Week Ending 7/3/26

I'm not one to talk considering I've only just watched season four the week season five released, but it is surprising no one really talks about the "The Bear" anymore. Yes, the third season was a major step back from the perfection of its first two, but did the entire world stop caring? I feel like this follow-up righted the ship so well that I would have remembered to watch it last year if anyone said so. The fact I heard nothing made me assume it just fell further.

We probably do need to talk about the writer's strike in 2023 providing a big part of what went wrong for season three (it's still good, but everything is relative). The way Christopher Storer, Joanna Calo, and company leaned so hard on archival footage and sensory montages really does make it seem less about vibes and aesthetics than necessity in hindsight. Like, maybe seasons three and four should have been combined, but there wasn't enough time to do it.

So, they padded what they already had for season three to meet deadlines. They went esoteric and deconstructive while moving forward towards a "to be continued" rather than the gut-punch revelations made during season four's finale "Goodbye". It makes sense. It happens in an industry driven by goalposts and fiduciary responsibilities. You can't just push things back a year and pretend like everyone's schedules will align again.

Thankfully, it was just a stopgap to get the show back on track as season four finds its dramatic conflict point and does (sort of) reach a resolution. Because that's the beauty of seasons one and two. They had their question ("Can Carmy save The Beef?" and "Can The Beef successfully transition to The Bear?", respectively) and answers ("Yes, thanks to Syd and a shelf of red sauce cans." and "Yes, but that success might lead to failure shortly thereafter.").

Season four's question is essentially the same as season three: "How does The Bear's team work through the chaos of that second finale?" Sure, the latter added more conflict via Uncle Jimmy's (Oliver Platt) financial woes, Sydney's (Ayo Edebiri) opportunity to leave for another restaurant, and Carmen's (Jeremy Allen White) disintegrating psychology en route to imploding his entire life, but the central question stays intact beyond changing that "How does" to "Should."

While Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) appears to be finding the actual answer courtesy of the sandwich window's solvency and a Rob Reiner cameo (I'm interested to see if he pops up in season five or if his tragic passing preceded filming), the main thrust of the plot concerns getting Carmy, Syd, and Richie's (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) heads back in the game to discover if it matters. Like Computer (Brian Koppelman) asks Sugar (Abby Elliott), "Why keep going?"

That answer is of course the reason the show exists in the first place: the people. Sure, each of these misfits is mired in some form of emotional rut, but their ability to come together and provide a shoulder for each other (despite someone else in the restaurant potentially being the cause of their ire) is what makes this endeavor special. Can it get sentimental? Sure. But it's never fake. No matter how clichéd the script might prove, the emotions are always real.

That's why the back half of season four is on par with the heights of one and two. The first few episodes clean up the mess of season three with the introduction of familiar faces (the moment Carmy said "Expo is killing us" was the moment I knew Sarah Ramos and company would join the team). They remind us of the chaos, screaming, and parachutes left unopened before allowing the characters to find their footing and realize where each went wrong.

Finally, we get Carmy's apology to Claire (Molly Gordon). Carmy's apology to Syd. Carmy's apology to Richie. Carmy has a lot to apologize for. But we also get Tiff (Gillian Jacobs) and Frank's (Josh Harnett) wedding so Richie can get out of his head. We get Syd recognizing that The Bear is special not because of Carmy, but because of everyone else. And we even get Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Uncle Lee (Bob Odenkirk) looking inwards to want to grow.

If season three was all about piling more mud on, season four is about digging out. It's not easy. It's not what every character might want. But it is right. While the final answer might superficially look like more escapism, it's actually a lucid moment of clarity. Because sometimes running away means overstaying your welcome and leaving means adding by subtraction. Where complex truths tended to make everyone sour in this show, they now provide hope.

Don't get me wrong. Carmen's apologies are devastating and lead to even more screaming, but they hold much needed catharsis too. This whole show is about reconciling our penchant to shut down and retreat within ourselves when tragedy strikes with the cleansing power of love and community. How our vulnerability to share is crucial to healing by proving to ourselves that we aren't alone. Maybe we didn't do enough then, but we have time to do so now.

So, you do kind of need to treat seasons three and four as a single entity. Yes, you can condense the former to three episodes (so much redundancy) and latter to seven (excise the emotional baggage recap) to form a flawless season of television, but this is what we got instead: a flawed run-up and near-perfect landing. I'm honestly just glad the Faks returned to the periphery. I love Matty Matheson, but Neil Jeff is a supporting character, and his family are punch lines.

9/10

In its attempt to recapture the frenetic tone of the first season, Christopher Storer and company end up transforming "The Bear" into some else entirely with its final run. Gone are the blaring needle-dropped end credits. Gone are the bottle episodes looking to mine deep into each character's individual psyches. Gone is the yelling that just couldn't help but spew forth with Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) at the wheel. Gone are the ghosts of the past.

