As The Bear gets ready to make its grand reappearance on screens, the buzz feels slightly muted.
It’s not just the usual ennui of a TV show four seasons in: after all, Succession only accumulated hype as the show went on, like a snowball rolling downhill. No, it might have something to do with the show’s lacklustre third season.
To understand the response to that, it’s necessary to understand just what a phenomenon the first season was. It burst onto the scene like a firework in 2022, a show that boasted just eight short-form episodes, set in a sweaty, stressful kitchen in Chicago.
But it was a hit. Everything worked: the characters were skilfully drawn, the comedy was impeccable (with the episode where Richie spikes the Ecto Cooler at a kid’s birthday party with Xanax being a special highlight), and the stress was truly relentless.
Even though it played on our heartstrings with all the precision of Carmy plating up a Michelin-star meal, it worked. The stress, somehow, became a reactor into which everything that went in came out as gold.
It turbocharged the careers of Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White, as well as Ebon Moss-Bachrach and the rest of the cast. And season two was even better. We dug into the backstories of characters like Marcus (Lionel Boyce), whose character was juggling caring for his sick mother with pursuing his dreams of a pastry chef.
In two back-to-back standout episodes, Forks and Fishes, we were endeared to Richie and introduced to the wider Berzatto family, in what may be the best 101 minutes of television since The Sopranos.
As season three approached, anticipation was at an all-time high. The Bear was riding a wave of goodwill, gilded with all the trophies they’d picked up: Golden Globes, Emmys, SAGs, you name it.
And yet… it was a let-down. Season three just didn’t hit the mark in the same way. The first two seasons of the show followed Carmy as he attempted to keep his brother’s sandwich shop afloat, then transform it into a fine dining restaurant.
The tension - and enjoyment - came from all the things that went wrong over the course of making that happen. The gunshots. The sprinkler system breaking. The restaurant walls being inundated with mould. And then people coming together at the end of the day to bond over a piece of food.
This time around, we got polish, and a series struggling under the weight of its own hype. Yes, The Beef was now The Bear, but the show’s attempts to explore cycles of abuse within the hospitality arena felt muddled.
Novelty was king. Every episode had the distinct feeling of having been created to push boundaries, much like the food Carmy and the team were making – as a result, the stories it told concentrated less on the characters and more on the art.
And just like Carmy, the show felt like it had lost sight over whether its customers were actually enjoying themselves. Why all the endless montages illustrating Carmy’s increasingly deranged state of mind – and why fewer scenes exploring the life of, say, Marcus? As Jeremy Allen White’s chef took centre stage, other characters were left to tread water (such as Richie, and his struggles with fatherhood), and their narrative arcs remained unresolved by the end of the season’s 10 episodes.
We did get some clowning, courtesy of the Fak brothers. But while some of their interludes were a work of comedy genius (Neil’s attempt at serving diners by taking away their broth, for instance), many more felt strained: a shoehorned bit of light relief ahead of the dour, depressing scenes where people bickered or realised how much money they were losing.
Perhaps as a result, it has lost its heart. Give us more Richie, give us more incidents of gunshots and Ecto Cooler mayhem. Give us more Jamie Lee Curtis, who won an Emmy for playing Donna and appeared here in just one episode, Ice Chips.
Give us more stuff that makes The Bear feel like The Bear again, rather than a version of MasterChef set in Chicago. The sandwich shop was a place of simple pleasures, where locals could drop in for a bite at affordable prices. Who’s going to the fine dining iteration of The Real Beef of Chicagoland? More importantly, who’s even enjoying it?
Certainly not the people who were the beating heart of the sandwich shop: bring them back, and us with it.
The Bear season four starts on Disney+ from June 26; with seasons one to three available to stream now
