'The Bear' cast says Season 3 involves progress, setbacks
LOS ANGELES, June 26 (UPI) -- Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and their co-stars in The Bear said their characters make progress and experience setbacks in Season 3, which premieres Wednesday at 9 p.m. EDT on Hulu.
Season 2 concluded with the restaurant The Bear conducting a soft opening for limited customers to test the kitchen and service. Head chef and owner Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) spent much of the night locked in the walk-in refrigerator.
"I do get out of the walk-in refrigerator and that's good," White said during a recent Zoom press conference. "He buries himself back into his work and really tries to challenge himself."
White said Carmy's challenges to the business become challenges all of his chefs and servers must face. White added that Carmy avoids dealing with other issues in his life.
While in the refrigerator, Carmy had inadvertently broken up with his girlfriend, Claire (Molly Gordon), who overheard him panicking. The Berzatto family is still mourning the death of Michael (Jon Bernthal) by suicide before the beginning of the series.
"Carmy is continuing to do what he does best, I think, which is be incredibly avoidant of all the issues that he has going on," White said.
The trailer for Season 3 shows Carmy offering chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) a contract for a partnership in their restaurant. Edebiri said the new opportunity brings new challenges for Sydney.
"It's a lot more chaotic than she might have idealized before they really started working together," Edebiri said.
Edebiri said Sydney finds doing business with Carmy more complicated than admiring him as a chef. White said the contract is indicative of Carmy's way of communicating his appreciation of Sydney by grand gesture.
"That's his way of reaching out but oftentimes I feel like people aren't prepared to receive," White said. "You'll see obviously how that affects Carmine and Syd's relationship but I think Carmine's trying to welcome her in a little bit."
Another of Carmy's chefs returns to The Bear after an eye-opening experience. In Season 2, Richie (Moss-Bachrach) got to intern at an upscale restaurant.
Learning the ropes of managing a fine dining establishment softened Richie's aggressive style. Moss-Bachrach said Richie brings that experience to The Bear, but implementing it still presents challenges.
"He's been exposed to maybe a more evolved way of being and I think he sees a path to head towards," Moss-Bachrach said. "Like any kind of personal growth, it's forward and back."
Richie's new restaurant experience and Sydney's new partnership with Carmy leaves chefs like Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) holding down the fort in the Bear kitchen. Colón-Zayas said Tina is "white knuckling" at her job and also "wrestling with the demons of her past."
The loss of Michael still looms over The Bear, even if characters like Carmy try to avoid dealing with it. Natalie Berzatto (Abby Elliott), Michael and Carmy's sister, is trying to address her grief as she becomes a new mother, Elliott said.
"She's grappling with the fact that her brother had this horrible demise," Elliott said. "Her relationship with her mom and her brother is not in a good place."
Michael's friends and coworkers are also still processing their grief as the impending full opening of The Bear looms. Michael owned the restaurant Carmy took over and converted to The Bear.
Richie worked for Michael and Moss-Bachrach said the universality of grief makes a show about a restaurant so relatable to viewers.
"It's even one of the strengths of the show and one of the reasons that it's connected with so many people," Moss-Bachrach said. "[Grief] is maybe one of the only common things that we all share in the human experience."
Despite its theme of grief, FX and Hulu still present The Bear as a comedy. Indeed, the characters in the restaurant and their mishaps lend themselves to comic situations.
"You find laughter in grief," Moss-Bachrach said. "I think this show has all of that. It overflows with the spectrum of behavior."
