The Bear: Season 4: The Off-Balance Review.
Let it rip.
The Bear’s fourth season debuted in its entirety on June 25th. This review will discuss the season in detail, including the finale.
Please consider this your spoiler warning.
Otherwise, if you’re looking for the Off-Balance review of S3, you can find it here.
As always, thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Ryan.
Over the course of its first three seasons, perhaps no project currently on television has seen itself caught between competing instincts more strongly than The Bear.
On one hand, yes, it has more than earned its praise as one of the most character-rich outfits on record. Highlighting its full ensemble in earnest while still orbiting around its primary stars to noted highs, even in the face of openly ruffled feathers by its peers come awards season (a one-to-one comedy, it very much is not).
Though on the other, the show’s third season saw it adapt a more active experimental edge, to solid, if notably divisive ends, a full degree removed from the plane of chaos incarnate on which its world was initially introduced: slower, exploratory and prioritizing slow-drip character growth over traditional plot movement.
But with its fourth season, which dropped in one ten-episode batch late last month, The Bear, in melding those two approaches together has (if through brute force alone) recaptured a fair amount of its previous momentum.
Mostly to success, as it begins, presumably, to place its endgame on the burner.
After being informed by Pete (Chris Witaske) at the close of the previous episode that Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) has removed himself from the restaurant’s partnership agreement, as the season finale begins, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) is reeling, though not just with the immediacy of that decision.
Following her impromptu meeting with Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) at the wedding, Sydney finally seems to have a fuller picture of the abusive, destructive bedlam that formed the Berzattos, particularly Carmy. Though catching him in the alley outside, while she expresses her understanding, she just can’t grasp why he’d chose to walk away from everything they’ve built at The Bear.
Sydney is usually placed as the foil to her one-time idol, boss/mentor, the voice of reason within his sea of emotional turmoil but there is something of a reversal here and Edebiri plays it well. Her genuine sympathy, unable to mask her indignation, her disbelief, her frustration that Carmy is simply hoisting the entire business on her, which is still sinking, before walking away.
But Carmy counters.
He knows about Shapiro’s (Adam Shapiro) job offer and he doesn’t blame her for considering it. He recognizes now, how his volatility - the daily menu changes, the inherent, taxing perfectionism - have all contributed to their current struggles and is insistent that removing himself from the equation, once they’re financially sound, is the best path forward.
He got into cooking to escape his pain, something further amplified by Mikey’s (Jon Bernthal) suicide and despite the acclaim, the sacrifice, he just doesn’t believe in it anymore.
He hasn’t for a while.
Carmy is leaving The Bear in Sydney’s care, he says, as not only does she have the passion he has long lost, with a talent that far surpasses his own but because she has a humanity, in spite of that, which he simply lacks.
White is great here, pairing his character’s usual high-energy exasperation with an atypical, front-facing honesty but Carmy’s third statement, ironically, couldn’t be further from the truth: the exclamation point on his season-wide arc.
Though maybe that is where, in fairness, some of the critic-audience disconnect/disappointment has come from.
Because despite the baseline premise, despite the often self-gratifying indulgence in culinary industry cameos, despite what the show often circles around thematically be it gentrification, displacement or even the food, those concepts, when all is said and done, they have never been the The Bear’s true driver, not really.
Instead, it is that development of its characters on a person-to-person level in which it derives most of its juice, from the examination of mental and emotional health, to personal accountability.
And even then, Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), Marcus (Lionel Boyce) and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) have all long reestablished themselves from their initial standing, finding their place, their purpose. To a similar tune, one of this season’s best episodes (Worms) saw Sydney work through her internal back-and-forth regarding her Shapiro decision, if only by finally vocalizing what she was struggling with out loud.
The only one who hadn’t, comparatively, was Camry.
It was, of course, the crux of the third season, the titular bear, his proverbial paws stuck in proverbial honey but the purposeful stagnation of the protagonist’s arc often saw the show grind itself to the halt, in spite of wanting to build his character out from that indecisiveness and self-loathing.
But here, he came to see that holding himself back, it wouldn’t serve anyone, least of all himself or those he cares for.
He reconciled with Claire (Molly Gordon), at last apologizing for his brutal outburst at the end of season two, while come the final few episodes both seemed to have gently restarted their brief relationship that was. Inspired then, Carmy also made a modicum of peace with his mother (really, what the entire show has been building towards), seeing some similarities in their pain, if not completely forgiving her for the damage that was clearly inflicted during his youth.
Yet as Richie steps into the alley, Carmy realizes he still has one more person to make amends with.
Though at first, when he hears The Bear will be without their leader, Richie is prepared to drop Carmy right then and there, only held back by Sydney’s pleas that he hear his “cousin” out. Richie is furious, however, stating his belief that Carmy is once again choosing the path of least resistance instead of tackling his problems head on.
He was there though, Carmy says, to Richie, at Mikey’s funeral.
Having never found the time to tell Richie for one but only having recently realized, truly, that Richie lost someone he cared for too. Earlier in the season, Jess (Sarah Ramos) told Richie she recognized parallels in his ongoing conflicts with Carmy because she grew up with brothers, which Richie dismissed.
But as their conversation unfurls, both, acknowledging their unspoken grudges and frustrations with the other, from Mikey to the family, Richie, with credit to Moss-Bachrach, reveals he doesn’t consider himself part of that discussion. Just a “cousin” in the large, very-extended apparatus that is the Berzattos.
Carmy though, quietly, assures him he is more than that.
Sugar (Abby Elliott) is last but she doesn’t need to hear much. Previously having indicated to Carmy that he shouldn’t feel the need to continue cooking if his heart was no longer in it, she can only embrace her brother as Uncle Jimmy’s (Oliver Platt) clock, dictating the restaurant’s financial viability, runs down.
And so, The Bear’s fourth season ends there, on something that, practically speaking, could reasonably be considered a series finale, if only through the development of Carmy finally realizing his need to properly heal and work through his trauma. It isn’t of course, with a fifth season confirmed and with a handful of storylines still left to be fully concluded but it is clear the show, in placing its various pieces on the board as they are, has reached the precipice of its final act.
For beyond the still-present, scattered nature of the pacing, the back-and-forth Chicago B-roll or the constant, budget-flexing needle drops, there is a creeping familiarity here that continued to be present over these past ten episodes.
There may have been less of the Faks (save Brie Larson, who made fantastic use of her one-episode appearance) but as characters, Ted (Ricky Staffieri) and Neil’s (Matty Matheson) place in the show’s rotation specifically has reached a point of absurdity, a visible notion of those borders being pushed up against, just because they can be.1
If The Bear is truly gearing up to say farewell it is doing so at the right time, though with power and purpose back in its storytelling, just where that leads, one way or another, will no doubt be worth the watch.
Season finale, “Goodbye”, episode rating: 8.4/10
The Bear, Season 4 rating: 8.1/10
Now, in fairness, there is something to be said for Matheson being an accomplished, well-regarded chef in real life, only to play the complete reverse on TV, as a lovable hapless guy who is totally out of his element in the kitchen. One of those real-world details which, knowing so, definitely informs the character’s presentation as is, even if the hard comedy angle doesn’t always land.