The Bear Battles Burnout in Season 4: Review

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Bear Season 4.]

Nobody knows whether Season 4 of FX’s The Bear, aka one of the best shows on TV, is its last. The network hasn’t officially announced it as such, nor has writer and creator Christopher Storer. But, let’s face it, like other prestige shows of years past, the show’s success has given a good deal of its cast (particularly the big three — Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach) a launchpad to higher, busier profiles. When the dust settles, we may just have to count our lucky stars that Season 4 even happened, largely down to the show filming it back-to-back with Season 3.

But whether or not The Bear’s fourth season is its true close may well determine its ultimate legacy in the history of the show. If it’s merely an interstitial step to reach a truly conclusive fifth season, one might have more patience for its sometimes-stuttering rhythms and loping focus over its ten episodes  (which all drop at once on Hulu, a well-established tradition). But if these are the last moments we spend with Carmy, Sydney, and Cousin Richie, as well as the expansive cast of Chicagoans that surround them, it serves as a fittingly frustrating coda.

The Bear, both show and restaurant, was always going to fall victim to its own success. We started to see some of the cracks in Season 3, which, despite my love for it at the time, falls into the same self-sabotaging patterns Carmy exhibits, between drags of cigarettes and yet one more expensive change to the menu. Meanwhile, the show’s style, so quick and sharp and surprisingly meditative even in its mind-scratching anxiety, starts to grow repetitive and self-congratulatory.

Remember that first episode of Season 3, a hazy half-hour montage of food preparation, of Carmy sweating over plates, of intrusive thoughts flashing in front of his eyes (and ours) as Storer crash-zoomed on yet another egg timer? Season 4 basically feels like that writ large, over longer stretches, only pausing occasionally to let its characters breathe, talk things through, and achieve catharsis.

And catharsis is the name of the game here, even as the stakes (or steaks?) grow ever higher. As with Season 2, we begin with a literal ticking clock: Oliver Platt’s Uncle Jimmy (alongside his brainy sidekick, whose savvy for graphs, charts, and figures gives him the nickname “The Computer”) slams down a two-month digital clock and offers an ultimatum: Either the restaurant cleans up its overly expensive act by the time the clock hits zero, or it shuts down. Making money is no easy feat, even for the most well-oiled eateries; The Bear, with its chaotic kitchen, frazzled, self-sabotaging chef, and three mixed reviews at this point from the Chicago Tribune, doesn’t stand a chance.

On top of that, Storer has more items to throw into the pressure cooker for just about everybody, as the ins and outs of life mix interchangeably with the fate of the business. The impending wedding of Richie’s ex (Gillian Jacobs) to the objectively awesome Frank (Josh Hartnett) has him crashing out and wrestling with his own inadequacy and feeling of being left behind.

Additionally, Sydney’s issues with Carmy’s unpredictability comes to a head, as she stares down a partnership agreement at The Bear while also entertaining an offer to join a hip new chef (Adam Shapiro) who wants to bring her in. (The season’s patient fourth episode, directed by Janicza Bravo, is an enlightening window into the way Syd, a Black woman, has to navigate the lily-white restaurant space; Shapiro’s character tries a little too hard to be hip, and every well-meaning gesture stings beautifully.)

Meanwhile, Edwin Lee Gibson’s Ebraheim, the one former Beef coworker who doesn’t subscribe to the intense Bourdain-ity of it all, starts hatching a plan to “create opportunity” with the Bear’s sandwich window — the one part of the joint that’s actually making money.

There are a lot of plates to spin, and that’s just a sampling of the many, many subplots that come into play here. I didn’t even touch on Sugar’s (Abby Elliott) longstanding feud with the heretofore-unseen Fak sister, Francie (whose casting I won’t spoil, as it’s one of the show’s classic surprise celebrity cameos; also, because according to Sugar, she can go fuck), or the little stories going on with Fak brothers Neil (Matty Mattheson) and Teddy (Ricky Staffieri).

It’s so busy with all these things that it’s almost a relief when the vast majority of these smaller interpersonal beefs get squashed in the season’s prerequisite extra-long episode, a wedding bash in which just about everybody gets to clap a hand on someone else’s shoulder and begrudgingly forgive, or enlighten, or inspire. The problem is, the whole show feels like one giant hugbox in this regard, taking its cooking-as-catharsis ethos a bit too literally. Everyone’s just so ready to cry it out that they do it with everybody, sometimes multiple times and about multiple things. At a certain point, you just gotta sit down and cook the food.

Even through all the self-congratulatory needle drops, and the therapyspeak, and the achingly sincere hearts-to-heart that can sometimes suffocate The Bear in its own papillote, it still tastes good on the palate. The show still looks beautiful, its Chicago backdrops offering plenty of unique real estate for our characters to contemplate (from real Chicago restaurants like Alpana to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio in Oak Park).

And, of course, there’s our cast, who all look good and sell each delicate nerve that’s being plucked at from one pressure or another. White does a tremendous job making Carmy’s sincere attempts to lighten up look like even more work, and Edebiri’s willingness to finally make Sydney crack at just the right moments sells just how desperate her situation (and hope for success) is. Much as my complaints are real, the moment-to-moment emotionality of the thing still shines through.

That’s part of the magic of The Bear, an imperfect show that, like its characters, is constantly shaping and improving and mastering itself — while facing the grand tragedy that comes from finally figuring out how to make the thing work the very second you have to stop. Perhaps that’s the most fitting fate for this show: If there’s a Season 5, it’ll have a nice victory lap in which to celebrate its success. But if the bell has finally tolled for The Bear, it’ll prove a mighty case study for Storer’s thesis on both food and storytelling: It’s all about the process. Think small. Keep things consistent. Every second counts.

All ten episodes of The Bear Season 4 are currently streaming on Hulu. Check out the trailer below.