When The Bear wrapped up its third season, our protagonist, Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), learned that the eponymous fine-dining establishment had just received a hotly anticipated review from a food critic at the Chicago Tribune. We didn’t get a chance to see the contents of the review, but based on Carmy’s reaction, it wasn’t what he was hoping for. A high-end restaurant with aspirations for a Michelin star is deeply dependent on the buzz surrounding it—a negative review might not kill the Bear, but it sure as hell would put the place on life support. Thankfully, as The Bear kicks off its fourth season, we don’t have to wait long for the Tribune’s headline: “BEAR Necessities Missing: The BEAR stumbles with culinary dissonance.”
Three things: One, that is some damn good headline writing; two, I had no idea “Bear” in “the Bear” was meant to be all-caps; and three, this sentiment essentially doubles as the reception to Season 3 itself. While I was still charmed by the FX dramedy in Season 3, some of my colleagues—and the wider internet—found it harder to digest. “Charm can be hard to scale, and lately so much of what enhanced The Bear in small doses early on—the celebrity cameos, the moody Carmyheimer montages, the snappy overlapped yapping between minor characters who have long histories and short fuses—is laid on so thick that it’s a bit annoying to swallow,” The Ringer’s Katie Baker wrote last year. On the whole, The Bear, both as a show and a restaurant, was guilty of getting lost in the sauce.
The Bear hasn’t entirely damaged its goodwill—if we want to keep the culinary metaphors going, you probably wouldn’t ditch one of your favorite restaurants because they served you an underwhelming meal. The real question, then, is: What do viewers want out of The Bear? There’s the part of the show that captures the pressure-cooker environment of working in a fast-paced kitchen, which is supplemented by montages that, when done right, can leave you in a transcendent state. (If not a little hungry.) Then there’s all the dicey interplay between the characters: Carmy’s complicated relationship with his family in the foreground, along with other members of the staff reckoning with problems that arise within the kitchen and outside of it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The Bear is like if Ted Lasso were set in a restaurant instead of a soccer club and dialed up the melodrama to an 11.
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In Season 4, The Bear wants to succeed on both fronts—and whether the show pulls it off is, once again, in the eye of the beholder. Picking up right where Season 3 left off, Carmy and the rest of the staff are reeling from the negative Tribune review. To make matters worse, the Bear’s backer, Cicero (Oliver Platt), has given them two months before he ceases his financial support, epitomized by a literal ticking clock placed in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Syd (Ayo Edebiri) has her own deadline to deal with, caught between staying at the Bear—which may be a sinking ship—or running her own restaurant founded by chef Adam Shapiro (played by the actor Adam Shapiro; not confusing at all). The rest of the ensemble have their own battles, personal and professional: Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is conflicted over whether to attend his ex-wife’s wedding—complicating matters is that the husband-to-be, played by Josh Hartnett, is an annoyingly nice guy—while Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) is fretting over not being able to turn out dishes in under three minutes.
While The Bear’s third and fourth seasons were shot back-to-back, the presence of an actual countdown feels like creator Christopher Storer responding to the criticisms that the series grew too slow and stagnant last year. Indeed, the show is back to its best when there’s a real sense of forward momentum, particularly in montages in which the kitchen and front of house work to optimize their performance. Where The Bear remains a tad undercooked, in my view, is in the interpersonal drama between the characters. If there were a Mount Rushmore of TV Sad Bois from the 2020s, Carmy would be carved right alongside Kendall Roy, but we’re not learning more about him as much as The Bear is continually reinforcing his shortcomings. “I’m not great with consistency,” Carmy admits this season, which is as revelatory as John McEnroe saying he’s got a bad temper.
In terms of growth, Carmy does try to reconcile with his mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), who is also working on herself after her angry outbursts alienated her from the rest of the Berzattos. That evolution extends to the kitchen, too: After months of changing dishes on the daily, Carmy is finally ready to stick to a set menu. That kind of repetitive mastery is essential for a restaurant to prosper in the long run; it’s not, however, conducive to a TV show. For a season that literalizes a race against the clock, The Bear spends too much of it going around in circles. (This issue doesn’t just plague Carmy’s arc: Syd is still contemplating the next step of her career; Tina’s only character development concerns pasta preparations; Edwin Lee Gibson’s Ebraheim remains in beef sandwich purgatory.)
