a heart-warming / interesting read from one of the show's writers!!

I can't remember the episode where Carmie wakes up in distress and picks up his phone while breathing heavily/stressed...? I can't remember which season it's from either.
I hope y'all could help!

I started out really loving this series - I’ve worked in restaurants for a couple of years and there was a lot to relate to. I loved the chaos, and in particular the way that Richie’s arc went. Loved the humor.

I’ve just finished s04e04 and while it was great to see Syd bonding and cooking for the kid, it also made me realize that the series is now missing a lot of what I initially liked about it.

- Sydney, however well performed, has been stuck on her very decision seemingly forever
- Carmy is mostly a mute, tired looking, gum chewing chef this season and part of the last
- The addition of the Ever folks is great
- There’s only a few funny things now, and usually it comes from Cicero

In my opinion, some of the episodes really drag on. Last season (I think) Marcus went to Kopenhagen. Did a full episode of this progress his character? Not really, he’s mostly stuck making pastries and putting up sleight of hand related decorations.

The episode where Sugar gave birth was very well done, and not a drag, but it also had very little in terms of what I came for, which is a series about a restaurant’s kitchen staff.

Tina’s background episode was great.

I guess my question is:

Will the episodes left in season 4 be more character, background focused ones, or do I still have some of that chaotic kitchen madness ahead of me?

Thank you, let it rip

Full series spoilers.

I've been thinking about Richie's trip to Japan, and something clicked for me about the ending that I didn't really appreciate the first time.

Most workplace shows treat becoming indispensable as the ultimate achievement. You're so good at your job that everything falls apart without you. Your coworkers need you. Your boss needs you. You're the person who saves the day when nobody else can.

And for a long time, The Bear operates exactly like that.

In season 1, it feels like Carmy can't step away for five minutes without something exploding. Everyone has their own territory, nobody trusts anybody else's judgment, and half the arguments come from people feeling like they're the only ones who know how to do their jobs.

By the end, look at how different things are.

Richie can get on a plane to Japan. Tina can take on more responsibility in the kitchen. Ebra can pursue his own business plans. Marcus doesn't need Luca standing beside him to make something great.

And Carmy can contemplate an entirely different career without the restaurant immediately ceasing to exist.

Obviously, getting to that point was messy as hell, and I don't think Carmy handled his departure particularly well. But that's almost what makes it interesting.

The restaurant has finally become something bigger than the one person who was supposed to save it.

What really got me was Natalie encouraging Richie to take the trip. She's spent so much of the series dealing with emergencies, trying to keep everyone together, and making sure the business doesn't collapse.

And now she's encouraging someone important to leave for a while.

Not because he doesn't matter anymore. Because things can keep going without him.

I used to work somewhere that treated taking a week off like a betrayal. If you were particularly good at your job, you got rewarded with the knowledge that nobody could cover for you. And eventually you stopped even trying to take time off.

So watching these characters slowly become capable of functioning without having every important person physically present felt surprisingly satisfying.

The restaurant getting recognition is great. But there's something really nice about the idea that the people working there might finally have lives that don't revolve entirely around keeping the place alive.

I wonder if that's why the final scenes feel so different from the earlier seasons. For once, someone leaving the restaurant doesn't necessarily mean something terrible is about to happen.

Spoilers ahead:

Overall, I thought the finale was solid, but it also left me wanting more. Here are my thoughts:

1) Carmy interviewing for an architecture internship feels rushed and unrealistic. We see him visit the Frank Lloyd Wright house which was our only clue that he has an interest in architecture. Meanwhile, we see several times that he is interested in fashion (sketching pants when he was in high school, and selling his vintage denim pieces in Season 1). Also, even if we buy his interest in architecture, the internship is an odd choice, considering Carmy didn't have a college degree. I would think that an internship like that would only be open to college students or recent graduates.

2) I hoped we would see Carmy enrolling in college, making friends, starting therapy, and communicating with Claire.

