The Bear was an unexpected smash of Summer 2022. Some of the initial fervor was fueled by the Chicago return of Jeremy Allen White after the ten-year run of Shameless. However, unlike Shameless, which was mostly filmed in LA, The Bear is all about Chicago.
The show follows White’s Carmy Berzatto, an award-winning chef. Carmy’s love of food extends beyond an Italian heritage to a greasy spoon Italian beef joint that has been in his family for years. Despite his overwhelming desire to work there, Carmy’s brother Michael (John Bernthal) refuses to let him. This core rejection drives Carmy’s ambition in the kitchen. He trains under an abusive executive chef (Joel McHale), adding to his conflation of love and pain as it relates to cooking.
His life falls apart after his brother commits suicide and inexplicably leaves him the business. Carmy quits his fine dining job in New York to return to Chicago to keep The Original Beef of Chicagoland (known simply as "The Beef") alive. To call the restaurant a functional business is generous. The whole thing seems to be maintained through duct tape and sheer force of will. The ragtag team of employees is chaotic in both personality and process, and none of them make Carny's transition into a new work environment easy.
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What Happened in Season 1 of 'The Bear'?
For its brief season and even shorter episodes, The Bear packed a lot of action and emotional resonance into its first season. Fresh off of his James Beard award win, Carmy Berzatto returns to Chicago to take over The Beef after his brother’s unexpected suicide. He finds the restaurant in a sorry state: dirty, poorly stocked, inefficient. Michael’s best friend Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) has taken over day-to-day operations, but he is woefully unfit for the task. The kitchen’s haphazard organization fills Carmy with equal parts anxiety and frustration. His early attempts to corral his new troops are unsuccessful, as are early attempts at changing the menu. Desperate for some link between this rickety restaurant and the fine dining world he’d just left, Carmy hires Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), a Culinary Institute of America graduate and Chicago native as his sous chef. Neither Carmy nor Sydney is fully accepted by the other staff. An uncomfortable truce settles over The Beef as they learn to work together in whatever way they can.
Natalie (Abby Elliott), Carmy’s younger sister, appears during a tense moment and the two struggle to connect. It’s clear that the siblings have never been close, and both were blindsided by Michael’s death. She is hurt that Carmy has dedicated all of his time to the restaurant and has spent so little time with the family grieving. She has also inherited a stake in the restaurant and tries to convince Carmy to sell it, as she has received threatening letters from the IRS about unpaid taxes. Carmy’s immediate instinct is to refuse. He wants to keep the restaurant open as an homage to his brother. She asks for a specific payroll tax form the IRS letters had asked for, and they step into the restaurant’s small office to find it. What they found could most easily be compared to the bottom of a middle schooler’s locker at the end of the school year, an absolute disaster area. Neither of them can find the missing document.
In 'The Bear' Season 1, Things Often Get Worse Before They Get Better
Conditions at The Beef worsen, quickly. A health inspector shows up and notes several health department violations. Carmy discovers his brother had borrowed $300,000 from their loan shark uncle, Jimmy Cicero (Oliver Platt). Cicero offers to buy the restaurant from Carmy and sell it, get it off of their hands so that Carmy can return to New York and his prestige, but he refuses. For all that he tries to suppress his feelings and pour all of his attention into The Beef, Carmy’s emotional health is spiraling. He secretly begins attending Al-Anon meetings to process his feelings and better understand his brother’s issues with addiction and suicide.
With Carmy preoccupied, Sydney is left to endure the staff’s rejection and hazing. She is also responsible for dealing with a lot of the day-to-day issues, even as Richie gets all the credit. Carmy has the bright idea of transforming The Beef’s workflow to something resembling his fine dining style. He leaves Sydney, ill-prepared and disrespected, to enforce it. Sydney feels abandoned and exploited. She eventually gets her feet under her, slowly gaining the respect of her coworkers. Many of them struggle to adjust to their new roles, but Marcus (Lionel Boyce) shines as a baker of chocolate cakes.
