stretch time, and when to compress it, and exactly the moment to leave a scene — they do not always wait around for a last word. Takes run long — a five-minute conversation between Carmy and Sydney in a late episode, underneath a table they’re adjusting, is done in a single shot, with a slow dolly in.

There is an abundance of frame-filling close-ups. (Director of photography Andrew Wehde has a history with stand-up specials, good schooling for making the most of a face.) An incidental benefit of television — television like this, anyway — is that it allows one to study people with an intensity that would prove embarrassing in real life. You take in the lips, eyes, the line of a nose. It is sort of like falling in love.

These are, to be sure, especially good-looking or at any rate interesting-looking humans — camera-tested, made up and coiffed. But everyone has pores, and everyone who has survived into adulthood sports at least a few bumps and blemishes, and they are there to see. And you listen harder, perhaps, for the lack of extraneous distraction; it’s an unnaturally intimate view that demands an extra measure of naturalism from the performers. Nothing is remote here; to paraphrase Groucho Marx, if we were any closer, we’d be in back of them.

This makes “The Bear” electric in a way that is distinct from, though complementary to, the plot, whose various crises include broken door handles, malfunctioning fire suppression systems, mold and rot. In one of the season’s more obviously mechanical inventions, a ticking clock has been introduced into the narrative, surrounding the date of the restaurant’s opening. Actual clocks are seen throughout, along with a sign that reads “Every Second Counts”; laying out his new kitchen, Carmy times how long it takes to move from station to station.

Television and food have much in common, in the way they’re prepared and consumed. We speak of bingeing, snacking, of TV as comfort food. There are meat and potato shows with broad appeal, and exotically spiced series not to everyone’s taste; costly productions without flavor, and ones, through attention to detail, that turn common ingredients into something exquisite.

Everything matters. “It’s just a nice little fun detail so that when diners see it, they know that someone spent a lot of time on their dish,” Richie is told by a master chef (Olivia Colman, one of the season’s several famous guest stars) as she peels mushrooms. And that, in a sentence, is the recipe for “The Bear.”

‘The Bear’

Where: Hulu When: Anytime (Starting Wednesday, 9 p.m.) Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)

Talk about good network synergy: Last year, “House of the Dragon” co-creator/showrunner Ryan Condal referred to his then-new “Game of Thrones” prequel as “‘Succession’ with dragons.” And he’s right; despite their obvious differences, at their core those HBO series have lots in common — most specifically, ostentatious displays of ultra-wealth.

But they’re far from alone: These days, TV is positively rich in stories about those with more money than they can ever spend. “Industry” (HBO) goes into the trading floors of London; “You” (Netflix) brings its American antihero to UK academia, where he rubs elbows (and more) with the idle rich; “Loot” (Apple TV+) looks at the deserted wife of an ultra-rich tech giant; “The White Lotus” (HBO) shows the wealthy frolicking (and dying) in Italy; “Billions” (Showtime) turns mergers and acquisitions into a blood sport; and “Yellowstone” and “1923” (Paramount) focus on what it means to be moneyed on the range.

And in most cases, the rich are getting totally roasted.

“A lot has changed in the way we see [ultra-wealthy] people, because we see them more [publicly] now,” says Sera Gamble, “You” executive producer. “Someone who is unbelievably wealthy, stepping forward with a public face and persona — that never used to happen. They decided to let us get to know them better.” Four people toast with champagne while standing on a boat with a beautiful coastline behind them in "The White Lotus."

Aubrey Plaza and Will Sharpe play newly rich characters joining rich friends played by Theo James and Meghann Fahy on vacation in “The White Lotus.”

(Fabio Lovino / HBO)

In doing so, the impression that’s been left is usually far from positive. As wealth inequality increases in the U.S., the aspirational tone evident in series from the past such as Robin Leach’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” and “Dynasty” or such films as “Wall Street” (which turned “greed is good” into a mantra for the ambitious) seems to have taken a turn. Today, TV series are more likely to show how callow, capricious and removed from reality those with too much money can be. The message is no longer that “money can’t buy love or happiness” but that “money turns you monstrous.”

“House of the Dragon,” which takes place in the fictional medieval land of Westeros, is led by the dynastic “billionaires of their time,” the Targaryens, as executive producer Sara Hess says. But the fact that kings rule the land doesn’t disconnect the message from today’s modern world, she adds. “We don’t have kings any more — or never did in this country — but maybe human society, in the end, wants that,” she wonders. Today’s ultra-wealthy “might as well be riding dragons. The equivalent is they’re launching their own rockets into space.” A scene from "Succession" in which the cast is seen on the grounds of a Tuscan villa.

Jeremy Strong (left), Kieran Culkin and Brian Cox co-star in “Succession,” with a storyline that saw the fictional Roy clan take private jets to a wedding in Italy’s Tuscany region.

(Graeme Hunter / HBO)

An effort to keep things light and hopeful reigns at “Loot,” with the focus on a newly independent, newly ultra-rich ex-wife trying to do good in the world. “We’re writing the flip side of [‘Succession’],” says Alan Yang, series co-creator with Matt Hubbard. “As in, what if you had a brighter view of humanity but people were still messing up left and right?”

Gamble says this fourth season of “You” came out of gathering in the writers room during the pandemic and leaning into a new “cultural awareness” of these newly visible billionaires.

Getting to turn the fictional tables on them (which the series has done to a lesser extent in its previous seasons) was cathartic, she reveals: “If it weren’t in some way fun to write about subversive stuff, I wouldn’t have spent the last years of my life writing people getting shoved off buildings and thrown in meat grinders.”

