We all have our television blind spots, shows we’ve heard amazing things about, but we haven’t found the time to actually press play and catch up on the latest culture-defining program. Maybe you are finally sitting down to visit The Sopranos (and form your own opinion on the controversial ending). Or maybe you are revisiting a classic like Games of Thrones, and it’s making you rethink your opinions of certain characters. One of my recent blind spots was The Bear, the chaotic and critically acclaimed Emmy winner set in a Chicago restaurant that plunges the depths of the main characters as they struggle to keep a business afloat. My wife and I finally decided to catch up on the show, and quickly discovered that neither one of us were emotionally prepared for the arcs mapped out in Season 1, or the wallop of a payoff in the Season 1 finale.
Needless to say, I’m going to be spoiling The Bear Season 1, so stop reading now if you haven’t seen it, and still want to remain in the dark.
‘As we got older, I realized I didn’t know anything about him, really.’
To fully grasp the impact of the Season 1 finale, we have to rewind back to Episode 7, “Review.” And everyone who knew that I was watching The Bear for the first time prepped me for the oner, knowing how much I would appreciate the technical aspect of the shot. And it is impressive. But to me, it pales in comparison to the unbroken close-up on Jeremy Allen White’s mesmerizing face during the Al-Anon meeting that Carmy attends, finally confessing the truth about his strained relationship with his late brother, Mikey (Jon Bernthal, who is devastating in the brief screen time he’s allowed).
White won an Emmy for his work on The Bear Season 1, and my hope is that FX simply sent voters this 7-minute monologue. I realized during it that I hung on every single word coming out of Carmy’s mouth. Because the character’s not verbose. And for the first time, he was admitting why The Beef was so important to him, and why he was trying to re-establish the restaurant, and fix his relationships with his dead sibling. This is engrossing television:
Chunks of the Season 1 finale, “Braciole,” dealt with The Beef employees picking up their own pieces in the wake of Carmy’s meltdown in Episode 7, when he pushed Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) out of his workstation with his aggressive verbal tactics, and smacked Marcus’s (Lionel Boyce) donut out of his hands and to the floor. Even in the midst of the stunning technical oner, the moments I will remember are character driven – Syd changing sneakers as she works up the courage to quit, or Carm bending down to taste Marcus’s donut off the floor, and allowing himself to briefly celebrate and acknowledge just how delicious the dessert turned out. Marcus does eventually return to The Beef in “Braciole,” and Carm apologizes. But there’s still tension in that mentorship. It might remain fractured. I’m not certain.
‘I love you, dude. Let it rip’
The power of The Bear, throughout Season 1, has been in presenting the main characters in one light – Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is an arrogant, self-involved blowhard, Carmy is an uptight perfectionist – then peeling away layers to reveal an unexpected center. As new details emerge, we also chip away at the overarching mystery figure that is Mikey, with mid-sized details parceled out over the course of the entire season.
It got to the point where I’d forgotten the existence of the letter Richie found behind the lockers until he handed it to Carmy. When he justified it by saying that he didn’t give it to Carm because it would finalize the fact that Mikey was gone, my heart climbed into my throat… and stayed there the entire scene as Carm stood in the alley and worked up the courage to read the message his brother had left him.
A bad show makes that letter a flowery, sentimental goodbye. The Bear is better than that. In the Al-Anon monologue, Carm told the story about Mikey’s message to him, “Let it rip.” Which is what Mike tells Carm to do. And then he leaves him with the cash incentive to do just that.
The presence of the cash in the tomato sauce cans raises a bunch of questions I’m sure The Bear Season 2 will address. For now, I’m content to breathe a little easier for the first time all season as some weight appears to have been lifted off Carm’s shoulders. But he can’t completely forget. Because as the final, devastating shot of the finale reminds us, the shadow of Mikey forever hangs over this show, and its lead character.
God, that is a heartbreaking smile. It’s a brutal, necessary reminder why Carmy sacrificed all that he did to bring order to The Beef. And it’s an eye-opening truth that Mikey made some calculated decisions to provide for the brother with whom he’d lost touch. Carm now plans to launch the restaurant he and Mike discussed – “We wanted to open a restaurant together. Um, we had a name, we had a vibe, all of it.” – and he’ll call it The Bear.
On to The Bear Season 2.
I know the rest of you are dying for news on The Bear Season 3. We even put together a list of previous guest stars we want to see return for future episodes. For now, we wait for June, when Season 3 is expected to drop.
