The Bear Season 4: Once More, With Feeling

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OVER ITS PAST THREE SEASONS, FX’s The Bear has, perhaps, been one of the greatest causes for our numerous heart palpitations, the sweats, the shakes, the spewing, the shouting and even the runs. With every pot boiling over, every knife-edge slashing against the chopping board, every spoon serving sauce on a white plate, every splatter somersaulting through the air, every time that damn walk-in’s handle got stuck, every moment of kindness missed: this series got our cup of anxiety to runneth over. So far, it hasn’t been a rollercoaster ride through its 30 episodes; the former might be smoother in comparison. Rather, it’s like a tennis ball bludgeoned by Carlos Alcaraz’s forehand down to the baseline. We can all take a deep breath though: for its fourth course, The Bear allows us to savour and sit with our serving for a bit longer.

With each season, this show has taken big swings. The first season set up the maddening mise-en-scene for the entire series, keeping its foot on the pedal throughout. In the second, it highlighted single-characters; building out their worlds, whispering suggestions for their tastes, techniques and thinking. Suddenly, it gave us peaks and valleys: there was the calm of Marcus’ (Lionel Boyce) staging in Copenhagen to the chaotic chokehold of “Fishes” — the catastrophic Christmas family meal — with Jamie Lee Curtis’ Donna Berzatto brilliantly driving this burning train. In its third outing, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) continued to trauma dump on us; we’ve all got to deal with his inextinguishable drive to prove himself expressed through the frantic changing-up of the menu. It was a bit too much. Like, hey Carmy, touch grass sometime.

Season four has heard the murmur of the mob; Carmy’s changes in the running of the restaurant mirror the choices of the showrunners too. It isn’t all perfect; sometimes the metaphors are shoved down our gullets. So, yes, there’s a physical clock running down the seconds till the “parachute” of investment is drained. So, Carmy and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) — her bandanas are getting better and better — decide to trim the menu; they keep it simple, focussed on a few elements. These moves aren’t motivated by creative flex but by their money being stretched. This time around, The Bear doesn’t chuck everything, everywhere, all at once. Rather it layers the plot like the components of a good Italian beef sandwich, each ingredient integral to the experience of it.

Similarly, the momentum is built up over the 10 episodes. Some storylines that were teased and tortured out through the run of the previous season are rendered satisfyingly. Sydney stays: her ambitions and her affections are finally aligned. Everyone at the Bear is family but she wants it to become a successful restaurant too. Edebiri dazzles in the episode dedicated to her character Sydney trying to get her hair braided. We’re left with a surer sense of possibility for Carmy and Claire (Molly Gordon) to find their way back to each other. Every single scene with Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) — speaking or even silent in the background — is a delicious treat. Matty Matheson as Neil Fak is the dash of laughter that still allows for this show to enter itself under the ‘comedy’ category at the awards. This time around, the Faks even get the help of a delivery robot in this department.

There’s a more even pace through this new season of The Bear. And it still captures that warm, delightful, frantic frisson between the cast of characters. The actors’ chemistry feels easy and the respect and love for each other radiates through the series. There’s also that flash of lightness that gets us coming back to the show but let’s admit it, Carmy’s constant self-flagellation and his apology tour are overcooked. We get it, he’s feeling stuck. We get it. Now, what?

That’s the trouble with prestige television: think Succession, Sopranos, and such. It is difficult to always hit the sweet spot. It must time the final course precisely. And it seems The Bear must begin to clear the tables before it brings out the dessert. We’ve been primed and ready to be satiated; hopefully the showrunners — Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo — aren’t dreaming of extending this seating longer than needed. The danger being that any dinner could easily tip over into too much of a good thing without studied restraint.