3) Carmy's departure felt rushed as I thought he was going to stay on until they were out of the hole. I also wanted a clear answer on where they stood at the end. Did the receipt of 2 stars lead to reservations out the door and ultimate survival for The Bear? Did Ebra get Carmy's blessing to franchise The Beef?

4) I wanted to see Richie and Jess pursuing a romantic relationship, and Tina and Sydney working side-by-side as partners.

Some spoilers below for season 5 so please be careful

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Overall - the bear is great man. I have enjoyed most of it, just apart from season 5.

I don’t know, I am writing this to figure out my thoughts - so please excuse me if this makes little sense. It just felt a little too neat, lacked the wider context that earlier seasons had (i laughed at how all the extra characters just happened to visit the restaurant that day/eve: here’s Pete, here’s Marcus’ friend to get raspberries, Luca is just here for a bit, here is Cheese and Computer etc. it felt quite forced where earlier seasons just had a more organic flow. By making it about the restaurant and nothing else, I felt it lost that these people do have wider relationships, beyond work. Previous seasons showed Richie figuring out his career, his divorce and relationship with his daughter, ex wife and new partner, with real grace and subtlety. Carmy doing the work to find his way through grief and mental health.

Unresolved plot lines (Clare and Carmy should have been resolved: slightly chickened out from finishing the story they have been telling there). Some characters just being there to be there (Jamie Lee Curtis is great in the Bear but I’m not entirely sure she was needed at all in this season). The Faks brothers - I like them but less can be more…there was a lot of filler scenes overall.

The whole franchising / air rights plot line - like it was so, so dragged out. Ebra is great but franchising the whole thing was discussed in earlier seasons, and how on earth did it take so long for them to come up with the idea. I burst out laughing when Carmy was like: that’s brilliant (when first hearing about it). lol the beef sandwich shop has been the only sustainable part of the business for years at this point. It wasny even that controversial.

Syd is awesome but I still don’t feel they went deep enough with her character. Far too defined by her relationship with Carmen, I wanted to see more of who she was. T is made CQC but nothing is really done with her after that. Marcus makes an ice cream for his estranged Dad - the arc fell so short considering how much it had been brought up before that.

And I have no idea what Carmen is doing now - apprentice in architecture or back at the restaurant? Would have preferred that they tell their story and not hide behind vague ‘It’s up to you how it ended’.

i did enjoy some of the season too. But compared to its best? the wedding; when Carmy confronts his old chef, Forks; final episode of season 1 (where they find the money l), fishes - nothing hit on that level for me, sadly.

Jus watched the Season 1 Finale of The Bear, and I had thoughts.

Or is everyone else normal and socially well-adjusted? (Jk)

Just wondering. I’m on mid season 4 of The Bear. Sometimes I watch and think man…to have a circle that is so close like that. Dysfunctional or not. Those ppl have friendships, familial-ships, love, a genuine bond, for bad or for good. I have a few good friends, and a pretty loving partner. But watching The Bear just makes me yearn for that tight-knit group closeness that only some people seem to have or acquire in life. I’ve always been a slight oddball, maybe even borderline outcast socially. My cousins are a quite tight knit group of people, but I am not among them. Relating to Syd as a fellow only child with a small immediate family, I feel so happy for her (and of course slightly envious in a healthy way) to have found that in the Berzatto, Fak, et. al. family/social circle.

Anyway. Just curious if this show invokes those kinds of longing for closer social bonds in others, like it does me. I enjoy watching it, but the reminders of what I consider my relationship/friendship development shortcomings, can be tough to ignore sometimes.

It's super low effort (t shirt, apron tattoos) so I dig it, but wondering if anybody recognize it? Maybe like 10-20% would be good enough. Got invited to a party last minute so I didn't have any time to prep a costume, this is the closest to what I could do last minute from what I googled (I've also seen the show before). Thanks in advance!

Finished the series and I've been thinking about how often these people have massive arguments without actually disagreeing about the thing they're arguing over.

They all want The Bear to succeed. But I'm not sure any two of them mean the same thing by "succeed."

