At the beginning of episode three of The Bear, “Sundae,” Carmy (Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto) is sitting in his Al-Anon meeting and speaks about the definition of fun. We can all agree taking control of a restaurant from your late brother and to try to revamp it into something profitable is any feeling but amusement and enjoyment. We witnessed the many downs and short, but important ups of the last incarnation of The Beef. However, Carmy then acknowledges that he’s trying to start over from a healthier place, and that’s the theme of the first five episodes of the second season.
Finding $300,000 in a bunch of tomato sauce cans will do that for you. However, like how Mikey’s life ended, unfortunately, the Beef became a shell of a promising vision. Thus, The Bear has to rise out of those ashes with extensive repairs combatting termites, mold, and rotting drywall. Not to mention, Uncle Cicero (Oliver Platt) has some skin in the game to the tune of a $500,000 loan. The task is simple: Carmy and Co must repay the loan in 18 months, or Cicero gets the restaurant and the lot. Oh, and they must open in six months to get some profitability to pay on this loan.
If you know anything about running a restaurant outside of Kitchen Nightmares, you know this is an insurmountable task that this unique crew is willing to take together. As we see in these episodes, a shared sense of family and camaraderie has grown between all these people. This show could have easily turned into Carmy centered, and there’s much to unpack with him. At first, he’s highly dedicated to the task, as we’ve always known him to be. He’s working with Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) on the new menu over at his apartment, insisting that their initial opening timeline is too long, and he works with Natalie/Sugar (Abby Elliott) to put out as many fires as possible.
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However, when Carmy’s old childhood friend and love interest Claire (Molly Gordon), pops up again, there’s a possible outlet that he can experience some of the things he’s missed out on. Carmy didn’t have that college experience many people his age at that time did and also feels that he lacks some of the charm his late old brother did. It’s why a best friend like Neil (Matty Matheson) is so important – not only does he give Claire Carmy’s correct number and reassures him that he will enlighten her life as much as she will his.
And the second season of The Bear could easily fall into the trap of just following Carmy’s character as he tries to parse out having a personal life and the monumental task of starting a restaurant. But it doesn’t! The characterizations of everybody in the crew make the first five episodes so enduring to watch. In the first moments of “Beef,” Richie talks to Carmy about trying to find his purpose and how he feels he’ll be pushed to the side as the restaurant’s new incarnation takes hold. This insecurity arises as he tries to regain control of Natalie – even as people defer to her.
While Natalie is the project manager, she’s also pregnant, and something within episode six explicitly shows why this is so tough for her. Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) and Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) are opposite sides of the same coin. They both enroll in culinary school, but only Tina is the one that’s excelling at it – even to the tune of doing karaoke with some of her classmates. Ebra … not so much – he has trouble adjusting and eventually starts to no show. It highlights the difficulties of someone who is very set in their ways and has a problem changing to something different.
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Remember when Tina was like that in season one? She’s taken on a positive attitude, leading her to be Sydney’s (Sydney Adamu) sous chef. Speaking of Syd, she gets her own space to breathe in the second episode, “Pasta.” Syd has taken on a lot, which stems from wanting this to work because she failed. She and Carmy are perfect business partners in many ways because they have something to prove. However, the audience gets to see a lot of anxieties built around making a new menu, taste testing, and continually hearing stories of how other businesses have failed because the partnerships don’t work.
Syd is bombarded by constant images of restaurants closing up due to the pandemic and the ones left fighting over the remaining staff in the market. She can’t quite get a dish right, and Carmy seems to be MIA and makes decisions without consulting her. It’s a lot on her plate, and you can see why the discussion with her father (played by Robert Townsend) is a little tense. Her dad wants the best for her – but it comes from a place worried about what chasing this dream and failing could mean for Syd’s long-term psyche. We also discover that her mother passed away, and you understand why she buries herself in this project.
Carmy and Syd are kindred spirits regarding how they place the energy of their grief. Given that Carmy is almost pulling away, seeing how their dynamic plays off of that will be interesting. Perhaps the crown jewel of the first five episodes of The Bear’s second season is the fourth episode, “Honeydew,” when we follow Marcus (Lionel Boyce) on his venture to Copenhagen. Marcus is just a bright light of a person who contemplates not going because he’s caring for his terminally ill mother. However, learning how to infuse confidence in making deserts from expert chef Luca (Will Poulter), it’s an invaluable experience.
Marcus and Luca have a conversation in which Luca expresses that he’s gotten to this point because he went out and experienced life. You cannot create art from an empty well. We see this play out with Carmy and Sydney’s dishes tasting awful because they are not experiencing something other than the restaurant. Luca’s words seem to foreshadow where Carmy is going in “fun.” However, is it possible to have the best of both worlds – that might not be so easy.
