Plot: Season four of FX’s The Bear finds Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, Sydney Adamu and Richard “Richie” Jerimovich pushing forward, determined not only to survive, but also to take The Bear to the next level. With new challenges around every corner, the team must adapt, adjust and overcome. This season, the pursuit of excellence isn’t just about getting better – it’s about deciding what’s worth holding on to.
Review: The fourth season of The Bear opens with a flashback to Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Mikey (Jon Bernthal) as the first idea for the titular restaurant came to fruition. In the present day, Carmy awakens to find the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day playing on his television, hinting at the series’ recurring theme of breaking out of the mundane. With these moments setting the table for the new season, it is immediately apparent that The Bear is returning to its proper form after a slightly underwhelming third season. A renewed focus and more momentum return the acclaimed series to where it rightfully belongs as one of, if not the best, series on the air today. But, similar to season three, the fourth season of The Bear still struggles with treading water rather than taking steps forward for the characters and the plot.
Filmed back to back with the third season, season four of The Bear picks up right after the restaurant receives a negative review in the Chicago Tribune after a critic visited on three occasions. Everyone from Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) to Carmy and beyond blames themselves for the dissonance amongst the staff, leading to the negative review. However, their wallowing is quickly broken by Cicero (Oliver Platt) and Computer (Brian Koppelman), who announce that they have two months to turn things around or the restaurant will be forced to close. Enlisting help from Jessica (Sara Ramos), the team does their best to raise themselves up and save the restaurant while still contending with stress in their personal and professional lives. In short, just another day at Chicago’s newest culinary hotspot.
From the outset of the ten-episode season, The Bear revels the chaos and speed required to run a restaurant. The behind-the-scenes glimpses of both of the Berzatto-run restaurants and the disparate personalities of the staff as they pull together to become a team have been a hallmark of this series from the beginning. This season continues Carmy’s existential crisis as he contemplates whether he is still passionate about being a chef. At the same time, Sydney (Ayo Edibiri) grapples with the decision to stay alongside her mentor or pursue a new opportunity where she can be in the spotlight both creatively and professionally. Richie also continues to hone the skills he gained in the third season, while his personal life remains a mess, even more so as his ex-wife’s wedding rapidly approaches. The focus on each member of the staff remains strong with Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) and Marcus (Lionel Boyce) continuing to get attention even while Sugar (Abby Elliott) and Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) increase theirs.
This season boasts an hour-long episode, only the second in the series’ history, which will go down as one of the best entries of The Bear. Bringing back countless guest stars from prior seasons, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Bob Odenkirk, and newcomer Brie Larson, the seventh episode of The Bear is an episode that will rank as one of the best episodes of television this year. But, like this season’s quest for a Michelin star, it is surrounded by good but not great episodes around it. Since this season was filmed back-to-back with the third, much of season four feels like a second half rather than a distinct narrative run. If you combine three and four into an extended season, the development of the characters and the plot works far better, but it would be overlong to reach the point where this season concludes. Complaining about The Bear‘s weaknesses is tough, as this series is still better than many shows, even at its lowest.
Series creator Christopher Storer continues to be the driving creative force behind The Bear, directing nine of the ten episodes with Janicza Bravo helming one and Duccio Fabbri co-directing another. Storer also has writing credits on five episodes with Joanna Calo, Karen Joseph Adcock, Catherine Schetina, and Rene Gube. Ayo Edibiri and Lionel Boyce co-wrote the excellent fourth episode this season, which is another impressive achievement from both talents, who continue to shine in front of the camera and off it. Storer’s work as a director works wonders with the massive wedding episode and the quiet and masterful season finale, which delivers a powerful, if not unexpected, cliffhanger. We have heard for some time that The Bear may be gearing up to end with the fifth or sixth season, and the end of season four definitely begins staging the eventual conclusion.
I have always appreciated that The Bear balances the individual members of the restaurant staff with exploring who they are as individuals. Still, the series felt stagnant in season three and is just coming out of the funk in this fourth run. Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edibiri, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach earn the spotlight with their performances and with good reason, but the entire ensemble is fantastic as always. Few series can manage to have this much talent in the primary ensemble and still bring in many huge actors for supporting roles and cameos, along with recognizable names from the culinary world. This season opens with a doomsday clock counting down to the potential end of The Bear, and it is hard not to view that as a thinly veiled message about the impending conclusion of this series. While it may not be as vital or fresh as when it first debuted, The Bear remains one of the better television shows. Season four improves on the third season but only slightly and falls short of being as good as it could have been. Still, I am confident that whether it has one more season or three, the end of The Bear will be very special.
The Bear is now streaming on FX on Hulu.
