The Bear is back, but this show has grown a long way from its comedy roots

The Bear (season four) ★★★★

The headline in the Chicago Tribune reads: “The Bear stumbles with culinary dissonance.”

It’s the long-awaited review of the fine diner at the heart of The Bear – the resolution of the season three cliffhanger – but it could almost work for the show itself. A critically acclaimed hit that has struggled with its success. If you loved season three, like I did, season four will satisfy. But if you want a return to season one, I’d make a booking elsewhere.

Season four lives by the motto on The Bear’s kitchen wall: Every second counts. Every second of the 1140 hours the Bear has left to survive. It’s two or so months until the money runs out, 47 days until Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) and the Computer (Brian Koppelman) pull the plug.

Carmy (Jeremy Allen White, looking more and more like Bruce Springsteen) has to find a way forward that satisfies his need for change and the restaurant’s need for consistency. Syd (Ayo Edebiri) has to decide between Carmy and Chef Adam (Adam Shapiro) and his job offer at his new restaurant. Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) promises not to hire any more staff (until he does) or buy any more flowers (until he does).

Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day is on the TV and the clocks are literally ticking everywhere – in the restaurant and with the show’s fans and critics, who were divided over season three. Vulture called it “trapped”, Variety said it was “aimless”, while The New York Times likened it to a “wailing beast”. Yes, it was all of those things, but what if that was the point?

Like its antihero Carmy, The Bear has become stuck. It reached the pinnacle – awards, critical acclaim and a devoted audience – and, like Carmy, it seemingly did not know what to do with that success. It was easy to pick at what it wasn’t – it wasn’t fun any more, it wasn’t a comedy – but what if we look at what it actually is?

It’s a drama that has grown beyond its early comedy roots. It is, as showrunner Christopher Storer has said, about the family you’re from – and the damage they can do – and your found family. It’s about work, the kind that isn’t just a job, but a calling, and it’s about care and reinvention and finding yourself in the chaos.

As Carmy says to Syd: “I’m trying to be better.”

Isn’t that what we all want? Or do we just want our favourite shows to stay the same? Sure, part of me misses the energy of season one – I loved the mess of the Original Beef, the sloppy sandwiches, the fighting and the yelling, the silliness of Carmy and Richie catering a kids’ birthday party (and then accidentally drugging all the kids who drank the green ecto-cooler) and the constant dragging of Sugar’s husband Pete – but The Bear was always about more than that.

Its whole ethos is spelled out right at the beginning of season four, which revisits Mikey (Jon Bernthal) and Carmy as they talk about why Carmy wants them to open a restaurant together.

“All the good shit happened to us in restaurants because restaurants are special places,” says Carmy. “People go to restaurants to be taken care of … to celebrate, to relax, to not think about anything else for a minute. People go to restaurants to feel less lonely.”

It’s the same for TV. We watch to feel connected, to care about characters and, yes, to feel less lonely. So I get that it’s hard when a show changes. But does that make it bad? It does not.

Parts of season four don’t work. Some of the sentimentality is slathered on thick, there’s not enough food – remember when Syd spent the whole day eating around Chicago? Or when Marcus (Lionel Boyce) made those desserts at Noma in Copenhagen? – the Faks are too much, and I just can’t handle Donna’s fingernails, but it has depth. It is quiet and, weirdly, calmer. The apprentices have become the masters.

Everyone gets their moment – the extended Berzatto clan are back – and a chance to grow. It’s still a love letter to Chicago (Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House is beautifully featured) and the music choices are on point (REM gets a repeat shout-out and a new addition).

Is this the end? Season five has not been announced, and you could read the final scenes either way. If this is a farewell, it feels incomplete. I could do with one more course.

The Bear (season four) is streaming on Disney+ from June 26.

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