The Bear Season 4 Review

This review contains spoilers for The Bear season 4, which is now streaming on Hulu.

Chef Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) has snapped out of his funk, and The Bear is back on track – all it took was Carmy blowing his life up. With its main character’s emotional meltdown sucking the oxygen right out of his restaurant (also called The Bear) and overshadowing the progress of everyone in his circle of colleagues, family, and friends, season 3 was a major step down for FX’s culinary dramedy. Fortunately, creator Christopher Storer makes up for it by having Carmy throw himself into a course correction that becomes the central focus of season 4.

In the wake of a review that says their restaurant “stumbles with culinary dissonance,” the compounded financial consequences for Carmy and his crew are dire. Investor Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) and his money guy Computer (Brian Koppelman) open season 4 with a do-or-die proposition:. The Bear has seven months to make money or they’ll have to cease operations. A countdown clock glows angrily within the kitchen, a constant reminder of what’s at stake for the restaurant and its staff.

That renewed sense of purpose inside The Bear means there’s a lot more real estate available to the whole ensemble. Their cumulative forward progress, personally and professionally, is once again important to the overall story, and a source of structure for season 4 – and these 10 episodes are better for it. Chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) still has that big decision looming: whether to sign her partnership paperwork at The Bear, or jump ship to run Chef Adam’s (Adam Shapiro) new place in the city. While that continues to be the most terminally stagnant plot point in the mix, Edebiri also gets to play something other than indecisive . A beautiful fourth episode (co-written by Edebiri and her co-star Lionel Boyce and directed by Zola’s Janicza Bravo) shows Syd spend a day off with her cousin Chantal (Danielle Deadwyler) and her daughter TJ (Arion King), shedding more light on her roots outside the restaurant and why she became a chef.

Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) continues to wrestle with his own goals and nagging self-doubt as a leader at The Bear, and as a father in the perceived golden glow of Frank (Josh Hartnett), the “perfect stepfather.” Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) is ushered back into the spotlight as he hires the vivacious consultant Albert (Rob Reiner) to help him “create opportunity” for himself and the sandwich business. Theirs is an energetic storyline that connects the kitchen to the larger business, and folds in the antics of the Fak brothers (Matty Matheson and Ricky Staffieri) to better effect. And Nat (Abby Elliott) gets to be the empathetic momma bear for her infant and the members of her restaurant family who are suffering under The Bear’s withering financial state.

And that leaves Carmy to get back in touch with the guy we fell in love with and rooted for in the first two seasons. The obsessive, psychopathic chef of season 3 is put in the bin, shamed away by his selfish behavior and callous treatment of his team. Carmy spends a lot of season 4 mending fences at The Bear and beyond: He ghosted Claire (Molly Gordon), and it’s quite poignant to watch their life-long friendship help them overcome such a nasty romantic implosion. As he looks to his family trauma to see the source of his mistakes and make some big decisions about where he’s going next, he also turns towards his mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), to let her make her own amends.

In the new season, Storer eschews the tense oners of previous seasons and instead rewards the characters with plenty of space to be contemplative, alone or together. The former madness in The Bear’s kitchen has calmed by necessity, as the bleak fiscal outlook supersedes Carmy’s success-killing non-negotiables. The turmoil is now more interior, more personal. More than ever, Storer tucks the camera right into the actors’ faces so they can reveal the inner selves of the people they’re playing, or thoughtfully consider big choices sans dialogue. Across the board, the intimacy allows the whole cast – from the guest stars to the series regulars – to shine brightly.

There’s even a return to ensemble chaos as Tiff’s (Gillian Jacobs) wedding to nice guy Frank gathers all the people who orbit and exist within this cobbled-together community of misfits in episode 7. A 180 in tone and maturity from season 2’s volatile “Fishes,” the wedding reception reveals just how far these characters have come as actual cousins mingle with “adopted” ones, exes find common ground to coexist, “uncles” take the place of birth parents, and so on and so on. It’s a hopeful showcase for this world and its extended cast.

There’s been no official announcement of whether or not this is the end for The Bear, but season 4 feels like a conclusion. Its motifs – countdown clocks, wake-up alarms, an apparent and abundant appreciation for Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day (another story of self-improvement and broken cycles) – represent Carmy and his circle acknowledging the precious nature of time, accepted purpose, and sacrifice. Every single character has grown in some way since we first met them in season 1, and Storer is wise to leave plenty of runway for them to continue down their individual paths in the season finale. He also pulls off the difficult trick of staging a passionate confrontation between some core characters that ends up reframing so much of what we thought we knew about these endearing, emotionally constipated people. Their spoken truth is a relief to witness – necessary for them to move on with a renewed promise of hope and peace. Whether or not it’s the series finale, it attains that special alchemy of satisfying closure while leaving plenty leftover for audiences to ponder about where these characters go next.