* In the finale when Carmy asks Tina about KBL she says "who knows...that kid...marone" -- what does "marone" mean in this context? It sounds like "moron" but I don't think that's it.
* The show uses jagoff a lot. I think where I live we'd say "jerkoff" instead. But when I google "jagoff" all the articles say it's a Pennsylvania thing. Does anyone know how this word came to be a Chicago thing as well?
I've been rewatching some of the earlier seasons after finishing the show, and I think I was completely wrong about Ebra.
When he quit culinary school, I initially saw it as another example of someone being afraid of change. Tina embraced the opportunity, Richie eventually found his place, Marcus went to Copenhagen. Everyone was growing except Ebra.
But he actually tells us exactly what his problem is. He liked his skills. He didn't want new ones.
At first that sounds stubborn. Except nobody really asked him what he wanted to become.
The restaurant was changing, everyone was excited about fine dining, and suddenly the thing he'd spent years being good at wasn't considered enough anymore.
Then look at what happens with the sandwich window.
He struggles when he's left to handle too much alone, but once he gets proper help, the place starts making money. And eventually he's the one pursuing advice about expanding the business.
That's not someone who hates learning or taking risks. He just wasn't interested in the particular version of success everyone else was chasing.
I think that's such an underrated distinction.
Tina wanted to become a different kind of chef. Richie found something he hadn't known he was good at. Ebra already knew what he was good at, and eventually found a way to build something bigger around it.
There's something pretty funny about a show full of people obsessing over culinary excellence while the guy who didn't want to go to culinary school ends up helping keep the whole operation financially viable.
And I wonder how many people get labeled unambitious at work simply because their goals don't match what management thinks their goals should be.
Did anyone else initially read Ebra's storyline as a failure to adapt? Because I absolutely did.
I started The Bear randomly, right after finishing Shameless, because I wanted to see what else Jeremy Allen White had done. I didn't expect it to stay with me the way it has.
It honestly made me anxious at first. Then, slowly, it healed something. The direction, the camera work, the arcs. Richie, Carmy, Sydney, Tina, Marcus, Sugar, Mikey, Pete, Fak, Claire, everyone. The show has a way of breaking a part of you and then putting it back together a little better.
I've rewatched it more times than I'd like to admit. For years I pestered friends and family to watch it. A few started, and nobody finished.
Then on my last rewatch, my brother happened to be in the room.
Some context on him: he's an advocate. He worked on cases for years, joined a firm, and was made a partner. Then he left to work at a bank. After two years he left that too, to chase his real dream of becoming a judge, and he's been preparing for the exams ever since. He doesn't skip anything, especially his studies.
He made an exception for The Bear. He got properly hooked.
Tonight we were one episode away from finishing Season 5, but family came over, we only have one TV, and we had to postpone the finale. I could see the frustration on his face. I could also see some relief that he still has a little time before he has to say goodbye.
I'm not sure he'll ever rewatch it. That's not because he didn't love it. It's because he did. It broke something in him and healed something too, and I don't know if he'll have the courage to go through it again.
He wants to get "Let it rip" tattooed.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this with people who'd get it.
Shows like this rarely come along. I have nothing unique to add, just a sincere appreciation post.
The characters stay with you. You watch them develop from start to finish, and you end up glad to see them where they are.
I started Season 1 with my ex, and we both loved it. Season 3 came out while I was going through our breakup. Watching Carmy try to do himself justice against David Fields, the lost relationships, and how self-destructive behaviour can lead you exactly where you are felt very close to home. Carmy's shouting - It is what happens when someone cannot sit with hurt, so it comes out as intensity, as control, as pushing people away or pushing yourself too hard. I do the same when I am sad. I would rather be furious than still, because stillness means feeling it.
Now I am married and happy, and I have just finished Season 5. It reminded me that everything we go through becomes part of us, and that struggle makes us reflect more deeply and do better. Carmy realises what he was doing. You see that simply being kind to people makes things go better. And when Richie tells Carmy “I got you,” it lands. These are stories of people out there, and all of us have that goodness in us.
It has been a companion through more than one chapter of my life.
To everyone who worked hard for this show - Thank you.
Shoutout to Season 5's anamorphic wide shots. It was beautiful. My favourite was the one where Syndey hugging Carm. The slow dolly in if I am not wrong..
Hey guy so I need fans of the show to help me my friend is a very big fan and her birthday is coming up so I wanted to buy her smth that is related to the bear I was thinking maybe the sign that says “every second counts” but I don’t know if it is like a main point of the show or if its important to it and its viewers so then I thought about getting the “the original beef of chicagoland” t shirt but then I found another one that says berf instead of beef so can someone please help me
I finished the show a couple days ago and I can't shake the way this show is sitting with me, in such a bitter-sweet, but mostly bitter, way.
I don't think it's the best show really and there are a few things about the finale that I just don't think are very good. But the show just lingers with me.. And I don't really know why..
Anyone else have this experience?
Spoilers for seasons 2 and 3.
I've been rewatching bits of the show and something struck me about two scenes that I never really connected before.
Sydney making Sugar an omelette, and Tina getting a sandwich at The Beef in "Napkins."
Neither meal is particularly impressive on paper. An omelette with potato chips. An Italian beef sandwich that somebody else didn't pick up.
But look at the circumstances.
Sugar is exhausted, pregnant, and trying to keep the restaurant opening from becoming a complete disaster. Sydney has about a million things she should be doing. Instead, she takes the time to make her something really good. Not because anyone is judging her cooking. Not because there's a critic in the dining room. Sugar is hungry, so Syd feeds her.
