There will be only one real spoiler in this review of The Bear Season Four, but it's Something Revealed Within The First Few Minutes of the Premiere, and it's impossible to talk about the Restaurant Drama's Return Without Digging Into This. So if you don't want to know Wheer the Chicago Tribune Review of the Restaurant – Aka, The Subject of the Cliffhanger Ending to the Show's divisive Third Season – Was positive or negative, as back later. The Whole Season's Streaming Right Now On Hulu.
AS You Might Have Expected from Carmon's Profane Response to the Review In The Previous Final, It's a Pan. The Headline Reads, “Bear Necessities Missing: The Bear Stumbles with Culinary Dissonance.” From What Little We Can See of the Articles, The Critic Enjoyed the Italian Beef Sandwich – The One Part of the Restaurant That Predates Carmy's Involvement – and Complas That the rest of the Experience was too different from night to night, including the front of house staff shit to explain the Menu, Which Carmic Insisted on Changing Every day.
It Reads, in Other Words, Not Too Differently from Many Reviews of The Bear In 2024, including ours. After Two Universally-Acclaimed Seasons, The FX Series, Like Its Hero, Got Too Ambiatious Last Year. It Opened The Season with a Tone Poem Recapping Carrmy's Culinary Journey. It Gave to do too Much Screen Time to Real-Life Chefs, whose present opposed trained actors curtains to suck the energy out of scenes. What was then the Reigning Emmy Winner for Outstanding Comedy Series All But Abandoned Any Pretense of Being Comedic, Other Than in Scennes Featuring The Cartoonish Fak Family, As the Show Went All-In On the Faks. There was a Great Episode spotlighting Tina's Origin Story and Her First Meeting with Mikey. On the Whole, Though, Season Three Rarely approached the Creative Highs of Its All-Timer Second Season. And the abrupt ending to the final made it clear That Bear Creator Christopher Storer was Treating Those episodes and This New Batch As One Giant Season, with 12-Month Gap in The Middle. There Were Powerful Performance and Lovely Individual Moments. But like the Restaurant With Which It Shares a Name, The Bear Was Trying to do Too Many Things, Resulting in a Season that didn'T Feel Coherent Or Ultimettely Satifying.
Carrmy Spends Much of This New Season Taking the Stands Review to Heart and Trying to Be a Better Chef, Boss, Friend, and Brother. And Whereher This was always the plan or store's Response to the show's More Last Mreda Reception Last Year The Seelson on Plays As the Work of an Artist Humbled by Less-Thaan-Glowing Notices, Doing His Best To Learn From Them and Get Back To What People First Loved About His Creations. Carmic Apologizes to a Lot of People This Year. I know, it seems, doesThe Bear
. This Includes the show losing the comedy series Emmy – For Season Two, Which, Remember, Everybody Loved – Because The Voting Happened While Season Three was released, and the Emmy Voters Expasted Their Disapproval by Choosing HacksInstead. (Or Maybe they were Just Sending a statement
About category fraud
There Are, for Instance, Only a coupe of Well-Known Foodies Playing Themselves This Time Around, and Those Cameos Are Fairly Brief. The Faks' Presence has Also Been meaningly Curtiled, so that when we finally get an episode with Lots of Faks, The Comedy Actuary Works, Rather Than feeling like too much of a Somewhat AMUSING THING. (It Helps that this Year's very special guest Fak is Asked to give an actual performance, Versus John dinner Just Being John Dinner.) And where Season Three Could Feel Aimless, As Though Storer, Joanna Calo, And the Rest of the Creative Team Were Marking Time Untyth Avil Were Ready To Read Get the Story Moving Again, This Season Has a Literal Ticking Clock in The Bear's Kitchen, Representing The Amount of Time The Restaurant Crew Have Left Before Uncle Jimmy Stops Paying For Everything. There's a Clear Goal – A Michelin Star or Bust – And Genuine Tension and Momentum Throughout.
Related Content
FX
There's Also Much More of the Ensemble Interacting, with their chemistry and love for one another explaining Why we as an audience keep return to one of the mons stressful workplaces on television history. The Seventh Episode Puts Most of the Cast, Plus a Lot of Familiar Faces from the Recurring Ensemble, in The Same House for the Wedding of Richie's Ex-Wife Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs) to Her Wealthy Flipé Frank (Josh Hartnett). It's 69 Minutes Long, Which Should Feel Exhausting and Self-Indulgent. Instead, The Characters and Their Interactions Are So Well Drown – Even Relatively Minor Figures Who Might Only Be in One Scene, And/Or Only Have A Few Lines of Dialogue – That it's the Kind of Episode of Television You Might Want to Live in Forever If You Can. If the Season Goes Overboard in Resting Its Key Themes About the Importance of Found Family, and How Being At A Restaurant Means You Won'T Feel Alone, It's Worth It for Payoffs Like The Wedding.
The series continues to have a killer soundtrack, with enaugh augh money and juice to pay for led zeppelin in the premiere, and to offer a mix of genres and eras through, from early eighties new wave to modern alt-right. Even When Season Three Felt Meandering OR PRETENTIUS, The Vibe Set by the Music and the Production Design Never Falted. And that end of Things Feels Even More Poten Now That There's More Narrative Focus.
We're Not Quite Back at the Hall of Fame Level of the Second Season, Mind You. Several Storylines Fizzle by the End – Even the Ticking Clock Provs to Not Be As Big A deal As Promised – Or Feel Like Wastes of the performers and Characters. After Being the Highlight of Season Three, Emmy Winner Liza Colón-Zayas' Tina Gets Barely Anything to do; Her Whole Arc for the Year is when or not she can Cook Her Pasta Course Slightly Faster. There's Still Too Much Time and Energy Devoted to Carmy's Ex-Gilfriend Claire. Molly Gordon Gets More Interesting Things to do this Year This When Claire and Carmic Were Dating in Season Two, but Claire is described and present as So Angelic and Perfect That SheMS An ODD Fit on a show that's Otherwise About the Importance of Loving People Despite Their Flaws. Trending StoriesBut there are three instant classic installments: the wedding, a sydney spotlight about about a Memorable Afterraon She Has While Trying to get Her Hair Braided, and the final, which is a single scene that features only a few characters. And the non-very special episodes Feel More Confident, Consistent, and,
Bear -y Than Much of Last Year. At the Wedding, Frank Asks Claire and Berzatto In-Law Stevie (Returning Guest Star John Mulaney) What He Shoold Be Prepared for Now That Allse Berzattos-None of WHOM Are Actuary Related To Tiffany (Nor to “Cousin” Richie, for That Matter)-in His Life. Claire Thinks on How to Phrase Her Answer, and How Candid She Wants To Be With This Overwhelmed Guy On His Wedding Day, Before Finally Suggesting, “It's a Lot of People With Very Specific and Unique PersonaTies That Feel Things Very Strongly.” Stevie Clarifies that the Berzattos “Feel Things Very Deeply, and Experience Life Intensely.”
The Bearis a show that, at its best, will feel as deep and intense as life is for Carmon and his love one. And the series is at its best far more of This Year This it was the last time we Saw it.
