SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 4 of “The Bear.”
Season 3 of “The Bear” ended at a major crossroads for the title restaurant. Carmy and the crew were anxiously wondering about the contents of their first-ever review, and unbeknownst to anyone else, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) was having a panic attack due to the weight of the decision ahead of her: Stay at The Bear with the dysfunctional team she loves, or accept a high-paying job offer at a new restaurant led by a more established chef?
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By the end of Season 4, those questions are answered, but the future of The Bear remains as unclear as ever.
In Episode 9, “Tonnato,” Pete (Chris Witaske) calls Sydney to go over the updated terms of the partnership agreement she’s procrastinated signing all season. She has finally turned down Adam’s (Adam Shapiro) job offer and decided to stick things out with Carmy, so she’s feeling more ready to legally tie herself to The Bear, but Pete throws her a curveball, explaining that Carmy has removed himself from the document. If she signs, she will be agreeing to become part-owner with Jimmy (Oliver Platt) and Natalie (Abby Elliott) alone. The phone call comes right before the restaurant opens on the final day of Jimmy’s countdown clock. When the clock runs out, he will stop funneling money into the kitchen and force the staff to see if they can survive on just the revenue they bring in each night. The stakes of her relationship with Carmy have never been higher, and now it seems he has one foot out the door. (To Carmy’s credit, he tried to tell Sydney about this himself earlier in the season, but they got interrupted and he never followed up.)
Titled “Goodbye,” the finale picks up after the restaurant closes that night. Carmy finds Sydney outside behind the restaurant and asks why she didn’t speak to him for all of dinner service, and she confronts him about what she’s learned, accusing him of quitting. He says he isn’t quitting; instead, he’s going to help get The Bear pay off its debts, then leave because he believes that’s what’s “best for the restaurant.” “This is all I’ve ever done. This is all I’ve ever known,” he says. “I think I did this so I didn’t have to do other things.” He goes on to explain that that he’s buried himself in his culinary career as a way to avoid dealing with everything he and his family have gone through, and that he now understands his trauma is the reason he communicates and behaves so erratically. Sydney tries to remind him that he loves cooking and restaurants, and he says that he doesn’t anymore.
Sydney feels abandoned and enraged, continually trying to smoke a cigarette throughout the conversation despite her constant coughing and Carmy’s reminders that she doesn’t smoke. As she rips into him, he tells her he knows that she was entertaining an offer from Adam — he and Adam have known each other for years, and Adam told him. She first says she doesn’t want to discuss that, then apologizes for not telling him herself, and says the fact that she kept it secret is a symptom of the restaurant’s problems: “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you, but you were being a fucking maniac.” They eventually begin shouting each other, with Sydney telling Carmy he’s taking his trauma out on the restaurant and Carmy saying he’s leaving in order to break that cycle. He tells her he understands why she was considering leaving, but that he’s a better chef than Adam and that she is too.
Firmly, Carmy tells Sydney all of the qualities that make her perfect to run the restaurant by herself: her emotional regulation, her leadership. “Any chance of any kind of good in this building, it started when you walked in, and any possibility of it surviving, it’s with you,” he says. Sydney asks him how he could say that, and he says he believes in her more than he ever believed in himself. When she asks why, he says, “Because you’re the Bear.”
They quickly devolve into shouting again. Sydney thinks Carmy’s wrong, and when he says she doesn’t need him, she expresses that she knows she doesn’t, but he’s “supposed to be there,” tears creeping into her voice as she insists that he’s her partner.
Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) hears the commotion and comes outside to check on them, and begins screaming himself when Sydney tells him that Carmy is leaving. Richie tries to walk out on the conversation until Carmy blurts out that he attended Mikey’s (Jon Bernthal) funeral — previously, everyone thought he’d skipped it altogether. He confesses that he walked in and couldn’t handle it, so he left. Suppressed emotions come forward from both of them. Richie talks about how much he blamed himself for not being able to take better care of Mikey, saying he thought Carmy skipped the funeral out of anger at him, and Carmy says he did resent Richie, but not for that — it was because he was jealous of how much closer Richie was to Mikey. The two gently talk out all of their tension over the years as Sydney watches almost silently.
Richie seems to forgive Carmy, saying the restaurant will be OK after he moves on, and Sydney asks how he knows. “Because we still got you, right? Please tell me you’re not quitting,” he says. She says that it depends, turning to Carmy and saying she needs the contract to be updated again: She wants Richie upped to partner. Carmy agrees, and Richie is shocked at first, but eventually agrees too. Now that things are settled between them, the three share a quiet laugh about how hard it’s going to be to make sure the restaurant stays afloat long enough for the contract even to matter.
Natalie finds the group outside, and asks what’s going on. Nervously, Sydney tells her that Carmy is leaving, and Richie says he went to Mikey’s funeral. But there’s no anger from Natalie. She looks to her brother to confirm, and when he nods, she rushes over to hug him, in tears. Earlier in the season, toward the end of her maternity leave, she had told Carmy that it would be OK if he didn’t love his work anymore, “because the most special part about it is that you were capable of that love.” He didn’t say much in response at the time, but it’s clear now that he took her words to heart.
Hours later, at 1 a.m., after The Bear has been locked up and everyone has gone home, Jimmy’s countdown clock hits zero, and the season ends. Whether there will be more of “The Bear” is not yet known, but if Season 5 does come, the survival of the restaurant and the relationships among the staff will continue to hang in the balance.
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