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| Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) fixing prawns |
The Fairfax press (link possibly paywalled) recently called Season 5 of The Bear “the equivalent of re-heated leftovers”. Yes, we’ve been here before.
Seven of the eight episodes follow a full day at the restaurant and everything that could go wrong, does goes wrong, of course.
The entire day is treated with all the drama, anxieties, pressures, neurotic boil-overs, and personality clashes as though the staff were planning the logistics for D-Day. Unlike D-Day however, the weather forecast is incidental: just the cost of doing business. It buckets down all day long and intense traffic jams mean every booking will be late.
The water pipes burst first thing in the morning, not only destroying all their Bear uniforms, but flooding the kitchen and restaurant, making it impossible to clean dishes. This is an unfortunate necessity. Clean dishes are needed; they have three “turns” (sittings) tonight.
As he often does, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) makes everything worse by not cancelling the 15 reservations he was asked to. The cancellations are necessary to fit in the three ‘turns’. He has too big a heart, and after a couple of calls, he can’t bear - pun intended - being a harbinger of disappointment. And, still doesn’t have the courage to confess this to the rest of the staff.
Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) meanwhile has been forced to reveal he is leaving the restaurant business for good and is handing over the reins to sous-chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri). His staff greet this news as though their entire families have just been wiped out in a mudslide.
They don’t have enough food either, necessitating some on-the-spot menu changes. Outside, Uncle Jimmy and his crew are in the drenching thunderstorms trying to stop the restaurant from closure by finding whoever has the “air rights” above their building.
And the Michelin “Star Man” has made a reservation.
Like “re-heated leftovers”, it’s all very predictable and unlike the rest of the series, there’s no standout episode. The drenching rain, the packed restaurant and the heated interchanges between staff, makes it feel even more claustrophobic, insular, and even parochial than it’s been in the past.
And the Michelin “Star Man”? No spoilers.