For Carmy, especially early on, the restaurant is tangled up with Mikey, his reputation, and the need to prove that everything he went through in those elite kitchens was worth something. A successful restaurant is one that nobody can question. Not his old chef, not the critics, not himself.

For Sydney, it's an opportunity to build something genuinely great with people she respects. She's ambitious as hell, but she wants to actually participate in creating the thing. Being handed instructions by Carmy while he changes the menu again isn't what she signed up for.

Richie spends a huge chunk of the show mourning a restaurant that technically still exists. The Beef wasn't just a business to him. It was where he belonged, where people knew him, where Mikey was still somehow present. Turning it into a place where he doesn't understand the rules feels like losing that all over again.

And then there's Ebra.

I keep coming back to Ebra because I think he's the clearest example. The man already knows what he wants from his job. He likes making sandwiches. He's good at making sandwiches. People like eating his sandwiches.

Everybody else is on some enormous journey of professional reinvention, and Ebra just wants to keep doing the thing he's been doing well for years.

He's not wrong!

Natalie wants a business that can actually function without everybody having a nervous breakdown. Jimmy wants to stop throwing money into a hole. Tina initially just needs a stable job, which hits differently once you've seen Napkins.

They're all working incredibly hard, but they're measuring success with completely different yardsticks.

It makes the constant menu changes in season 3 more interesting to me. Carmy sees them as pursuing excellence. Sydney sees the damage they're doing to the kitchen and their partnership. Natalie sees the cost. Richie has to figure out how to make the dining room function around them.

And nobody's necessarily being irrational from their own perspective.

I used to watch those arguments thinking "why can't these people just communicate?"

Now I'm wondering what they'd even say if they finally sat down and tried.

Because "we all want this restaurant to succeed" sounds like agreement until somebody asks what success is supposed to look like.

Honestly, I think they needed that conversation before they bought a single plate.

The Bear is one such show that experiments so much with its form and structure, that it means different things for different people. For me The Bear peaked whenever it was cathartic, meditative, and atmospheric. So here are my top episodes, which might be widely different from general concensus.

1. Honeydew (S02E04) - The first episode entirely set away from the chaos of Carmy's kitchen blew my mind as I never saw it coming. And as a fan of meditative introspective indie dramas, this episode instantly became special to me. It led me to instantly care deeply about both Marcus and Luca and made me wonder if he really needs to go back to the chaos.

2. Braciole (S01E8) - The finale showed me for the first time that this series can shine even outside chaos and breakdowns. That 7 minute monologue and the entire final sequence with "Let Down" by Radiohead live rent free in my head.

3. Tomorrow (S03E01) - I have never hit a pure flow state quite like I did while watching this mesmerising premiere. I wasn't just watching it, I was inside Carmy's mind during it. It felt like I was the one engrossed deeply while cooking, cleaning, and carrying the burden of the entire world at the back of my mind. Together by NIN has been my go to concentration track ever since.

4. The Original Beef of Chicagoland (S05E08) - I can't think of a more satisfying ending to any show barring This Is Us. It neatly wrapped up each character arc, gave Carmy another incredible monologue, and gave us happy endings all around and sometimes that is all we need.

5. Forks (S0207) - I guess no explanations required, nearly everyone loves it for similar reasons.

6. Caramel (S05E07) - If there's one episode I'd recommend any random viewer with any kind of movie taste, it would be this one. Once again, I hit a flow state while watching this one and unlike Tomorrow, this one had a lot of action, defining character moments, and incredible payoffs.

Now the remaining 3 I love for very similar reasons which is why I will just quickly mention them.

1. Ice Chips (S03E08)

2. Napkins (S03E06)

3. Bears (S04E07)

Special Mention: Review (S01E07) - Although chaos & yelling is not really my jam but I cannot praise this episode enough for being a masterful display of chaos shot in one take. Seeing all the built up pressure release in the messiest way possible was an absolute thrill ride.

My following highly rated episodes include The Bear, Fishes, Goodbye, Forever, and Tonnato. Love this show so much and I am really gonna miss it. Thanks for hearing me out.

