
The Bear to stop service”>
Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edeberi in The Bear.
FX/ Hulu
Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for the fourth season of The Bear.
The fourth season of The Bear ends with a timer hitting zero. The clock is a symbolic kitchen decoration installed by the titular restaurant’s benefactor Jimmy (Oliver Platt) to give nephew Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his team motivation: If the floundering Chicago eatery doesn’t turn itself around by the time its countdown ends, he will stop funding it and, in effect, shut the restaurant down. The season ends before Jimmy shares what his decision will be (very little of this latest run of episodes is actually set in the restaurant) but by then, one gets the sense that it might be for the best if The Bear, the fictional restaurant and Emmy-winning TV show, calls it quits anyway.
It’s not that the fourth season of the FX show is bad, it’s actually a marked improvement from the third season that too often felt like an extended episode of Top Chef with its abundance of micro herbs and a sojourn to Copenhagen. There are two standout episodes built around Sydney (Ayo Edeberi), who spends most of the season agonizing over an offer from a rival restauranteur to leave The Bear (the restaurant) and head up her own kitchen. The move would bring her money and freedom but tear her apart from Carmy and her work mates. In an episode tenderly written by Edebiri and Lionel Boyce (dessert chef Marcus), Sydney talks out the decision with her cousin’s teen daughter during a sleepover using high-school metaphors to explain the situation. Later in the series, her dad has a heart attack and, by his bed side, she breaks down and apologizes for causing him stress with her life choices. In a show about healing familial trauma, it’s Sydney’s storylines with her family and her dad that feel the most real.
The Bear to stop service”>
FX/Hulu
There’s also some progress for Carmy this season, who finally realizes that he’s been using the kitchen as a place to hide from the outside world and avoid fully reckoning with the loss of his brother, Mikey. In a touching scene with his sister Natalie (Abby Elliott), Carmy apologizes for not going to meet her new baby boy. Seeing through his excuses like only a sister could, she assures him that it’s OK to feel the way he has. “You found something that you love and it’s completely 100% OK if you don’t love it anymore,” adding, “The most special part about it is that you were capable of that love.” It’s a sweet moment between siblings who, more often than not, are at war with one another.
But even these highlights illustrate the shifts in The Bear that’ve made it more of a slog to get through. Over four seasons, the show has drifted from the adrenaline-fueled mania that made its first two seasons an instant success to become a This Is Us for people who dream of a pilgrimage to Noma: an overwrought trip through the emotional wringer with added talk about the importance of set menus. TV shows are, obviously, allowed to change but watching a ragtag crew of misfits strive to transform a Chicago beef joint into something life changing just hits different than watching that same group stress over securing a Michelin star while discussing their trauma.
The fourth season of The Bear was filmed back-to-back with its third season which probably explains why both runs suffer from some of the same issues. Chiefly, an outsized amount of navel-gazing from its characters and increased self-awareness in the writing. As a show runner, it must be hard to not know what viewers expect, but it’s imperative that lapsing into cliché or caricature is avoided. Too often in this latest run does The Bear feel like it’s spinning its wheels with long drawn-out scenes flailing to reach a conclusion that’s rarely more enlightening than “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!”
The season ends with Carmy making a huge decision; he will leave The Bear with his half of the business going to Sydney and his sister. In an emotionally wrought finale, Sydney agrees on the condition that Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is also part of the deal. This brings to a close a seasons-long arc for Carmy going from an emotionally shut-off genius cook whipping a bunch of amateurs into shape into someone who can communicate his feelings to his family. But for viewers, it’s a boring realization that comes much too late. Low and slow might work in the kitchen, but TV demands something snappier.
On Tuesday FX confirmed that the show will return for a fifth season. The Bear remains buzzy and a magnet for awards, so the network obviously doesn’t want to lose it. But, unless the show plans to shift to focus completely on Sydney’s story, its last two seasons suggest there’s not enough meat left on the bones to keep viewers fed. Out of time and, seemingly, out of the kitchen, Carmy’s exit from the business should’ve been the time to turn off the lights at The Bear.