Just like the fate of its titular restaurant, The Bear has gone through its ups and downs since the first season premiered in 2022. As the show comes to an end with season five, the fates of both hang in the balance. Will they go out with a bang or a whimper?
Season Five of The Bear begins the day after the last season left off. Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) is giving up the restaurant, leaving Syd (Ayo Edebiri), Natalie (Abby Elliot) and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) to run it. Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), who has bankrolled the whole operation and owns the final quarter of the business, is out of money. With a nearly empty pantry, a deficit of servers and a busy evening ahead, tensions are (as always) high. Then, in one of the most direct examples of pathetic fallacy ever committed to screen, Chicago is hit by a biblical storm.
The seven episodes made available to critics take place over this single day, as the team tries to pull together for the service and Jimmy goes on a mission with Computer (Brian Koppelman) and his niece, Cheese (Elsie Fisher), to save the business.
Season five is slightly more saccharine than its predecessors, particularly when it comes to the moments of personal growth from each character, and while the earlier installments have an almost unbearable tension to them, there are a lot more moments here when things are actually going… alright. Yes, the restaurant is falling apart, and they have no money, and the weather is terrible, but the kitchen is operating efficiently. People are actually communicating and working together; now in charge of a sinking ship, Syd adopts a no-shouting, no-swearing approach to communication in the kitchen – a shift from the aggressive, chaotic setting that used to be there.
It makes the show a little less funny, but that doesn’t mean it’s any weaker– it seems as though it is just willing to evolve. There’s a heavy focus on breaking cycles and changing narratives in the story, too. Much of The Bear is, in reality, about the (extended) Berzatto family’s dysfunctional dynamics; here, the cracks are starting to be glued back together. Carmy and Natalie’s relationship with their mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), is showing signs of hope, and Carmy’s decision to step back from The Bear seems to allow him to bring down some of his emotional walls.
Chemistry across the cast, which was strong from the start, feels more lived-in than ever here, the dynamics entirely believable. Moss-Bachrach is a stand-out here; whether with White, Edebiri or Sara Amos (fellow front-of-houser Jessica), the complexity he gives Richie bleeds into his interactions with anyone else.
There are some striking close-ups throughout the seven episodes, perhaps the most daring of which is a shot of Syd looking straight to camera. It’s a powerful choice, suggestive of complete focus and understanding – of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing and excels at it.
Food, of course, is a crucial part of the show. This season draws on previous star dishes, calling back to Carmy’s mentors and Syd’s first ideas at The Bear, along with newly introduced nostalgia from Marcus’s (Lionel Boyce) childhood. Each description of the meals is as mouthwatering and pretentious-sounding as ever, and will surely drive many copycat recipes in the coming weeks.
The Bear retains the power it has always had to close each episode on a potent cliffhanger. Compared to other stress-inducing shows of this ilk (Succession springs to mind), there is some catharsis in realising that things might actually work out for these characters. That said, though, there’s still the finale to go – and if the first four seasons have taught the audience anything, it should be to know that everything that can go wrong probably will.
★★★★
Streaming on Disney+ from June 26th / Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Abby Elliot, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Oliver Platt, Brian Koppelman, Elsie Fisher, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sara Amos, Lionel Boyce / Disney+
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
