By Aoife Carnevale
Christopher Storer’s The Bear is by no means an underrated gem in the Film and TV industry – it immediately skyrocketed in popularity and for good reason. Whilst Jeremey Allen White and Ayo Edebri deserve all the accolades awarded to them for their performance, I am particularly struck by some of the most beautiful storytelling I’ve ever seen on screen.
Despite the fact that watching The Bear is one of the most overstimulating and stressful viewing experiences, somehow this show, in which the main characters scream bloody murder and stab each other on the daily, is an incredibly authentic and wonderfully messy portrayal of human connection and love. A variety of scenes or even particular lines have stuck with me since my first watch.
I ask you to bear with me (pun definitely intended) whilst I work my way through the series as a whole, to document it as a visual artform, as poetry, and as theatre.
The Bear is ironically regarded as a comedy and yet every episode has at least one good emotional gut punch. Our protagonist, Carmy, takes over his recently departed brother’s restaurant, whilst being unable to come face to face with the sheer weight of his grief and anxiety.
Season 1 tells the story of channelling his frustration and initial shock over Michael’s suicide, into the art of cooking. One of my favourite scenes from this season and perhaps just the show in general, is the support group meeting in which Carmy monologues to an eerily silent audience,
“And the routine of the kitchen was so consistent and exacting and busy and hard and alive and I lost track of time and he died…
and he left me his restaurant”
Something about the way he delivers this line is reminiscent of slam poetry, the speed and anaphora before the silence midway through is imbued with his mourning and absolutely breaks my heart. The focus on Carmy, without the view of his audience is like we get an intimate view into the psyche of a man so emotionally wound up. Throughout the series, Carmy’s relationship with Michael (Mikey), is tied to food in more ways than one. His inspiration comes from his childhood wish to open a restaurant with his brother, but Mikey is also the source of his resentment. Feeling that he was pushed out of The Beef despite being more than willing to assist, Carmy’s incredible success as a Michelin star chef, acts as an indirect means of revenge and catharsis. This is of course heightened by Mikey’s death. A note on Jeremy Allen White’s acting, his delivery of the line “I don’t think I’m funny” and the way his voice breaks almost like he’s ashamed to admit he’s not the social, fun man that his brother was, absolutely destroys me. My sister and I quote it to one another all the time.
Carmy’s language is tied up in culinary terms, self described as his tendency to “speak through the food and communicate through creativity”, which says alot about the show as a whole, on one level, shows Carmy’s emotional investment in his work which has the audience on tenterhooks, also facing a great deal of anxiety just watching him. But on another more intangible thread, it acts as a metaphor for art and perhaps more specifically writing. What I mean is that watching The Bear feels to me, like seeing the painter’s brush strokes up close, seeing the whole picture and zooming in closer only to be mesmerized by the creative process and in awe of how a person sat down and created this product. I believe wholeheartedly that Christopher Storer is a genius. I spend half of each episode thinking “How does one write something so perfect?” and the other half of that time feeling inspired to create, to write, and to work.
Season 2 follows the busy process of setting up the business and each staff member both preparing the restaurant and going on a personal journey of self development to discover their purpose. Carmy needs everything to be to the highest possible standard. Most importantly, Richie’s character development journey begins, amidst the chaos of planning the restaurant’s opening, Richie meticulously ponders his place here and what his general purpose is. And yet he is initially resistant to Carmy placing him in Chef Terry’s restaurant to pick up the art of hosting. In a scene reminiscent of that wax on/wax off karate kid method, the monotonous task of polishing forks day in and day out feels like a pointless punishment that Carmy invoked to get rid of him.
Alas, when discovering that Carmy believes in him and placed him here because he’s good with people, being around people of dedication and purpose completely changes Ritchie (he wears suits now). The most beautiful part is that Storer subtly implies that his main motivation is his daughter. Evie is his purpose. It all comes back to her, through the repeated humorous Taylor Swift reference. Richie (he wears suits now) comes back to The Bear a changed man, imbued by fulfilling the universal human desire, purpose.
Things are ramping up back at The Bear, the fire suppression testing that has run alongside this season is coming up soon and everything rides on this. Ebrah makes an iconic return after his fear of change and discomfort at being a part of something new, caused him to flee the scene when The Bear was proposed to replace The Beef. Also ramping up are the tensions between Syd and Carmy, always a tricky relationship to read. It is supposedly presented by the creators of the show as platonic, but then there’s the table scene. If you are unfamiliar with “the table scene”, allow me to present one of the most touching interactions of the show:
“You could do this without me”
“I couldn’t do this without you”
“Yeah, you could”
“I wouldn’t even want to do it without you”
But don’t get too comfortable with that warm and fuzzy feeling just yet, because opening night tears everything apart. It’s stressful like we’ve never seen before, but an incredibly fun episode. This season finale almost lulls you into a false sense of security with a seamless communication at the front of house, alas there is nothing soft about this “soft opening”. The divide between front and back of house is glaring, pointing to the upcoming divide between Carmen and Richie (he wears suits now). The cinematic devices are almost theatrical as we follow the camera, swooshing in and out of the kitchen, a complete shift from calm to mayhem in one fell swoop.
Just before Chef Carmy gets locked in the walk-in (and things start running a little smoother in his absence), the audience might notice a subtle nod to the christmas episode in season 2 as Carmen frantically demands the firing of the “seven fishes” and from here all hell breaks loose and of course, Carmen sabotages his relationship because he can’t trust a good thing. At his breaking point, Carmy takes out his frustrations on Richie (he wears suits now), causing an iconic divide that pervades over the proceeding season. A split screen is used as Richie (who wears suits now), screams “I f*cking love you!” in response to Carmen’s repeated and enraged, “You f*cking need me!”
I have to devote some time to discussing the cinematography that begins the third (and most recent) season. The whole first episode is almost entirely silent, taken up by a montage of Carmy’s career thus far and it’s visually stunning, but we’re taken back to The Bear as the season progresses, and everyone is reeling from the aftermath of the opening. Despite the death of Marcus’ mother, the tension in the kitchen and Carmy’s doomed relationship, the war that has begun between Carmen and Richie (still looking good in the suits), is enthralling and hilarious. Like two children throwing tantrums for the whole season. And The Bear isn’t exactly the perfect setting they all worked so hard to build.
In fact, The Bear slowly descends into chaos and mimics the mess of The Beef that they were trying to move away from. This, of course, takes a particular toll on Sydney, co-owner and yet entirely dismissed and steam-rolled by her male counterpart. Season 3 thinks a lot about the politics of leadership, Carmy follows in the footsteps of his toxic boss, David Fields.
He transfers his own dread and anxiety onto Sydney. The audience doesn’t blame her for considering a CDC position that offers her complete creative freedom. Carmy has been consumed by his stress so much so that he can’t hear external opinion anymore. He’s obsessed with his list of “non-negotiables” and can’t stop thinking about Claire, his only tie to happiness outside of the culinary world, an embodiment of his calm because she acts solely as an escape from his craft. The season ends with a lot up in the air, the future of the restaurant, Sydney’s commitment to the restaurant and Carmen. Due to the fact that Carmen’s general well being is always up in the air, the poor man has never known calm.
In short, I could talk about this series forever. I’ve been thinking about its relationship to work and passion ever since Jeremy Allen White declared that being “dedicated to one’s craft is sexy”, and The Bear certainly portrays this, whilst showing how much dread factors into it. It’s a beautifully complex story, told by the incredible Christopher Storer.
Surround Sound 