Then there's Tina. She's had an absolutely humiliating day looking for work. She walks into The Beef because her bus is late and she needs somewhere to sit. Richie hands her a sandwich for free because the order was abandoned. Mikey notices she's upset and actually sits down to talk to her.
That sandwich ends up being the beginning of an entirely different life for her.
Meanwhile, so much of the restaurant's fine dining journey involves people desperately trying to make food impressive enough for someone to approve of it.
I'm not saying the fancy food is pointless. Watching Marcus perfect a dessert or Sydney develop a dish is part of what makes the show great.
But I find it interesting that two of the most meaningful meals in the series are given to people who aren't expecting anything special and aren't being asked for anything in return.
The food isn't trying to prove something about the person who made it. It's just taking care of the person eating it.
I wonder if that's why those scenes feel so different from the rest of the show.
Are there any other small food moments you think say more about the characters than the big restaurant scenes do?
I just finished S4E7, and holy effing s-balls. It was beautiful. One of my faves so far. I'm crying. Also feel so full of love and gratitude. Felt like I had to share some thoughts.
Hats off to the >!actress playing Tiff, Gillian Jacobs!!< God damn. >!That last scene where she's dancing with Richie and holding back years?!< Pure magic.
I feel like the whole episode was building towards that moment in the end >!with the two of them.!< The point of this episode really seems to be that it's important to show up for the people in our lives. Even if you're busy and you can't stay for long, even if it's inconvenient and you have other shit going on in your life, even if you're just not sure, just show up. It matters when you show up. And you don't know what someone's going through - so showing up might matter more than you expect. It lets people know that they matter to you - that they aren't some isolated, solitary rock in a sparse, featureless garden. They belong to something, or as Unc so reassuringly said it, >!"You'll be a Bear forever. My condolences."!<
So, so beautiful. And refreshingly honest - I feel like a lot of TV weddings are just about the couple and how madly in love they are, and how great that they found each other, etc etc. And, at least in my experience, that isn't how weddings feel like in the real world. I mean, sure, there's some of that, but there's also so much else. So much drama. So much family stuff. Gossip. Old wounds. New connections. Weddings can be big, sprawling, chaotic, beautiful, draining events. The scope really isn't limited to just the couple. And this episode felt kind of like going to a real wedding, where you show up because it matters, especially when life gets messy.
Also, >!Claire Bear looks so pretty,!< no?
I didnt see anyone mention this in this subreddit. Are we aware of the fact that the original name of the restaurant while Mickey ran it was called The Beef was in direct reference to the traumatic family that they grew up in which everyone 'having a beef' with each other, yes, so much so that this was their 'normal'.
However, when Carmy taking over the business and successfully transforming it for the better is his testimony to his growing out of that chaotic mold, something for which he had 'to bear it all', aka, the trauma.
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.
Hi, it's me again. I'm doing a rewatch and trying to orient myself in the timeline of the show and pay more attention to all the details of all of the stories being told.
So, my current question is how long has Marcus worked at The Beef? It is heavily implied that most of the staff has been around a long while when Carmy starts up working there. There is even the moment when Marcus tells Carmy "don't tell me how to do my job." Which further implies he's one of this long time crew.
But then, in the scene when Fak is trying to fix the big mixer in Marcus's station, Marcus is trying to subtly ask him "what was Micheal like?" and "has Richie always been this way?" which makes it seem like Marcus is very new to the team.
Deep thoughts here, people. Lemme know if ya got ideas for me.
I just finished Season 5 and wanted to share some of my critiques:
“And I think it’s very clear that me trying to fix the restaurant was me trying to fix whatever was happening with my brother” is Carmy’s quote from season 1. Where was Michael in Season 5??? I was genuinely dumbfounded that all we got was an “all good” text from Carmy, and one tiny flashback of Richie with him. Wtf??? They really barely referenced the legit main plot point over the entire show… in the last season?
I really miss the writing from season 1/2. The writing from season 5, as well as most of season 3 and 4, felt like a corny, half-assed comedy/drama. Why do we need all the Fak screentime? That scene with the Faks and Sidney where she’s muttering how he’s a **** under her breath was so stupid and try hard.
Since when did The Bear become a Disney kids show? I swear Season 5 was basically “everyone succeeds, the restaurant is amazing, two Michelin stars, what a happy ending!!!” Like what???
Why did they replace Rob Reiners character with Cheese when they could have just merged his lines with the Computer? I mean why couldn’t the Computer “discover” Ebras plan? There was literally nothing about Cheese’s character where you couldn’t just merge the lines into The Computer.
The guests that just stood there in the kitchen for legitimately two hours was so freaking dumb. What were the writers thinking??? That it would be funny? What kind of serious restaurant would be like “oh yeah, let’s let these random people just take up a bunch of space in our chaotic kitchen on the biggest night of our careers?” It was just so stupid.
The Pete/Sugar hook up scene? Wtf? Felt so out of place and just a real “well this is so forced and so unnecessary”
Overall, I really loved Season 1 and Season 2 of the Bear. I thought there were still some strong points in Season 3 in Carmy’s scenes. But it was really disappointing to watch the show devolve to just dumb, forced comedy jokes with the Faks, and just giving way too much screentime to Sugar’s baby rather than actually focusing on the intriguing parts of the show that made Season 1 and 2 so good. Season 5 was better than 3 or 4, but still overall, just such a decline in writing from the original two seasons.