While these shortcomings didn’t bother me as much in Season 3, The Bear’s failure to pick up the pace in a meaningful way this season has soured things. It’s particularly frustrating that the show isn’t quite living up to its full potential, because when everything falls into place, it’s still cooking with gas. An hour-long episode centered on Richie’s ex-wife’s wedding—which brings together many of the guest stars from previous seasons—is charming and understated, a reminder of how rewarding it can be just spending time with these characters. (Another highlight: Syd spending an afternoon with her cousin in Chicago’s South Side.) But four seasons in, The Bear can’t just be a vibes show, especially when conflict is inherent to both its setting and the characters’ interior lives.
It’s also imperative that The Bear doesn’t overstay its welcome—and, depending on how you read it, the Season 4 finale could double as the series finale. After choosing to remain at the Bear instead of leaving for pastures new, Syd confronts Carmy upon learning that he’s removed himself as one of the restaurant’s co-owners, signaling—and then confirming—that he’s not planning to stick around long term. (Carmy will, however, remain at the Bear until they can manage to keep the place running without Cicero’s investment.) Everything unfolds like a stage play, with Richie and Sugar (Abby Elliott) joining Carmy and Syd at the back of the restaurant, a setting that takes up the entire episode. “I don’t know what I’m like, Richie … like outside of the kitchen, I don’t know,” Carmy says, underlining that this decision is about self-improvement more than blowing up a good thing. The finale culminates with Syd asking for Richie to be added as a co-owner and the foursome landing on the same page as Cicero’s clock finally strikes zero.
By the end of the fourth season, the Bear is beginning to run like a well-oiled machine, signifying that the restaurant could survive on its own. As a result, that sense of contentment for the people who run it could be a fitting—if somewhat anticlimactic—bookend for the show. However, I’d place my life savings on The Bear returning for one more season. Setting aside how disappointing it would be for the series to end without giving audiences a proper send-off for the larger ensemble, there are too many dangling threads: Pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) is trying to reconnect with his estranged father; Carmy and Claire (Molly Gordon) seem poised to give their relationship another shot; with everyone’s blessing, Ebraheim could turn the beef sandwich window into a local franchise. I don’t expect The Bear to close every single loop, but there are too many story lines that remain half-baked.
What may prove more puzzling than whether The Bear gets another season is when, exactly, its cast would be able to film it. Since The Bear became a word-of-mouth hit, its lead actors have exploded in the mainstream: Over the next two years, White is playing Bruce Springsteen and [checks notes] Jabba the Hutt’s son; Moss-Bachrach has joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the Thing; and in addition to being Letterboxd royalty, Edebiri is now working with the likes of Luca Guadagnino and James L. Brooks. And that doesn’t account for wrangling all of the A-listers who appear in cameos; in Season 4, The Bear added Brie Larson and Rob Reiner to its ranks. These are champagne problems, to be sure, and considering The Bear employs so many close-up shots of its characters, there’s a way to film parts of a fifth season without all the actors present at the same time.
The more pressing concern is what constitutes a good ending for The Bear. If this actually was the series finale, then it’s hard not to dwell on the circuitous nature of the past two seasons, which kept hammering home ideas like Carmy’s chaotic nature being detrimental to everyone around him. Assuming The Bear does run it back once more, I’d love to see the show actually stick to its Every Second Counts™ mantra and push its characters in new directions. What would the Bear look like if Syd were running the show? Will Richie ever ask maître d’ Jessica (Sarah Ramos) on a date? Will Marcus reconcile with his father? What is Carmy’s life outside of the kitchen? Rather than continuing to let things simmer, The Bear needs to heat up in its final stretch. Anything less, and the show might leave viewers with a bitter taste in their mouths.
