Spoiler Alert: This review discusses the plot details and themes of Season 4 of Hulu’s The Bear. Read at your own peril.
As I watched screeners for the fourth season of The Bear, abiding by the publicists’ mandate for absolute discretion and sitting alone in my office with my blinds drawn and with the volume at a low enough register so as not to tip off my next-door neighbor and thus make myself responsible for any potential early leaks of the Emmy-nominated show, I thought about irony.
It’s ironic that I’m reviewing the new season of show about the chefs and staff at a hip Chicago restaurant who are themselves obsessed with a negative review they received from one critic (the third season of The Bear, which premiered last year has an 89% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes; still considered Certified Fresh but not as high as the 99% rating it got for Season 2 or the 100% rating it received for Season 1). And it’s ironic that these chefs have many, many discussions about pacing themselves and savoring what works before moving onto something new since the higher-ups at streamer Hulu and studio FX Productions long ago decided that The Bear will be released in the binge format of every episode at once.
I also thought about pie.
There’s a line I’ve been told that Greg Berlanti, the uber-producer of a gazillion other TV shows—albeit most not nearly as critically acclaimed as The Bear—likes to say when people realize that an increased episode order or series renewal is great, but it also requires more work to keep up that momentum and more pressure from fans and naysayers to stick the landing. The line is “the prize for winning the pie-eating contest is more pie.”
Since its premiere in 2022, creator Christopher Storer’s The Bear has swept award shows and made household names out of actors who have always been awesome (Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri fans: do not talk to me until you’ve watched all of Shameless and Dickinson). It made us believe that the term “yes, chef” is best said mid-coital and had us salivating over an omelet sprinkled with potato chip crumbs and the softest, porous, most simply decadent chocolate cake. It’s as meme-able as Game of Thrones and its subplots are scrutinized as much as those of Mad Men or Breaking Bad. The Bear is integral to the branding of FX that the sound effects of clicking knobs and hissing burners are the logo music that play when the studio’s title card appears before each episode. (Suck it, Shogun).
Honestly, what else is there left for The Bear to achieve?
Storer, and his fellow showrunner Joanna Calo, want to teach us that the theme for The Bear’s fourth season is family, however you want to define it: blood relatives, extended family, work family … We all need to be there for each other. But The Bear also remains a story of addiction and recovery. Success can be just as addictive as a chemical substance; those endorphins and dopamine lights that sparkle our brain’s ride to the top of that mental roller coaster have fizzled out when we crash into the abyss. The more we achieve—the more we’re told that we’re a genius at our craft or the more pride we feel in accomplishing something great—the bigger the hit we need next time. And burnout can come for anyone.
The opening shot in Season 4 of The Bear is of Edebiri’s Sydney, jostled awake by the anxiety that is not dissimilar to the one that plagued her mentor, White’s Carmy, earlier in the series. Elsewhere, Carmy is further along in the process of burnout, even if he’s yet to realize it. Not only is he clutching a copy of the Chicago Tribune’s negative review of his restaurant to his chest as he sleeps like some sort of toxic weighted blanket, but he’s passed out while watching the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day (because each day is exactly the same, you see). In the next episode, Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Richie—a character who thrives in the unhappiness his life has become since the death of his best friend and his ex-wife pending marriage to a guy who seemingly has it more together because self-pity is easier than accepting these life changes—gets drunk at a bar while the original 3:10 to Yuma plays in the background. Glenn Ford’s Ben Wade tells Richie, and us, that “squeezin’ that watch ain’t gonna stop time.”
Just about all the characters on The Bear are exhausted. The pressures of running a restaurant and delivering astounding service—the deep love of service and hospitality being the theme of the show’s second season—have taken tolls on their personal lives, their health and even their credit scores. Sydney ignores calls from her dad and, in one particularly great standalone episode co-written by Edebiri and fellow Bear actor Lionel Boyce, we see both how she’s neglected her relationships with her family in her loyalty to Carmy and also just how hard it is to kick that habit even as another chef waves a job at a shiny new restaurant with its own pizza oven in front of her. Carmy’s trying to become a better person by quitting smoking, apologizing to his ex-girlfriend Claire (Molly Gordon) and trying to forgive his narcissistic mother Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis); all things that read as much like they come from the Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 Steps playbook as they do from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ stages of acceptance. As is the Berzatto fashion, a lot of this comes to a head with a very loud, very fun, very guest actor-heavy wedding episode that is meant to be an answer to the second-season Christmas episode “Fishes.”
And, I guess because of Carmy’s Ted Lasso-like God complex/belief in the underdogs, every single person involved in this restaurant is going for that Michelin star. Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson), a senior line cook who found new purpose at the restaurant by operating a bare-bones lunch service counter, puts his trust in a shyster-y finance advisor (Rob Reiner, doing his best impression of Kevin Pollack from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). Chef Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) practically gives herself the yips in her quest to speed up her cooking time. Even the loveable-yet-naive Neil Fak (played by actual chef Matty Matheson) tries to improve his front-of-house skills and the restaurant’s financier Jimmy (Oliver Platt) lets the money flow way longer than anyone with actual mob ties would do.
But the prize for winning the pie-eating contest is more pie. And for how long can this go on before everyone involved is passed out with purple fingers and blueberry juice running down their chins? And, also, why would they want to? The season ends with a cliffhanger that, again like Ted Lasso, is meant to suggest that this show isn’t just about Carmy’s dream. It also suggests that if you’re tired, it’s okay to take a break. And it’s okay if things don’t work out. Not every moment of The Bear Season 4 is perfect (and it’s still most certainly not a comedy). But, with its message that you can’t save someone else until you save yourself, it might be the most honest one yet.
All 10 episodes of The Bear Season 4 premiere June 25 on Hulu and Disney+.
