The Bear: Season 4 - Review 

Rating: 5 out of 5

SEASON Four of The Bear maintained its position among the top shows of all time in television history.

Where some critics continued to knock it (following season three), others recognised that it was evolving, while still remaining true to its core values. And these weren’t all about the pressure cooker of the kitchen.

At its heart, The Bear has - to my mind - been as much about mental health and trauma recovery as it has the stress and beauty of cooking. It’s not so much designed to be a rousing triumph against the odds feel-good tale (which makes the moments it achieves that all the more special), but a meditation on loss, guilt, recovery and acceptance.

It’s also realistic. Change doesn’t happen overnight. Grief isn’t quickly overcome. Guilt lingers. Scars take time to heal.

For every step forward, there can be several back.

What’s more, at a time when America and the world is in the grip of so many existential struggles, the most intimate of those is how to maintain a work-life balance while living within a capitalism obsessed society. What roll does that also take? The Hollywood Reporter brilliantly analyses that in a piece available here.

For Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), in particular, there were tough decisions to be made as he evaluated what was going wrong in both his life and with the restaurant.

As the season got underway, Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), the family friend and primary investor in The Bear, installed a countdown clock that gave the business just 1,440 hours to save itself - adding to the stress of its employees.

But while that ticking clock was never far from view, the momentum shifted from frenetic kitchen scenes to more introspective psychological work, with Carmy very much front and centre.

His ultimate decision to step away and orchestrate a recovery plan from the sidelines, while paying more attention to his own needs, was a bittersweet call, which contributed to another of the season’s standout episodes, the finale Goodbye.

The episode began with a two-way conversation/argument between Carmy and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), following the revelation of the former’s decision, before widening into a three-way also involving Cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and, belatedly, a four-way further including Sugar (Abby Elliott).

It was an emotional tour-de-force, a heart-wrenching, soul-searching clearing of the air and resetting of hierarchy, that acknowledged the hurt, the frustration and the resentments that have been bubbling beneath the surface of the show throughout, as well as the betrayals. It was candid, upsetting but ultimately hopeful.

In its best moments, Carmy laid his heart out for all to see, apologising profusely for the damage his own damage was wreaking, while pleading for the opportunity to put things right (for himself and for everybody). One hopes there is a place for Clare In his future.

But he also took Sydney to task for her own ‘betrayal’ in potentially seeking a new restaurant to work at, while praising her for the outstanding chef and leader he has always known her to be.

Richie and Carmy, meanwhile, got into the guilt, anger and even jealousy they have felt toward each other since the suicide of Michael (Jon Bernthal), arriving at some kind of acknowledgment of each other’s complex feelings.

By the end of the episode, and especially when Sugar delivered an accepting hug to Carmy, there shouldn’t have been a dry eye in the house.

But just as The Bear can decimate you emotionally, so too can it draw tears of happiness when the characters or the restaurant score personal victories.

This was never more apparent than during showpiece episode Bears, which hit you with a combination of highs and lows in spine-tingling fashion. But it was also there during quieter episodes such as Scallop, which excels with its tight mix of success and tragedy.

Scallop contains, arguably, one of the nicest moments the restaurant itself has delivered, as a VIP family get the Richie treatment (complete with a snow show), while another impressed diner looks on (having also been sold on the scallop of the episode title). Hopes were raised that this could be a Michelin reviewer, about to deliver The Bear the break it so richly deserves.

But there was also the sight of Carmy running all the way to Claire’s house to apologise - another heart-on-soul moment that left you holding your breath in the hope that they might reconnect. Again, it left you on a bittersweet note, before then setting in play the season finale’s reveal.

The will they/won’t they element of the Clare and Carmy storyline is another of the things that The Bear does so well. Relationships don’t feel contrived and they certainly don’t feel predictable. They’re defined by the chaos surrounding the characters’ tumultuous lives.

Likewise, Richie who - in season 4 - continually seems to be on the brink of hooking things up with Jessica (Sarah Ramos), with whom he developed a connection while he was staging at Ever restaurant, and who has since come to work at The Bear. But, as ever with Richie, any romantic potential seems forever to be at the mercy of his own propensity for self-sabotage - a by-product of his own self doubt, recrimination and guilt.

And then there’s Carmy’s mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), whose combustible presence frequently throws a Molotov cocktail into the works at any get together or family occasion. Carmy’s forgiveness of her, during another of season four’s standout moments, was driven as much by the tension between them as it was by a need to be seen, heard and accepted.

The Bear departed season four with much to be resolved - but with good work having been done. Recovery seems possible… as does success. Corners have been turned. But as with life, there’s that sense that you never knows what lies in store just around the corner.

Series creator and writer Christopher Storer ensures that we’re now so invested in the lives of this group of characters, they actually feel like extended family. And their journeys resonate profoundly, especially for viewers - like me - who have had their own traumas to navigate. He refuses to provide easy answers or baked in resolutions, which makes it all the more affecting and lasting in the memory.