But the future is also a minefield. Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) is paralyzed with indecision about whether she ought to tether herself to Carmy and their floundering restaurant or accept an offer to start again in a new spot; Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is terrified that his ex’s remarriage will mean that he’s written out of his daughter’s life; and, of course, the whole season is haunted by a big cinder block of a digital clock that’s counting down the seconds until the money runs out. The past is a nightmare, the future an apocalyptic vision. This is true for these characters, and, to some extent, for the show they’re on, too.
The Bear is a strange cousin to these shows. While the show’s knockout first season was, loosely, about an artist thrumming with ideas trying to make something for himself, the show has only become more self-conscious as it’s gone on, almost compulsively so. Season two—the series’ best so far—which gut-renovated and reimagined the successful first season, was about gut-renovating and reimagining the restaurant. Season three was about the pressure of living up to phenomenal success. And now, season four—following up on a less-well-reviewed third season—is about contending with failure, making amends, figuring out a new way forward.
Appropriately, season four begins in the wake of a (mostly) bad review. The long-awaited Chicago Tribune write-up offers some praise for the technical brilliance of Syd and Carmy’s cuisine and for the timeless tastiness of the Italian Beef sandwiches they still serve out of a back window, but the critic lambasts the restaurant for its chaotic style and inconsistency. “Dissonance” is the word that keeps ringing in our characters’ ears. The review was teased in the final episode of last summer’s third season. It was odd, at the time, for the show to seem to prophetically acknowledge the criticisms I had as a viewer. Coming off of one of best single seasons of television I’ve seen this decade (I rewatched it this summer, and it still rips) the third season was a disappointment. Scattered and meandering where the second season was propulsive, maudlin where the second season had been moving, far too in love with its flashiest and least interesting flourishes—in particular, Carmy’s traumatic memories of a tyrannical mentor chef—what you could make out of the review of The Bear seemed just about right for a review of The Bear.
The show has pared itself down, trying to focus on what works. What that means, though, is that The Bear focuses on what has worked. This fourth season is a real set of classic covers.It works, to some extent. The Edebiri episode, in which Sydney gets her hair braided by her cousin Chantel (Danielle Deadwyler), is a series highlight. Deadwyler is extraordinary, Edebiri is as funny as she’s been on this show, and the episode is helmed by guest director Janicza Bravo with a kind of economical cool that feels refreshing amidst the nosy extreme close-ups that characterize Storer’s house style as a director. Likewise, the returning characters each bring something new to the table, or at least serve to intensify a good flavor that was already there. The return of Ramos as a scene partner for Moss-Bachrach is welcome, in part because she’s such an appealing talent in her own right—true heads remember her as scene-stealing teenager Hattie on Parenthood—but also because her presence gives more space for Moss-Bachrach to deepen what’s already the most emotionally complex performance on the show. Likewise, Poulter helps shine a spotlight on Boyce, who doesn’t have a lot to do this season but always makes the most of his screen time.
Of all the conspicuously self-conscious TV shows, I think The Bear might ultimately have the most in common with Ted Lasso. Both shows are about idiosyncratic geniuses with absent fathers who infect the people who surround them with their contagious spirit (Ted’s is positive, while Carmy’s, obviously, is negative); both are about ragtag fellowships that transform into chosen family; both are about lives lived under intense pressure. And both are relentlessly self-aware and self-referential. But, in both cases, rather than a postmodern chill, the show’s spiraling self-reflexivity produces, instead, an excess of sentimentality.
But this season, the show’s emotions feel pushy. One character in seemingly every conversation has a paradigm-shifting epiphany, tells or realizes a long-hidden truth. Carmy has decided to become open to those he loves by saying “I’m sorry” to all of them. It shouldn’t be enough, to simply say that, but, over and over, we see the proof that Carmy’s apology tour is working. Even with the hardest cases—with Claire, with Donna—the sorrys thaw the ice. Storer and Calo seem to think that they, too, can be absolved of their missteps with enough emotional effort.
It’s striking to watch a show like this, that features a negative review as a key plot point, and never once feel that the critic is being villainized. In our era of the Tomatometer and hard lines between audience scores and critic scores, it’s rare to encounter a TV or film artist whose commentary on criticism isn’t about dismissal or resentment. This show is radically open to its own failure. Nobody in the show, nobody, even, who’s making the show, thrashes against this critique or condescends to it. They hear it, they cite it chapter and verse, they see themselves in it. And, in attending to that critique—that’s coming from inside the house!—this season recaptures something of what has been lost about this show. But The Bear doesn’t need to apologize, and, regardless, its apologies aren’t enough. The Bear needs to move forward, to gut-renovate, to reimagine itself boldly yet again. The finale teases us with the possibility that it just might do that. Sorry. Not sorry.
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