Rebounding With A Bear
Coming into season 4 of the wildly popular The Bear, I feel like the cast and crew knew that they had a bit of atoning to do. Anyone who has ever seen/read anything having to do with being a member of a kitchen’s staff– from Anthony Bourdain’s shows and books, to Gordon Ramsey’s cooking competitions, etc knows that there is a certain level of chaos that undoubtedly manifests in kitchens amongst the crew; this however, has to be balanced by the joyous moments that are also created in order for any staff to ultimately drudge on and be successful. The Bear season 3 was almost all chaos and nonstop yelling (with the exception of the episodes “Napkins” and “Ice Chips”) much to the season’s detriment. Season 3 lacked the tiny, quiet, heartfelt moments that, at least for me, were what made the show such a TV highlight in the first place; so if season 4 was going to rebound, it needed to really rediscover those moments. Overall I feel like it did exactly that.
The plot of the 4th season boils down to three major conflicts: first, immediately following the release of a less-than-stellar Chicago Tribune article, The Bear (the restaurant) has to have a major turn around financially in order to remain operational. The second major conflict of the season revolves around Sydney and whether or not she will end up accepting the offer made to her in season 3 by Chef Adam Shapiro to become the Chef de Cuisine of his new restaurant. The third major conflict of the season boils down to Carmen more-or-less figuring out how to communicate with the people he cares about.
Right out the gate, the crew of The Bear are given a countdown clock by Uncle Jimmy and Computer displaying 1440 hours– the calculated amount of time they have to make the restaurant profitable. For a show that has always had an intricate relationship with time (each season there seems to be at least one flashback episode) it is a somewhat bold choice to use a ticking clock as a plot device. I will say the clock does a good job as a visual representation of just how tangible the stakes really are, and by the end of the season, when it does indeed hit zero, I felt like the pace that the clock device set throughout did help to speed us through. The countdown coupled with the diminishing overhead costs really force Carmy and his crew to pick a lane, finally putting an end to the dreadful chaos menu, as well as forcing Richie and the newly hired former Ever front of house staff to get back to providing a top notch dining experience for all patrons of The Bear, culminating in one of the season’s best “quiet moments” in the third episode “Scallop”.
The second major conflict of the season is Chef Sydney’s having to decide between staying with The Bear or going out on her own by joining Chef Shapiro’s new restaurant. We have seen throughout the course of the show that, due to her past failures, Sydney struggles with the notion of taking control. There is a delicate dichotomy between her love for her family (both nuclear and in regards to her Bear coworkers) and her passion/drive to succeed and gain notoriety for herself apart from Carmen that manifests itself in various ways this season– my favorite being her talk with her cousin’s daughter about sleepovers in the episode “Worms” (an episode actually written by Sydney actress Ayo Edebiri). Sydney’s decision to stick with The Bear hit the mark for me, and did lot to lay the groundwork for a potential fifth season; although I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that the possibility of seeing a full on Chef Carmen vs Chef Sydney restaurant showdown, despite how against the underlying themes of the show it would have been, was kind of intriguing.
The third, and ultimately (arguably) most important conflict driving season 4 deals with Carmen and his inability to adequately communicate with the people he loves. One of the biggest failures of season 3 for me besides how chaotic and loud every single episode felt, was that Carmen is merely relegated to being this kind of shit-stiring background player whose sole purpose the entire season seemed to be simply destroying the very things he loves. Season 4 does a good job rectifying that awful character arc throughout, toning down the chaos around Carmen, as well as directly addressing the idea of the noise in his head being “so loud”. I don’t think that there is a single fan of this show that was excited about Carmen and Claire’s breakup at the end of season 2 (the show has gone out of its way to paint Claire as one of the big “helper” characters), and season 3 almost doubling down on it by not having the two interact at all was yet another strike against that season; to see Carmen literally run to Claire’s house following the aforementioned feel good service in “Scallops” in an attempt to finally say he is sorry was a step in the right direction early on in this season, giving us hope for a reconciliation. By the time we reach, in my opinion, this season’s best and strongest episode “Bears”, there is a real sense that Carmen is making huge strides towards figuring his shit out. This character growth is truly driven home in the episode “Green” when Carmen finally cooks for his mother. It all seems like this is leading to a true redemption arc for Carmen– which makes the season (hopefully not series) finale “Goodbye” both a gift and a curse. It seems like Carmen is poised to make amends with everyone from Richie to Claire… and then it just gets blown to pieces in the final minutes when Carmen reveals that in order to truly understand himself, he must leave The Bear. I’ve seen chatter online that people feel like this could be the best way to end the show– with everything just up in the air; however, I am fully ready to die on the hill of opposition: not only is this not the way this show should end, but I will also argue that “Goodbye” is the worst episode of the season hands down. Here we are back to everyone screaming at each other, and talking over one another, to the point that what should be a massive, Earth shattering revelation from Carmen to Richie (that he actually did go to Michael’s funeral but got so rattled that he couldn’t stay) just gets lost amongst the chatter. Is “Goodbye” an effective cliffhanger ending? Sure, but if that is how it ends, this sucks!
A few other little notes about things from this season:
- Will Poulter’s Luca should be a series regular going forward
- The scene in “Tonnato” when Carmen finally has the long dreaded one-on-one sit down with Donna is arguably one of the deepest, most emotional scenes in the series thus far. Kudos as always to Jamie Lee Curtis, who once again completely dominates every second of screen time she is given in this show.
- I must confess that the whole “green sweater” thing not being properly paid off by the end of the season was a major miss for me, especially if this really is the end of the show– to have that NEVER get paid off would be an absolute bummer.
- Props must be given once again to whomever selects the music for this series– absolute chef’s kiss once again.