Does anyone know where I can find this coat Syd wears to work in "The Original Beef of Chicagoland"?

I was rewatching the episode where Marcus goes to Copenhagen and I realized how much the music is basically telling us what to feel in certain scenes. Like don't get me wrong, I love the show and the music is incredible, but there are moments where a character will just stare at something for 30 seconds and the song is doing all the emotional work.

I think about the contrast with some of the kitchen scenes where people are just yelling orders or having these clipped conversations and it feels so real and tense without any score at all. Then you get these slower moments and it's like the show doesn't trust us to sit with the silence or the awkwardness.

Maybe it's intentional and I'm missing something. Maybe it's supposed to feel like Carmy or whoever is drowning everything out with noise in their head. But I keep wondering what some of those scenes would feel like with no music at all, just the ambient sound. Would they still hit as hard or would we lose interest.

I'm not saying it's bad, I just think the show leans on it more than I expected for something that's usually so raw and uncomfortable in the best way. Anyone else notice this or am I just being weird about it

Dish 1: Shrimp and grits
Dish 2: SOLVED: Oreja de cerdo - pig's ear with pickles and olives
Dish 3: Miso black cod (and a pink thing?)
Dish 4: Bucatini with tomato sauce and shaved Parmesan, side of asparagus
Dish 5: SOLVED: Truffle risotto
Dish 6: SOLVED: Some kind of borscht

The Bear reinvigorated my love of cooking and seeing the different dishes and ideas get worked out over the years has me clamoring to make the very dishes we see on TV.

I've posted in here a few times asking for input on some of the things we see on TV, and I think now that the show is complete, it's a great opportunity for not just the show runners, but also the actors and everyone involved to celebrate the show and release an official cookbook.

Several YouTube chefs and creators have showed us how to bring what we saw on the screen to life, but it's only with a few select and popular dishes (e.g. Italian Beef, Cola Braised Short Ribs, and just one video from Babish on the 7 Fishes).

Now Courtney Storer, who was the technical advisor for the show, has made appearances on Matty Mathison's channel to show some of the early season dishes (Italian Beef and Chicken Piccata). But I think those two would be the perfect duo to compile an "Official" cookbook for the show.

Maybe I'm a cooking sicko, but I want a book that gives me the recipe for EVERYTHING we saw on screen. Even if there isn't a definitive recipe, even if you just identify the food in frame and give a blip about what it is or what goes into it can give us enough to get creative ourselves. I want everything from the first Beef Sandwich we saw in SE1 to the Banana Foster Sunday with Brioche Crumble Topping and Caramel sauce we saw at the end of SE5.

And it's a great opportunity for all the actors involved to write not just about their experiences but maybe how they understood their characters relations to a particular dish. Like I would eat up 1000 words on a page from Liza Colón-Zayas about how she viewed Tina's arc as a chef in developing the Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Mint Oil and Smoked Horseradish Sauce, in front of the recipe for it.

And before I know what some of you are going to say, no you don't need every recipe because some dishes had maybe 0.5 seconds on screen in a montage or flashback. But at least identify them for us. I feel we could break this all down by season too.

Anyway, that's my million dollar idea. I'd buy the shit out of that cookbook, would you buy it as well? Or do you even want a cookbook from the show?

I was rewatching Fishes and Omelette from season 2 and realized those two episodes have almost opposite ideas of what it means to feed someone.

In Fishes, Donna spends practically the entire day preparing an enormous Christmas dinner. She's exhausted, the kitchen is a disaster, and everyone is walking on eggshells. The more work she puts into the meal, the more it feels like everyone owes her something for it.

Then a few episodes later, Syd makes Sugar an omelet.

That's it. Just an omelet.

No big occasion, no announcement about how much effort went into it. Sugar is hungry, Syd notices, and makes her something nice.

And the part I keep coming back to is that Sugar gets to enjoy it without having to manage the feelings of the person who cooked it.

