About six months ago I started watching The Bear on FX/Hulu. The TV series is about Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), an up-and-coming chef who returns to Chicago to take over a sandwich shop after the death of his older bother Michael, who ran it. The first season focuses on Carmen — along with his sous-chef, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) — but slowly the show opens over the next season into a true ensemble.

The show is, well, showy in its writing, its style of filming occasionally driving viewers to the edge. An episode that tried to capture the absolute madness of an overwhelmed kitchen and surly kitchen staff was so exhausting to me, the viewer, that I found I could not continue to binge-watch the show.

But the show won me over for its absolutely adoring portrait of Chicago and the character types that show creator Christopher Storer associates with his beloved town. The 66-minute Christmas flashback episode, “Fishes,” is the make or break for viewers. I found the portrayal of the close-quarters, cross-talking, resentments-boiling, melodramatic-mom (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) holiday feast spellbinding. Others may finally ditch the show there. I thought all the subsequent episodes from “Fishes” to the close of the second season delivered big emotional payoffs. Just for the fact that the show’s creative team is always swinging for the fences, I think it’s worth trying.