The Beef can’t catch a break: just before open, the restaurant’s toilet backs up, flooding the bathroom. Carmy sends for Fak (Matty Matheson), a childhood friend, to fix it. While there, Fak attempts to interview for a job at the Beef with Richie. Richie doesn’t want him working there and the two come to blows. Carmy rushes to break it up. Desperate to stay in Carmy’s good graces, Fak reveals Richie has been selling cocaine in the alley behind the restaurant. Carmy is furious. Richie explains that the money from selling drugs is the only thing that kept the restaurant open through COVID. Meanwhile, Marcus struggles to prepare enough batter to bake cakes for the lunch rush. He attempts to speed things along by turning up the mixer. It is too much for the poor restaurant to bear and the power goes out. Fak determines the restaurant needs a new condenser, but that the part would cost over $5,000 to replace. Uncertain about what else to do, Carmy asks Richie to do one more deal to cover the costs.
In 'The Bear' Season 1, Tensions Mount Between Carmy, Sydney, and the Crew
Carmy and Sydney mend their relationship when Carmy solicits her help with devising a new dinner menu to drive up profits. Amid all the frenzy, Sydney tries her best to rise to the challenge. She constantly seeks Carmy’s approval, but he is too distracted and stressed to provide it. Even when he tastes her food, he is short, telling her it’s “not ready,” but providing no additional details. Sydney crafts a risotto meal that she is very proud of. When Carmy refuses to even taste the dish, she feels betrayed. Not wanting her food to go to waste, she offers it to a customer free of charge. The next day, Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson), one of The Beef’s line cooks, reads the newspaper as the staff begins prep. The food critic reviewed The Beef, making particular note of the spectacular risotto dish he was given. Carmy is both annoyed and proud of Sydney’s unexpected accomplishment.
This is also the day they’d implemented an online ordering system. During prep, Marcus gets distracted in his attempt to perfect a new pastry and is late getting bread and cakes ready for the day. Carmy powers on the ordering machine and learns that Sydney had accidentally left the pre-order option on when she set it up. Hundreds of tickets pour out, and the restaurant explodes in a frenzy of activity. Carmy screams at Sydney for the mistake and Marcus for being unprepared. In the chaos, Sydney accidentally stabs Richie. He refuses to believe at first that it was an accident. She quits on the spot. Marcus follows her.
The Beef hosts a bachelor party that quickly gets way out of hand. Richie gets into a fight with a patron, nearly killing him. Marcus returns to the restaurant after hearing about the commotion. Carmy, losing his grip on reality, accidentally starts a kitchen fire while trying to light a cigarette on the burner. He doesn’t react, even as the flames spread, staring blankly even as his staff rushes in to put out the fire.
Finally, The Beef and Carmy Catch a Break in 'The Bear' Season 1
Unexpectedly, Richie gives Carmy a letter he’d found in the break room. The envelope was addressed to Carmy from Michael. Carmy opens it, but is disappointed to find nothing but a recipe for spaghetti. He is angry, frustrated, and feels played by his brother from the afterlife. Not knowing what else to do, Carmy sets out to make the recipe. He notices an odd note in the ingredients section, a suggestion to use the smaller cans of tomatoes because they taste better. Incredulous, Carmy returns the larger can he’d originally retrieved and grabbed a small can. When he opens the can, he finds a wad of $100 bills covered in a sheen of tomato sauce.
He gathers the rest of the staff together and orders them to open all the small cans of tomatoes. All stuffed with cash. He texts Sydney, apologizing for his behavior and offering her a few pointers on her risotto. She shows up at the restaurant and is welcomed like a hero–just before she’s put to work opening cans, too. The season ends with Carmy putting a sign on the door announcing that The Beef is closed and a new restaurant, The Bear, is coming soon.
What Can We Expect From Season 2 of 'The Bear'?
Part of what makes The Bear so incredible is its nuanced and moving depictions of grief. Michael’s absence is felt in every episode, with each character expressing the loss in their own way. The show exemplifies the resilience required to both weather deep personal loss and a career in the restaurant industry. It will be interesting to see the characters go through a deeper level of processing and healing, growing and starting something new.
The show is a love letter to Chicago, the City of Broad Shoulders, and we’ll hopefully get to see more of Carmy’s Chicago in Season 2. The show has taken on a new level of relevance to Chicagoans in recent weeks. Joseph Zucchero, the owner of Mr. Beef, the real Italian beef joint in River North that inspired The Beef, recently passed away after a long battle with cancer.
The Bear Season 2 will drop on Hulu on June 22.
