Movies, Music, TV
The Bear Season 4: A Delightful Episode, An Intriguing Subplot, An Energy-Sapping Carmy
The new season gives us enough reasons to be hopeful for Season 5.
Published on Jul 4, 2025
Warning: Mild spoilers for The Bear Season Four are contained in this review.
(SPOT.ph) When we last left the crew of The Bear, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) was reading a make-or-break review of his restaurant in the Chicago Tribune. But before we get the paper’s verdict (“show-offy”, “pretentious”), we get a flashback scene of Carmy pitching the idea of opening a fine dining restaurant to his dearly departed brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal). And then after that, we watch as Carmy falls asleep while watching the beloved stuck-in-a-time-loop comedy Groundhog Day, a not-so-subtle statement that the everyday toll of keeping a Michelin star-contender restaurant is wearing on our hero.
What’s so frustrating to me about The Bear (the show, not the restaurant) is that creator Christopher Storer and showrunner Joanna Calo seem to be fully aware of what’s keeping their drama—because it is a drama, never mind what those clueless people behind the Emmys say—from fulfilling the frenetic and searing potential that their second season hinted at; it’s just that they refuse to take their own advice and break free from their own repetitive habits. Did you happen to miss Bill Murray’s arc, guys?
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Cousins Richie and Carmy in a scene from Episode 2: "Soubise".
A ticking timebomb
In the first episode of season four, Berzatto family friend and reluctant financier Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) and his friend—a guy named “Computer” (Brian Koppelman)—lay out an ultimatum for Carmy and his crew: They can only keep supporting the restaurant for around two months; at which point, the money spigot turns off and The Bear will either find its legs or close for good.
And yet, even with this ticking deadline (Computer installs a giant digital countdown clock in a place of prominence in the kitchen, just in case the crew forget there’s a metaphorical time bomb), the latest season of The Bear feels like a largely sedate affair. Carmy is now wondering what a life away from the kitchen is like. Which could be counted as a natural progression of his arc, except that it requires him to be even more of the brooding, self-flagellating neurotic that he’s always been. The kitchen is a hellish place, but the restaurant is a focal point of communal caring; still, nobody in their right mind would choose the life of a chef yada yada yada. Serve, eat, rinse, repeat.
What mystifies me most about Storer and Calo’s heady ascent in their first two seasons and the momentum-crashing plateau of their third is that they’ve always seem to known that The Bear is at its best when it turns its gaze away from Carmy’s solipsistic neurosis and looks with curiosity at the stories of the other people who make the restaurant what it is. How else do you explain their decision to explore the touching evolution of Cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) from slouching sandwich slinger to self-starting maitrê d’ in season two’s best episode “Forks”? Or cook Tina’s (Liza Colón-Zayas) heartbreaking origin story in season three’s “Napkins”?
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This season, we follow Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) on her dayoff. .
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Moving away from stunt casting
This season, we follow sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) on her day off as she ends up asking for advice about a tough decision from her tween niece TJ (Arion King) in the delightful fourth episode “Worms”. Co-written by Edebiri and Lionel Boyce (who plays pastry chef Marcus) and featuring Danielle Deadwyler in a fast-talking, big-hearted supporting turn as Sydney’s hairdresser cousin Chantel, “Worms” also boasts an assured directorial turn from Janicza Bravo, bringing the loose comedic rhythm she perfected in the hilarious indie Zola (still the only certifiable masterpiece ever adapted from a Twitter thread) with her.
There is also an intriguing subplot featuring line cook Ebrahim (Edwin Lee Gibson), who sees that the sandwich takeout window he oversees is the only profitable operation in the entire restaurant and is now exploring opportunities for expansion with the help of a financial mentor played by Rob Reiner. What this means for the restaurant going forward is yet to be determined, but Reiner’s inclusion is a promising indication that the creatives have moved away from stunt casting into recruiting formidable players who seem to fit their roles.
All these well-crafted diversions have one unfortunate side effect, however: They only serve to emphasize what a wet blanket Carmy is. This is none more apparent than in the seventh episode, “Bears”, in which the whole extended clan gather for the wedding of Cousin Richie’s ex Tiffany (Community’s Gillian Jacobs) to her new beau (Josh Hartnett—have I mentioned stunt casting?). While everyone is off doing an interesting bit of business, Carmy is off standing by himself, stewing in the empty kitchen like a black hole ready to suck any light-heartedness that strays near his path.
The season 4 trailer.
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Signs of progress
The wedding is itself a de facto sequel to season two’s explosive family reunion episode “Seven Fishes,” complete with star-studded cameos (watch out for the entrance of a star dropping in from the Marvel Cinematic Universe) and supersized running time. The cyclical structure is by design, built to remind us of the ever-present generational trauma that drives the Berzatto family. But it also reminds us that Storer and Calo are loathe to jettison anything that no longer serves the show. Their incessant need to keep picking at the scabs of Carmy’s psyche keeps them from addressing other pertinent plot questions, such as Sydney’s competing offer to start a new restaurant from the ground up—a conflict that any sanely plotted program would have resolved one season ago.
Still, I don’t want to dunk on The Bear completely. There are signs of progress: Carmy now acknowledges that his restless menu changes, while de rigueur for the Michelin-starred establishments he used to work at, may not be helping his fledgling eatery. And so he allows Sydney to enact her own contributions while giving his pastry chef Marcus space to garner some well-deserved recognition. Meanwhile, another consequential, season-ending decision bodes well for The Bear’s just-greenlit season five: It gives the creatives a chance to see what the restaurant could be like if it is run by its colorful ensemble players.
I hope Storer, Calo and their writers take the chance they’ve given themselves to reinvent the show. Stick with the ensemble, guys, and extract yourselves from Carmy’s energy-sapping gravitational pull. Otherwise, if they decide to follow Carmy out that kitchen door, I might have to walk out too.
The Bear’s fourth season is now streaming on Disney+.
Andrew Paredes is a former advertising copywriter and current screenwriter, freelance writer and film critic who is seriously contemplating unchaining himself from his desk.
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