But a show like “Industry” isn’t interested in catharsis or lessons. Its approach, which focuses on rookies running the gantlet of finance, doesn’t judge, says Mickey Down, co-creator with Konrad Kay. “We never want to be didactic in the way we tell this story. We want to allow the audience to make up their minds. I have people LinkedIn-ing me, asking if this is a recruitment tool for finance…. Which is scary.”

Kay, however, says the glut of ultra-rich stories has never been about raising awareness or stoking anger. “A lot of the people creating this stuff — it’s privilege poking privilege,” he says. “It’s not an actual anger. It’s an anger that they think is fashionable and will sell. I don’t see it as some sort of big revolutionary act or anything.”

“Loot’s” Hubbard agrees but still hopes shows like his can move the needle among audiences. “It’s not our intent to change the world, but people are influenced by what they consume,” he says. “I think these shows can be a small part of starting the conversation with people. You can have a minute grain-of-sand influence.”

What they’re really reflecting by showing (and skewering) the rich and powerful is much deeper, “Dragon‘s” Hess suggests. “I think there are fewer people in society who think, ‘If I work real hard, I’m going to have [Jeff] Bezos [level] money.’ We are sort of at a cartoon villain stage. So if they’re ruling over us, it’s good to see them having a s— time. But in the real world, those people get to decide things about our lives that are less than equitable. It’s like a monarchical decree you can’t do anything about.”

She pauses, then adds, “Maybe capitalism is our king.”

Warner Bros. Discovery has been making significant personnel cuts throughout the media company to help reduce its debt.

But there is one division where layoffs can prompt Hollywood types to charge down Warner Boulevard in Burbank with metaphorical pitchforks and torches — the cable channel Turner Classic Movies.

David Zaslav, chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, is learning as much this week as he faces blowback over changes at TCM, which curates and shows uncut, ad-free pre-1980s films that provide viewers a portal into Hollywood history. Its loyal viewers include some of the top directors in the business, Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, among them.

Their alarms sounded earlier this week when companywide layoffs wiped out the entire tier of top management at the channel, including Charles Tabesh, the longtime senior executive in charge of programming.

Veteran general manager Pola Changnon is also leaving, along with the executives overseeing marketing, strategic partnerships and studio production.

The network is being added to the portfolio of Michael Ouweleen, who oversees Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Discovery Family and Boomerang.

Aware that the cuts would generate anger, Zaslav arranged a Zoom meeting with Spielberg, Anderson and Scorsese to tell them that the staffing reduction would not detract from the channel’s mission of providing a wide range of classic films or alter the viewing experience for its avid fans. A Warner Bros. Discovery representative confirmed the call.

The trio of directors felt reassured enough about the Wednesday meeting to issue a statement expressing their belief that Zaslav understands the channel’s standing in the film community.

“We have each spent time talking to David, separately and together, and it’s clear that TCM and classic cinema are very important to him.” they said.

The directors have long been devoted fans of TCM, which they say helped educate them about their craft. Anderson told The Times in a 2021 interview that he had the channel on in the kitchen of his home 24 hours a day. “I’m always afraid I’ll miss something,” he said. “It’s a bottomless pit of inspiration.”

Fans on social media echoed that sentiment this week. “Please tell me TCM will be alright,” “Succession” co-star J. Smith Cameron said in a tweet. “If not, it could be the loss of the last, tiny, perfect remnant of civilization that we have left.”

Vincent Alexander, an animator, wrote on Twitter: “TCM is not just the best thing on TV, it’s so important for the preservation of classic films. Destroying it to save a few dollars is truly evil. I hope it can be saved before David Zaslav gets away with this.”

The directors could yet see a positive outcome from the Zaslav meeting. Warner Bros. Discovery may reconsider the layoff of Tabesh, who has maintained the channel’s focus and elegant atmosphere over the years, according to two people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to discuss internal personnel matters. A representative for the company declined comment on the matter.

Bringing Tabesh back to the fold would not resolve the larger challenges facing TCM and all cable networks that depend on pay-TV subscriptions for their revenue.

Cable and satellite TV subscribers are declining at a steady rate as streaming video becomes the medium of choice for consumers. With every consumer who drops a pay TV package, revenue for TCM goes away. Around 60% of U.S. homes subscribe to a pay-TV service, according to a recent SVB MoffettNathanson study. The figure was greater than 80% as recently as 2016.

Streaming TCM content is available as part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max platform (formerly HBO Max), but it is hardly representative of the breadth of the cable network’s offerings. In addition to a wide selection of films that date back to the silent era, TCM viewers count on the insights provided by its expert hosts, history-packed interstitial segments and interviews with legendary figures in the film industry.

As cable and satellite revenue declines, Warner Bros. Discovery will have to consider how its brand-name cable channels such as TCM survive. TCM could live on either as part of Max or as its own direct-to-consumer offering that fans could buy without a pay TV subscription.

One factor in TCM’s favor is that Zaslav likely does not want to anger Hollywood elites more than he already has.

Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery infuriated Hollywood talent by lumping directors, writers and producers into a single generic category labeled “creators” within the credits of shows and movies on Max. The company has apologized, calling the move a mistake that will be corrected.

Zaslav’s substantial compensation package has been used as a cudgel by Hollywood scribes during the Writers’ Guild of America strike.

TCM fans have been inflamed before by previous owners. AT&T in 2018 axed TCM’s streaming product FilmStruck as one of its first orders of business after it acquired Warner Bros. parent company Time Warner. Criterion filled the void by launching its own service, the Criterion Channel.