Season five unfolds as three acts dissected into eight episodes with Act One spanning the first six as the crew comes together during a torrential downpour on the day after Computer's (Brian Koppelman) clock reached zero. It proves a worse day than when Syd (Ayo Edebiri) left the preorders on because the reservation app is down, Marcus' (Lionel Boyce) "Best New Chef" notice sparks interest, and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is too soft to cancel any tables.

Add Ted (Ricky Staffieri) falling through the roof and Neil (Matty Matheson) locking himself in the bathroom upon hearing Carmy had quit and it's chaos from start to finish. Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) is pushing through. Sweeps (Corey Hendrix) is having an existential crisis. And Sugar (Abby Elliott) has an earbud in to listen as her mother (Jamie Lee Curtis) babysits the baby off-site. Oh, and the Michelin Star man has been clocked as coming in for dinner.

The show attempts to work its magic by giving everyone their moment to shine (even Jose M. Cervantes' Angel and Richard Esteras' Manny get a couple minutes before they aren't seen again), but it doesn't quite work when it's all one day and the drama is all in one place. There's a whole exterior subplot with Jimmy (Oliver Platt) and Computer delaying the inevitable (listening to Edwin Lee Gibson's Ebra's franchise pitch) that proves more distraction than necessity.

I get it, though. This is kind of the price of doing business at a time when the line between film and television has blurred to nothing. No one on this show was really a "name" when it burst onto the scene and now it must be a nightmare to try and get their schedules aligned. So, one locale (besides Jimmy's journey and some cutaways) surely eased production costs and time. The writers must then do their best to make it work within those constraints.

While that means some characters are left by the wayside for simple victories (Tina and her sprouts) or familiar frustrations (Lionel Boyce's Marcus letting the anxiety from inviting his estranged father for dinner spill into his BFF-triangle with Will Poulter and Carmen Christopher), it also allows for the spotlight to shine on the lead trio. This is important because Act Two and Three truly prove a changing of the guard from Carmy to Syd.

The hour-long seventh episode portrays the service from its empty beginnings (that rain causes delays) to its insane middle (triple bookings leading to the kind of ingenious improvisation The Bear crew is known for) to its ... peaceful end? How could this second act not be a changing of the guard then? When every prior season ended in ambitious impossibility or utter implosion, this one teases hope. Maybe they all did learn something along the way.

Syd embracing her talent by not only measuring up to her idol in Carmy, but also hearing his admiration while accepting his fallibilities in the process. Richie finding purpose to weaponize his best strengths as a storyteller into a bona fide vocation thanks to Carmy taking him seriously enough to transform under the armor of professionalism. And, of course, Carmy finally acknowledging that running into restaurants was actually him running away from life.

That's when Act Three arrives via the hour-long series finale and its immediate aftermath of that unforgettable night moving into a series of vignettes revealing everyone a few days removed. Is it overly sentimental? When has this show not been? Is it inspiring enough to overshadow how sped-up these evolutions prove? Sure, because the idea behind it all is that the support of family—chosen family even if blood is involved—truly has the power to save the world.

So, while this season probably feels the least like "The Bear" yet (seasons three and four have outlier moments and flourishes but mostly feel aligned with their predecessors if treated as a single unit), it still gets the show's intentions. And, as such, provides a fitting conclusion to the Berzatto clan's saga with its already maxed out (and traumatized) umbrella opening a bit further to let more strangers in. It's always been a show about its characters and they've never shone brighter.

Those first two seasons are all-timers that probably couldn't have been sustained even if the cast and crew devoted themselves solely to the show without expanding their careers further than its shadow. Despite that reality, however, I do admire the effort to keep going and deliver a satisfying conclusion. The writing is never as tight due to working towards that end rather than the present, but it's still a great season of television. It's still a helluva show.

8/10

Who's worse? The criminal with a code or the businessman devoid of ethics? Replace businessman with corrupt cop or any other vocation and the point stands. That's not to say the criminal is good, though. Chris Hemsworth's character here isn't Robin Hood. He's simply not willing to cross certain moral lines that those who care about nothing but money are.

The same goes with Mark Ruffalo's detective and Halle Berry's insurance agent. They voluntarily live in gray areas but will feel that pang of guilt when the air around them darkens to black. They wish the world worked because they know they'd excel if it did. Unfortunately, only those with the stomach to ruin lives as the cost for self-aggrandizement truly find the comfort to worry less.

Bart Layton's Crime 101 (adapted from Don Winslow's novella) is therefore a great middle finger to the one percent class and bosses who make it their job to screw over everyone but their shareholders and bottom-line regardless of the damage done by doing so. It's a tense thriller full of kismet and comeuppance wherein mankind is split into three camps: antiheroes, victims, and villains.

The acting, score, and pacing are all great to complement a taut script that admits to its strings knowing that nothing on-screen is truly a coincidence. No, not even the misfired shot considering everyone knew that gun was a bad idea. The film might widen its grin a tad too far for its conclusion, but I'm okay letting the moral yet flawed slaves to the system reap some spoils. It's all insured anyway.

8/10