‘The Bear’ Season 3 Finale: What Happened and What’s Next
I realized something this week: “The Bear” is basically “Downton Abbey.”
When was the last time I was so thoroughly engrossed in a show where characters spend 90 percent of their time squabbling over dinnerware minutiae? And whenever they’re not, it’s probably because someone fully died. Both shows are disguised as “comfort” or “comedy” only to regularly reduce viewers to tears (justice for Sybil!).
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I say this out of love, dear readers, and to contextualize the fact that when you think about it, not a lot really happens in “The Bear” Season 3 (again, said with love!). This is a show about interpersonal drama and looming grief and scintillating food prep montages. It’s a show about one man’s overwhelming self doubt and anxiety, about extreme closeups, and between one and three Faks at any given moment.
So where did Season 3’s ten-episode drop leave characters and viewers ahead of a confirmed Season 4? Let’s let it rip.
Carmy Drama (and Trauma)
The season is bookended by Chef David (Joel McHale), the big bad from Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) past who gave him ulcers, panic attacks, and an inferiority complex bigger than that freezer. The unresolved trauma of that workplace comes flooding back to Carmy after his stint in said freezer, and with it a fresh wave of doubt that he can’t and won’t be the leader The Bear needs, or the chef he always aspired to — and already is, but he can’t even recognize it.
The insecurity and masochism make him a nightmare in the kitchen, and though he doesn’t victimize people personally the way David did, the entire staff feels the stress — especially Sydney. Syd has to be the de facto good cop without the cooperative partner, and in fact she’s not even sure they’re partners at all. She absorbs Carmy’s negativity in a perverse parallel to how he internalized David’s abuse, sucking all of them into a toxic cycle that isn’t easy to escape.
Things Left Unsaid
Molly Gordon’s Claire is still very much a part of “The Bear,” but all her shared scenes with Carmy this season were flashbacks. The scenes serve their purpose of underscoring Gordon’s likability, her chemistry with White, and what Claire represents to Carmy (you’ve heard of Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but have you heard of Peaceful Perfect Pediatrician?), and that he feels unworthy. After ten episodes, he has at least concluded that he needs to apologize, but made no further progress on that front.
For Sydney, the specter of an unopened DocuSign link becomes so major that she herself has a panic attack in the finale. It’s the million-dollar question: If I stay, will it get better? For three seasons now, Sydney has invested in Carmy and The Bear because of promise and potential, and a certain (platonic) chemistry cooking between them. But more often than not, at least in Season 3, Carmy fails to make good on those initial charms. He treats her more like an employee than a partner, even if the document says otherwise (she wouldn’t know, she hasn’t opened it), and signing on the dotted line would lock her into that dynamic in new and incontrovertible ways.
The Bear
A make-or-break review? A Michelin star? The Bear is at a crossroads, and Season 3 doesn’t point forward in either direction. It’s easy to think that the restaurant will be a hit based on everything audiences have seen and the fact that it’s the titular role — but Season 1’s restaurant was entirely different from Seasons 2 and 3, and another forced pivot could inject the series with renewed purpose and vigor. Starting over yet again will be exponentially more difficult without cans full of cash and Uncle Jimmy’s (Oliver Platt) investment. It’ll also offer a fresh burst of the show’s signature stress, putting Carmy bizarrely back in his element.
“At times, the show mirrors its titular restaurant’s diminished mojo,” Ben Travers wrote in IndieWire’s review of the season. “Season 3 is too comfortable reliving the past instead of facing the future. A certain amount of self-reflection is healthy, but too much, especially on TV, causes stagnation, and ‘The Bear’ drags out too many questions for its own good.”
To that end, Season 3’s big questions are posed at the beginning and left unanswered at the end. Sydney and Carmy’s working relationship is in limbo, Carmy’s personal life is on hold (he still hasn’t called his mother back), the restaurant review is still a mystery, and Chef David is still an asshole. Characters like Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Natalie (Abby Elliot), working actively toward bettering themselves, make incremental progress from which we barely get to enjoy the results (Season 4, please give us more of Natalie as a mother and Richie bonding with Josh Hartnett’s Frank). Amidst shouts of “Hands!” and “Yes, Chef!” a kitchen progresses toward a larger goal, and “The Bear” Season 3 was mostly inching, with a sprint ahead.
“The Bear” is now streaming on Hulu.
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