Reel Rundown: The Berzattos make final erratic, emotional bursts in conclusion of ‘The Bear’
For those Hulu subscribers who watched the first four seasons of the comedy-drama series “The Bear,” the fifth and final season of the show will offer few surprises.
However, anyone watching the final season without having experienced the previous four is likely to have no idea what is going on.
That’s to be expected. Reams of family history and individual character development have occurred since the show premiered in the summer of 2022. To sum things up most concisely, the overall point of the series is to focus on how a group of characters survives interpersonal dysfunction, much of it caused by past emotional trauma.
The central characters belong to the Berzatto family. Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is the youngest of three children. He is a renowned chef, having worked in high-end eateries around the world after breaking away from his family’s Chicago-based Italian beef sandwich shop.
Turns out he had many reasons for leaving. But Carmy returns following the suicide of his brother Michael (Jon Bernthal, seen only in flashback). He teams up with his sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) and cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) in an effort to convert the popular sandwich place, the Beef, into something that confounds everyone: a fine-dining establishment dubbed the Bear.
While the role of the aspiring chef Sydney (Ayo Edibiri) grows in importance, the hard-working cook Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) and the talented pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) enjoy their own moments. Other players come and go, among them Carmy’s problematic mother Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt).
Over the seasons, we’ve gradually learned everyone’s back story. And tensions rise and fall as all the problems involving the establishment of a restaurant are outlined, scene by scene, episode by episode. Much of this evolution involves yelling, the main word repeatedly shouted being “Chef!” – as well as a familiar expletive that starts with the letter F.
Season 5 is a continuation and a culmination of all this. Carmy has started to question whether he even wants to stick with the restaurant business, while Sydney and the other Bear employees begin to formulate their own plans. All the while, each of them faces the very real prospect that the Bear can’t stay in business because its main financial supporter, Uncle Jimmy, is running out of money.
Created by Christopher Storer, who first envisioned his concept as a feature film, “The Bear” was a critical hit from the start. In its first season it won 10 Emmys, a record for a new show, including Outstanding Comedy Series and individual acting awards for White, Edibiri and Moss-Bachrach as well as a writing award for Storer.
And, yes, while the series is at heart a serious study of emotional angst, it is knee-slap funny in spots.
That initial success has continued with several more awards, even if the show’s critical standing has slipped over the past couple of seasons. The slight downward trend continues with Season 5 despite some decent acting by Edibiri and Moss-Bachrach in particular.
Maybe the reason for this is because some of the comic interplay between a few of the secondary characters has grown tiresome. Or maybe it’s because Storer and his team of writers have created too many sequences that defy reality. Some involve a little too much impending disaster (plumbing being a big one), while others focus unevenly on characters having emotional breakdowns one moment and then unaccountably recovering quickly enough to offer emotional support to someone else the next.
No matter, the series conclusion hasn’t come any too soon. Saying goodbye to the Berzatto family might be difficult for some of us who are admirers of what Storer and company have put on the little screen.
But maybe they should have closed shop a couple of seasons back.