Season 4 of "The Bear" Is Its Most Peaceful, And Possibly Its Best

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Season 4 of The Bear.

Ever since it debuted back in 2022, much has been made of the fact that The Bear is the most anxiety-inducing show on television. That is largely because anxiety and chaos are what drive our protagonist, Carmy Berzatto (played by Jeremy Allen White), and the show went out of its way over the course of its first three seasons to make sure that the audience viscerally senses that — whether it’s by filming an entire episode in one long, continuous shot to make us feel like we’re right there running around in the kitchen with Carmy (like in Season 1’s “Review”), or by giving us a glimpse of his chaotic family life in Season 2’s “Fishes,” an episode of television that will no doubt still be talked about decades from now as one of the all-time greats. The Bear has thrived on chaos, but The Bear has been drowning in it, and that all came to a head in Season 3, when Carmy’s perfectionism, unprocessed grief and inability to open up to those closest to him threatened to destroy friendships and working relationships and drive the restaurant into the ground.

Last season was rock bottom for our favorite chef, and as a result, it was a hard watch. The show matched Carmy’s energy and penchant for obsessing over exceedingly complex dishes by experimenting with some lofty stuff of its own, relying perhaps a little too heavily on some artsy, non-linear storytelling and a seemingly never-ending parade of cameos and guest appearances from celebrities and real-life culinary icons alike. It was a lot because Carmy was a lot, but that got misconstrued by some critics as being somehow bad. When Season 3 left us on a cliffhanger, wondering what exactly was in the Chicago Tribune review and whether Sydney would actually leave The Bear for an opportunity at a new restaurant, it was obvious that batch of episodes was always meant to be a bridge season, that if we hung in there and watched Carmy sink to the bottom, we’d be rewarded with resolution in Season 4.

One year later, we’ve finally got Season 4, which is streaming on Hulu now, and our patience has indeed paid off. If chaos was the name of the game in the first three seasons — so much so that Carmy and Sydney literally refer to his ever-changing, overly challenging offerings at The Bear as their “chaos menu” — this fourth go-round is all about finding peace in simplicity. After the Tribune review criticizes The Bear for being disjointed and overly ambitious, Carmy realizes that he’s been a terror of a boss — demanding perfection, shutting out his staff’s ideas and refusing to hear them when they expressed concerns — due to his own neuroses. (It turns out stress is contagious; who could have guessed?) Last season saw him struggling and failing to apologize to Sydney and his love interest Claire for his behavior, but this season it seems as though he’s actually trying to work on himself. For the first time in at least 10 episodes, we hear him utter the words “I’m sorry.”

We know what this means for The Bear, of course: When everyone starts to feel heard and appreciated, they can begin healing and go about the business of saving their business. (Did I mention there’s a giant countdown clock in the kitchen displaying how many hours they have left before Uncle Jimmy pulls his funding and they’re forced to sink or swim on their own? Yeah. This wouldn’t be The Bear without a little bit of stress.) They cut costs wherever they can, and it turns out that accepting Sydney’s suggestion to ditch the chaos menu and serve the same dishes every night is the best decision Carmy could have made. The food gets better the more components get removed from each cluttered dish, and his staff performs more efficiently when they’re not frantically scrambling to keep up with him. Richie spends much of the season struggling to write an inspirational speech to deliver to his front-of-house staff, stumbling over his thoughts and his desire to be a strong leader, but ultimately he too learns that simple is better as he lands on a short-but-sweet motto: “Every guest gets treated like one of us.”

This back-to-basics approach isn’t limited to the restaurant. The Bear itself feels different this season — calmer, serving up a greatest-hits menu of its own by returning to what it does best. In fact, Season 4 is riddled with callbacks to previous seasons; at one point, when Sydney is torn between staying at The Bear or leaving, she has the same nightmare Carmy had in a Season 1 dream sequence. One new episode kicks off with a lengthy monologue in a group therapy session like the seven-minute speech Carmy delivered toward the end of Season 1. (This time, it’s someone else unloading their trauma while Carmy listens respectfully and intently.) Certain songs that were used to soundtrack previous seasons — most notably, R.E.M.’s “Strange Currencies” — are back to toy with our emotions again this season.

The Biggest Unanswered Questions Ahead of “The Bear” Season 4

Will Richie find love again? Will Carmy get it together and stop being so impossible to be around? You’ll have to tune in to find out.

The most obvious callback, however, comes with Episode 7, “Bears.” Like “Fishes,” it’s a supersized installment that sees all the Berzattos — Jamie Lee Curtis’s Donna included — gathered at a powder keg of a family function, this time a wedding. There’s plenty of running around and yelling, of course, but “Bears” is meant to be a foil to “Fishes.” While the latter ended with trauma and disaster, this latest one feels surprisingly peaceful, with some people making amends, others cementing their bonds and still others taking those first initial baby steps in the right direction. Its thesis is most apparent when Richie’s daughter Eva hides under a table and refuses to do a daddy-daughter dance with her stepfather, Frank. Getting her to come out proves impossible, so slowly but surely, more and more Berzattos slide under the table to join her. To make her feel better, they go around in a circle and talk about their own fears (everything from bees to climate change). Before they eventually coax her out, they snap a group selfie under the table — one big, happy family, for now at least.

Within that one scene is The Bear‘s entire worldview: Chosen family is just as important as blood relations — perhaps even more important. When you have it, you’re never alone, and when people feel compelled to hide from their scary feelings, all we can do is meet them where they are and try to help them feel heard and a little less alone. We’re all works in progress, and none of us will ever be perfect. There will always be difficult, shitty hands dealt to us in life; we just have to learn the healthiest way to play them.

With that in mind, I’d be remiss not to mention the two outstanding episodes that close out this season. “Tonnato” features an absolutely stunning scene where an emotional Donna apologizes to Carmy for his awful childhood (which she is largely responsible for) and begs to be let back into his life. Donna’s done the work — she’s a year sober now — and the only way for the two of them to move forward is to address the past out loud. The performances Curtis and Jeremy Allen White give here are some of the best I’ve ever seen from either of them — which is saying a lot — and The Bear wisely keeps it simple: just two tight shots of their faces, zoomed in enough that we can see the pain behind every word. (I will not be able to shake the image of Carmy’s hand shaking as he listens to his mother and silently weeps any time soon.)

“Goodbye” takes that beautiful minimalism and runs with it. It’s a bottle episode that takes place entirely in the alley behind The Bear, all centered around one hugely important conversation: Carmy is burnt out, and he’s decided to leave the restaurant business to try to tend to his personal life. Sydney and Richie, the only other two characters featured in the season finale, are stunned by the news, and we watch as they go through all the stages of grief — anger, denial, negotiation, eventually some form of acceptance. They cry, they yell and the three of them hash out their feelings directly for the first time in four seasons, clearing the air and letting go of long-festering resentments. It’s as bare-bones an episode as we’ve ever seen from The Bear — just three incredibly talented actors on one set letting it rip — and it’ll easily go down as one of its best.

There’s no telling where the show goes from here. It has yet to be renewed for a fifth season, and in a lot of ways (including its title), “Goodbye” feels like a series finale. (There are still plenty of loose ends to tie up, though, and one more batch of episodes feels warranted.) Whether it returns or not remains to be seen, but the show has finally turned its burners down a bit and offered us peace, in all its forms: conflict resolution, quiet tranquility and acceptance of the occasional burst of chaos.