The Chicago Tribune’s review of the new haute cuisine dining spot from Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is in. It’s taken three long seasons of Disney+’s The Bear to get us to this point – featuring a voyage into the darkness of the human soul, not to mention a lot of sautéing, julienning and emulsifying – yet the paper’s critic deems the results “culinary dissonance”. Too much motion, not enough certainty. It’s a fitting take for the show too, which has evolved, like its restaurant, into a state of constant, ambitious flux.
The Bear – Carmy’s fine-dining spinoff of his family sandwich shop, The Original Beef of Chicagoland – has two months to live. This “parachute” offered by Uncle Cicero (Oliver Platt) and Uncle Computer (Brian Koppelman) means things must change. However, their culinary revolution might be scuppered by Carmy’s partner, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), who has been offered a chef de cuisine role in a brand-new kitchen. It presents an agonising choice. According to her, The Bear is “legitimately full of crazy people”, who include business manager Sugar (Abby Elliott), sandwich hatch operator Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson), and irrepressible handyman Fak (Matty Matheson). As they do business this season, a clock in the kitchen counts them down, hour-by-hour, to the moment when Carmy’s dream of running his restaurant, marshalling his brigade, must end.
Much has been made of the way that The Bear has changed since its debut in 2022. Initially marketed as a dark comedy set in the frenetic – and deeply stressful – world of chefs, the past couple of seasons have marked a clear departure from that. The tone has become more overtly dramatic, the aesthetic more elevated. As Carmy has left behind the sandwich business, opting instead for tasting menus with fluorescent foams and edible flowers, the show has done something similar. Making a mockery of its repeated nominations in comedy categories at the Emmys, the third season was almost laugh-free. As a result, something of the original appeal of the show was lost. Its creator, Christopher Storer, seems conscious of that here, as he tries to steer it back towards a balance of comedy and tragedy.
He’s aided by his superb cast, not least Edebiri, who has become a certified TV all-star through this role. As Carmy’s volcanic vulnerability schtick starts to wear thin, the hopes, dreams and fears of his protégé take centre stage. “Sometimes we are mean to the people we care about the most,” she counsels an 11-year-old, as she weighs the prospect of abandoning The Bear. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, too, does more sterling work as maître d’ Richie, bringing continued pathos and some of the series’ funniest lines (his attempts to rouse the troops with pre-service speeches are simple but effective comedy). Around the established company, Storer has arranged an amazing constellation of guest stars: Josh Hartnett, Jamie-Lee Curtis and John Mulaney return, while there are new roles for the likes of Brie Larson, Rob Reiner and Kate Berlant.
What The Bear continues to nail is a presentation of the single-mindedness of genius. It takes the idea of brilliance – and the obsession required for that – seriously, in a way that is comparable to the scale of Brady Corbet’s big Oscar-bait hit, The Brutalist. But like any art about art, it runs the risk of indulgence. The show is interspersed with on-the-nose clips from old movies like 3:10 to Yuma, Groundhog Day and Jumpin’ Jack Flash (“do you want to work here or do you want to live?” Whoopi Goldberg asks in the latter). There is also a lengthy montage of Carmy walking around Frank Lloyd-Wright’s Robie House in Chicago, though for what end? Creatively, it is throwing so much out there that, inevitably, not everything will land. Even the self-contained bottle episodes – such as the season finale – feel like they are trying too hard.
“Culinary dissonance”, then, seems an apt appraisal. The Bear works best when it is honest and funny and chaotic to the point of farce. “We can make it calm,” Carmy promises his (dead) older brother in a flashback. “We can make it delicious.” But for all that Carmy can do delicious, he can’t do calm. Like its protagonist, The Bear feels trapped in a loop of its own creation. Will the restaurant succeed? Will Sydney be satisfied? Will Carmy find peace? To unequivocally answer any of those questions would denude the menu of its most appetising morsels, and so The Bear keeps on whetting our appetites, putting only the most delicate amusement in its amuse-bouche.
