Question about the way Carmy teaches people
Spoilers for the whole show.
Something I noticed on a rewatch: Carmy seems much better at recognizing talent in other people than at understanding what to do with his own.
With Marcus, he spots the curiosity almost immediately. He gives him books, sends him to Copenhagen, lets him obsess over desserts. With Tina, once he sees what she can do, he gives her more responsibility. He clearly understands what Richie is good at after staging at Ever, even if actually communicating with Richie is another story.
Even with Sydney, for all the ways he fails her, I don't think he ever doubts that she's talented. A huge part of their conflict is almost the opposite: he trusts her ability enough to give her enormous responsibility while being terrible at giving her the authority and partnership that should come with it.
But whenever Carmy has to answer the same question about himself — what am I actually good at, what kind of work makes me happy, what should I be doing with this ability — he seems completely lost.
By the end, that contrast felt intentional to me. He's an excellent teacher when he can look at someone else's talent from the outside. He can tell Marcus to keep pushing, give Tina a chance, understand why Richie belongs in service. But nobody ever taught him how to separate being gifted at something from being obligated to sacrifice himself to it.
Do you think that's part of why he ultimately works better as one member of the team than as the person running everything? Not because he lacks the skill to lead a kitchen, but because coaching someone else's ambition is much easier for him than deciding what his own ambition is supposed to be.