The Bear | A Perfect Final Season Is the Missing Michelin Star the Series Needed
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Anxiety. There’s no better word to define The Bear than this one. It was through the best possible portrayal of the madness that is working in a kitchen that the series won over its fans. Amid shouting, cursing, and plenty of mess, the first season arrived as something new, pop, and edgy—almost hyperventilating. That feeling spilled out beyond the restaurant, taking over the characters’ personal lives in the second season. It took over the production itself in a third season that, while very good, seemed unsure of which direction to take. The fourth season was a breather, a moment of reconciliation. And now, in the fifth, the anxiety returns for one final service.
Things aren’t looking good for Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White), Syd’s (Ayo Edebiri), and Richie’s (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) restaurant. The chef is leaving the kitchen, his “apprentice” doesn’t fully believe in her own potential, and Richie keeps looking for a way to make the best of the situation. They’ve run out of money, suppliers are no longer delivering, and the time for The Bear to close its doors is drawing near. Outside, a torrential downpour hits Chicago. Water begins to flood the restaurant, and everything seems on the verge of collapsing. It is on this “last day” that the final season unfolds, with the feel of a long, over-five-hour-long finale episode.
The series’ soundtrack, historically featuring artists like R.E.M., John Mayer, and Wilco, gives way to a frenetic original score produced by Hans Zimmer, which sets the tone for the race against time in these final hours of the production and the restaurant. What do you serve when you have no ingredients? What do you say to the colleagues who fought so hard to build that place, but now will be left with nothing but a farewell? With everything falling apart, is it still possible to view gastronomy as art? The storm outside the restaurant is the embodiment of everything that has built up over the years; now that everyone seems finally at peace with the situation, the rain falls to shatter the dream.
While The Bear grew too big after its resounding success—featuring numerous guest appearances, whether by real chefs or acclaimed actors—the final season returns to what made the series a phenomenon: the four walls of the kitchen. Set almost entirely within the restaurant, the story needs only the talent of the main cast to shine. From Gary’s (Corey Hendrix) uncertainty about which wine is the right choice after the bottles lose their labels in the flood, to the drama surrounding Marcus (Lionel Boyce)—who, intoxicated by last season’s award, invites his estranged father to try his dishes—each character has their moment to shine. The season’s opening scene immediately puts Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) right in the crossfire: after discovering her gift, what does she do when everything goes wrong?
This fear occupies everyone’s mind at The Bear, including Jimmy (Oliver Platt), who embarks on a side quest alongside Computer (Brian Koppelman) and newcomer Cheese to try to fix the restaurant’s chaotic financial situation.
As they gradually replaced anxiety with the fear of failure, Christopher Storer and his team realized that, for the final season, the bulk of the work had already been done. From incredible episodes like “System,” “Review,” and “Braciole” in the first season; “Fishes” and “Forks” from the second; “Tomorrow,” “Ice Chips,” and “Forever” from the third; to the recent “Worms,” “Bears,” “Tonnato,” and “Good Bye” from the fourth, the main courses of this feast had already been served. Now it was time to transform all the fury, frustrations, reconciliations, mistakes, and successes into resolution. This tasting menu—bitter, spicy, and, at times, sweet—needed to end with a spectacular final course and dessert.
And this unfolds at a rapid pace, in 25- to 30-minute episodes that culminate in a seventh and penultimate episode that showcases all the production’s technical merits. With exquisite editing and cinematography, the cast performs as if in the world’s finest kitchens: everyone perfectly understands their role and function, giving each other the space to deliver their best performance. It’s an episode destined for the hall of fame of television’s greatest moments, bringing together virtually the entire cast in a ballet that replaces frenzied shouting with commands and firm voices, moments of mutual recognition, and—why not?—deep satisfaction.
The fact that this episode unfolds like a ballet also highlights the maturity its cast has achieved. The hustle and bustle in the kitchen at The Bear has always represented the chaos in the minds of Carmy and his colleagues, but as they reach their final moments, dancing in time with the music while the rain washes all their fears away, the restaurant staff finally creates the spectacle they’ve been striving for. For the Bears, it’s a true grand opening, while for us it’s the perfect swan song for an (almost) perfect series.
In an era when it seems difficult to find worthy conclusions for the series we love, The Bear finds its greatest merit in this finale precisely by narrowing its scope to a false simplicity. But the sink full of dishes proves that a lot has been accomplished over the past five years. When Syd stares at a photo of Remy, the little chef from Ratatouille, and laughs, almost cursing at him, the series takes a stance of total opposition to the Pixar film’s optimistic message that “anyone can cook.” After everything they’ve been through, could anyone really keep up the pace and be like Syd, Carmy, Richie, Marcus, Tina, Neil (Matty Matheson), Sugar (Abby Elliott), and all the other bears?
The Bear has cemented its place as one of the best series ever produced and comes to an end by crowning that legacy with a perfect season. And just like the incredible dishes created by Syd, Carmy, and Marcus, I’d like to take a page from the omelet—a dish that also appeared in the series, by the way—to break new ground. Along with the traditional five eggs for the site’s top rating, I’m also awarding the long-awaited star that the series sought and deserved from the very first minute. It was such a pleasure—and absurdly nerve-wracking—to follow this journey.
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