Even in an era where streaming services produce too many shows, it's rare that a series can come out of nowhere. If HBO hadn’t anticipated that Succession would become the most celebrated drama series since The Sopranos, the involvement of creator Jesse Armstrong (The Thick Of It, Black Mirror) and producer Adam McKay (The Big Short, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy) suggested that the network had a high quality production on their hands. Similarly, Taylor Sheridan’s success with Yellowstone, 1923, and Landman were easy to anticipate for anyone that had seen the excellent films he’d written, such as Hell or High Water, Sicario, and Wind River.
The same benefit of the doubt wasn’t given to Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo, whose history of staff writing credits didn’t suggest they were capable of a groundbreaking show like The Bear. Within its first season, The Bear innovated within the half-hour medium with tension derived from situational problem-solving, as well as layered commentary on the balance between work and artistry. Although its tracking long shots, kaleidoscopic narrative deviations, and kinetic editing choices were enough to earn attention, the technical prowess didn’t supersede the appeal of its characters. The goal of any great television show is the creation of characters worth spending time with on a weekly basis, and The Bear introduced a set of flawed, yet sympathetic Chicago natives.
At the center of The Bear was a star-making performance by Jeremy Allen White as Carmy Berzatto, an acclaimed chef given the reins to the Italian restaurant “The Beef” after the suicide of his brother, Michael (Jon Bernthal). Amidst clashes with The Beef’s de facto manager Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Carmy’s goal is the elevation of the failing business into a fine dining restaurant known as “The Bear.” What was unusual about The Bear’s structure is that the series hasn’t declined in momentum, despite an expansion in scope; while the second season heightened the stakes, as Carmy’s flaws as a manager are exposed, it also spread itself equally throughout a robust cast, with each side character given a compelling backstory.
Backlash was inevitable for any series that was so quickly crowned as a modern masterpiece, because the third season of The Bear was met with disdain for its leisurely pacing. The point of the season was to expose Carmy’s complex relationship with cooking, as it was possible that his obsessions had grown so unsustainable that he’d fallen out of love with what he was most passionate about. None of the characters on The Bear are capable of overnight transformations, and the sheer amount of breakups, heated family arguments, and awkward therapy-talk may have frustrated those interested in a quirky workplace comedy set in a Chicago restaurant. The criticism was mostly unfair, as even at its most indulgent, The Bear is a better-acted and creatively-produced show than a majority of what is on streaming. Nonetheless, it did show a chink in the armor that gave its fourth season something to prove.
The fourth season of The Bear isn’t a return to the underground success arc of its first two seasons. Within a culinary world, success can’t be measured by the completion of one goal, as it's about the creation of an inviting environment that can meet its customers, critics, and competitors on multiple levels. The blend of personal and professional obligations is non-existent, as the staff of “The Bear” have become intimately aware of each other’s desires and anxieties. At the heart of the fourth season is Carmy’s willingness to address the undeniable truth that he may have held “The Bear” from its truest potential.
Although the fourth season has retained the show’s frankness about dysfunctional families and mental health, it does feel like a conscious effort to undo the misery of season three, as the staff of “The Bear” is constantly reminded of what drew them to cooking in the first place. The series is at its peak in the hour-long episode “Bears,” an exploration of the wedding of Richie’s ex-wife Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs), who’s invited the staff of “The Bear” to join her marriage to her new husband Frank (Josh Hartnett). As far as fictional weddings go, it’s somewhere between the unfiltered squabbling of Bridesmaids and the weight of generational expectations in The Godfather; while the dynamic camerawork is reminiscent of “New Hollywood” inventiveness, the notion of different characters creatively paired off is a tradition of network television.
Given the strange marketing rollout and lack of promotion, it's possible that FX has lost confidence in The Bear, as networks, studios, and distributors are often too deferential to the complaints of loud, uneducated skeptics. The most frustrating of controversies with The Bear originated from its classification at the Primetime Emmy Awards, in which the series was classified as a “comedy,” even if everything but its half-hour length would suggest otherwise. The Bear isn’t funnier than Hacks, but the Emmys are an assessment of quality storytelling, and not a calculator of laughs-per-minute. The Bear’s second season lost to Hack’s third for the Best Comedy Series trophy, in what may suggest that award shows will always favor self-congratulatory that contain “industry talk” over what has pushed the medium forward.
None of the fallout of the third season affected the creative direction of the fourth, as Storer’s decision to end the season on an ambiguous note is either indication that there’s a brilliant fifth season in mind, or a reassertion of the theme that nothing’s static. To wrangle the cast back for another 10 episodes may be a challenge, as White might contend for an Oscar this year for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, and Moss-Bachrach is slated to play Ben Grimm for the foreseeable future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Bear’s season four is unsentimental about its place in the wider culture, which is the most consistent way to continue its novel approach to storytelling.