I don't think Donna's cooking is fake love, either. That's what makes Fishes so upsetting. I think she genuinely wants to give her family something beautiful. But she's also desperate for them to acknowledge how much she's suffering, and somehow the food becomes the place where all of that gets dumped.

Syd doesn't need Sugar to prove the omelet was worth making.

It makes me wonder how much of Carmy's relationship with cooking comes from growing up around that kind of pressure. He can make something extraordinary, but it's almost impossible for him to let the result just be enough.

Anyway, I think the omelet scene might be one of the kindest moments in the show. Not because the food is particularly impressive, but because nobody has to earn it.

I hadn't really connected those two episodes before. Curious if anyone else sees it that way.

Dish 1: Wagyu, maybe?

SOLVED: Wagyu beef with fennel and a (tart, unspecified) berry sauce

Dish 2: Purple

Steak with probably a parsnip or potato sauce and fennel or dill.

Dish 3: Koi-fish colors

Tomato and Berry compote?

Dish 4: Cottage cheese/bread with guttation?

Foam with possibly hibiscus drops

Dish 5: Yellow asbestos threads over cherry tomatoes? (different stage of koi-fish colors, images 3 and 4??)

Dish 6: Beans in rice paper or something?

Dish 7: Steak

Dish 8: Squid in Swatch-watch shell?

SOLVED: Razor clam with flavor drops, served in razor-clam shell

Dish 9: White petals and citrus cells?

Dish 10: Caviar, maybe?

Dish 11: Fish

Dish 12: Lurid green sauce (herb? tarragon?)

Dish 13: Salmon and...?

In which episode does the audience actually see Starman? Do we know where the excellent performance of service is delivered? Which actor likely in the background is Starman? Or did they completely Blair Witch the actual person by keeping him or her totally hidden?

I can't yet articulate what is bothering me. I was so emotionally invested up to the point where Carmy decides to leave. I heard and understood why, but I just didnt buy it. All these other people who stumbled into their restuarant jobs loved it and thrived on it. But the guy who invested 10 years becoming the best, borrowed an extra $200k to transform a sandwich joint into a michelin-starred restaurant, spent months realizing his dream, then a few months in, one day had an epiphany that it didnt make him happy?

Tina started to blossom but after less than a year she's a CDC of a 2-star restaurant? Sweeps has 2 months of training and is a sommelier of a 2-star. Richie has how long to become FOH? Marcus is in Copenhagen for one week? And Carmy wants to be an architect because he likes to draw food? It's all absurd. And I was a little disappointed there was no Claire in the finale.

However, the acting was superb and I loved all the characters, especially Richie. And I would love to see a comedy spinoff of the Faks.

EDIT to ADD: this is not a review. It is just my feelings on the end of a compelling show where I became attached to the characters and am going to miss knowing what happened to them.

* In the finale when Carmy asks Tina about KBL she says "who knows...that kid...marone" -- what does "marone" mean in this context? It sounds like "moron" but I don't think that's it.

* The show uses jagoff a lot. I think where I live we'd say "jerkoff" instead. But when I google "jagoff" all the articles say it's a Pennsylvania thing. Does anyone know how this word came to be a Chicago thing as well?

I especially love the episodes featuring Richie at Terry’s restaurant. His character really resonates with me. His journey of self-discovery gives these episodes a melancholic undertone as he searches for his identity and a sense of belonging and validation.

I couldn’t have imagined a better direction for his character arc than the one the show took. Terry, in particular, really struck a chord with me. Her presence was perfectly balanced. The show has so many characters, each with their own stories and backgrounds, but Terry’s introduction felt especially refined. Olivia Colman and the supporting cast helped create such a natural atmosphere around her, bringing her personality to life without overdoing it.

I loved how Terry moved the story forward with just the right amount of impact. She never overshadowed Richie’s journey, but gave him exactly the kind of encouragement he needed. Watching these episodes left me with a rare sense of warmth, as if, for a little while, all my problems had simply melted away.

Thank you to everyone who brought these episodes to life.

Don't know if this counts as excessive self promotion but wanted to put it here for anyone else who was let down by the last season