Review: The Bear | Season 4, Episode 1

Welcome back to our reviews of FX’s The Bear, which debuted its entire fourth season on Hulu this evening. As with last year, these reviews will come up at “the pace a busy person with various commitments has time to watch the show,” so paid subscribers can look for those reviews in the next week-and-a-half or so. Yearly subscriptions are 10% off through 7/1, and you can check out our full summer schedule here.

Earlier today on Bluesky, me and a group of other critics were chatting through the logics by which FX continues to effectively treat The Bear as state secrets. As many noted, this is far from the first show to treat tiny details like major spoilers, or to deny critics access to screeners in advance; it’s probably the first half-hour “comedy” to ever do so, though, and we can certainly talk about how they continue to provide the entire season to select critics whose reviews are still embargoed until 2:15am once the most obsessive viewer has been able to watch through the entire season.

But ultimately, Christopher Storer’s veil of secrecy interests me because it continues to shift in context alongside the show. In season three, you could argue The Bear was one of the most-acclaimed shows on TV, and that hiding the details of a new season amplified the anticipation for those episodes. But when that season meandered its way through its narrative, struggling to find new narrative notes, it instead seemed like the show was trying to avoid a more mixed critical reception. Mind you, that doesn’t matter significantly with a binge release: viewers were going to find out for themselves eventually. But there does seem to be a culture of control operating behind-the-scenes on the show, which worked against the show when the third season ended with a whimper.

It also shapes the conversation around this season, when it feels like the show should be trying to win back audiences who are unsure if they want to invest in another go-round. That’s certainly the function of this review for some of you, I imagine, albeit coming from the perspective of someone who will be watching at a regular pace. As ever, while some viewers might binge this show and critics are encouraged to do so by their access (and deadlines), regular schedules don’t always allow for a fast-paced burn through a season: I’m about to head out of town for a conference, for example, and thus don’t know when I’ll be able to continue with the rest of the season. What is The Bear to that viewer, who fights to find time for an episode a night, the show competing with the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer?

All of this is to say that the first episode of this season of The Bear matters slightly more than last season’s, which is why it’s extra funny—who says it’s not a comedy?—when it goes full meta. The show’s third season created some uncertainty about its creative future after mixed reviews that praised elements of the show but felt it didn’t cohere? The Chicago Tribune review of The Bear praises the food but remarks on the discord of the experience, overcomplicated by Carmy’s menu changes. Viewers are giving The Bear a shorter leash after a season that felt half-baked? Jimmy and the Computer are giving The Bear a shorter leash to try to turn around the restaurant. Viewers wonder whether the show can break out of its repetitive framework as the restaurant once again tries to pull itself together against the odds? Carmy wakes up to Groundhog Day on cable, wondering if he’s living the same day over and over again.

It really is the only laugh-out-loud element of this premiere, which does nothing to address the drama allegations, but admittedly creates an extremely clear path forward for the series. The episode-ending montage delivers the energy we’re used to, bolstered by the merger of the Bear crew with the cast-offs from Ever (led by the always welcome Sarah Ramos). We want this group of people to succeed, and they’re facing uphill battles: the people we saw grow into their roles in the second season are still figuring it out, whether it’s Tina trying to speed up, Marcus trying to hold down desserts on his own, or Richie figuring out how to self-reflect while also keeping the flower budget under control. All the while, Carmy and Sydney are each getting pulled in different directions: as the latter weighs the option of taking a new job with committing to The Bear, Carmy tries to face the music of his responsibility for The Bear’s problems with the need to strive for a Michelin star (which he sees as a solution to those problems, albeit one creates many more).

It’s an opening that would be more effective if it didn’t feel like such a reset, reinforcing just how little the third season accomplished. The choice to begin with a lengthy flashback for Carmy and Mikey is a good example of the show returning to an existing well: it’s emotionally effective sequence, and seeing Carmy’s unanswered texts to his dead brother offers a reflective moment as we transition back to the present, but where is it taking us? What does it tell us about Carmy we didn’t already know? I raise these questions not because the show has to burn through plot at a faster pace, but rather that my trust in the writers’ grasp on the balancing act of past and present was broken last season. It’s an effective tool, but it loses its power when it the plot of the present is moving at a crawl. The explicit time limit this season creates more internal momentum, but do we trust the show to use that to its advantage?

Really, what this premiere demonstrated to me is that I still appreciate the show’s craft, but my ability to take the show as seriously as its creators is mostly gone. Could that change as the season progresses? Maybe! I’m open to seeing what the show intends to be, even if this premiere suggests nothing has changed between seasons. Based on where things stand, I doubt viewers who soured on season three will be drawn back in by what’s here, and the likelihood of its Emmy fortunes shifting are equally unlikely. But maybe that will let The Bear settle into being what it wants to be, less burdened by its need to be what it was.

If this sounds like I don’t have a lot to work with, it’s because this episode doesn’t give us a lot to work with, and it’s the only episode they’ll let us review before the middle of the night. If you are wondering if The Bear season four is worth your time, I suppose your best bet is to wait until those full season reviews drop overnight, but the half-hour runtime means that it’s a low stakes situation. If you have a half-hour to spare, see if this meta-reset of the show’s premise back to where season three began hooks you back in. See if you care enough about these chefs and their dreams to weather the underlying pretension, and gauge your interest in montages superimposed over descending line graphs.

I suppose I’m more curious about how the community lands on the show than I am about the show itself, but that’s the inevitable result of a premiere this meta, eh?

Stray observations

• I appreciate that Ibrahim is just killing it on the sandwich window—it does seem like the Computer is clear that it will never be enough to fix the holes in the parachute, but I’ll be curious if we get any advances in this area beyond Ibrahim’s community college application.
• I know it’s not this simple, but I still feel like Jimmy and the Computer have enough say here to tell Carmy to standardize the menu at least somewhat? It’s the piece of the puzzle that we don’t really see get figured out, especially since Carmy’s attempt to take responsibility gets yelled over by Richie’s attempt to take responsibility.
• There’s 1200 hours left by the end of that final montage, after starting at 1340, so that means they’ve 6-ish days into their new normal. It certainly seems like nothing changes significantly in that time, but I’m guessing that this remains a persistent ticking clock (in line with the oppressive sound mixing with the clock).
• Welcome back to Episodic Medium’s coverage of The Bear! I’m going to try to get a review of at least an episode or two up over the weekend while I’m at a conference, but the rest will need to follow next week for paid subscribers. As always, try to avoid going into spoilers for the rest of the season in your comments if you’ve watched ahead—if you have a specific episode you need to discuss, use the chat.