Ryan Kirksey
The following recap contains spoilers for The Bear S4E1, “Groundhogs” (written and directed by Christopher Storer).
The details matter.
Not only is this one of Chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto’s (Jeremy Allen White) non-negotiables unveiled in Season 3 of The Bear, but it’s a defining theme of this show, the characters, their mission, and fine dining in general.
Heading into Season 4 of The Bear (which is maybe the final season? FX hasn’t unveiled a countdown clock, so we’re not really sure) everyone seems to be taking the blame for missing the details that led to the review that came out in The Chicago Tribune titled “BEAR Necessities Missing: The Bear stumbles with culinary dissonance.” While the review features words like “wildly impressive” and “delicious” (that one describing the beef sandwich at the lunch window), there is also “confusing” and “slow” and “forced.”
Carmy tells Chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) that he must be better, but she presses him for details, asking him to be more specific. She wants the details. She wants the details to matter. Richie (Ebon-Moss Bachrach) wants to take the blame on himself. He forgot birthdays, didn’t turn tables fast enough, and didn’t spot the critic from the Tribune. Details.
Even the newly-trained sommelier Sweeps (Corey Hendrix) is having trouble with the wine pairings, the years of the vintage, and the “technical” details of the wine classes he is taking. For a restaurant that wants to be elite, the attention to detail, the chaos menu, and the camaraderie among the staff have all been mediocre at best.
It’s in this backdrop that Uncle Cicero (Oliver Platt) and Nicholas “The Computer” Marshall (Brian Koppelman) reemerge. Computer wanted to shut the restaurant down weeks ago (something about $11,000 butter), but Cicero (pulling back to a poignant scene in the Season 3 finale), wants to be able to do more for his nephew and niece because he feels guilty for not doing more when their father died and brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal) committed suicide. The best he can do is 1,400 hours, or just shy of two months.
In a show that has been so defined by the theme of time, ticking clocks, and every second counting, there is now a literal doomsday clock for the restaurant glaring at them every time they enter the kitchen. Unless something absolutely wild and drastic changes, like yesterday, the restaurant is going to cease to exist when that clock runs out. (The description of how dead the restaurant will be, according to Uncle and Computer, is easily one of the comedic highlights of the first episode.)
Carmy’s one idea to save the restaurant is to go all-in on the Michelin star. That level of notoriety and prestige will save them, he thinks, and will push their profit back into the black at a level they have not yet seen. But Sydney and Cicero are skeptical. They know costs need to be cut, fat needs to be trimmed, and pursuing a star is complex and time-consuming.
Ironically, the one person who seems to be fully on board with this idea is Richie. In fact, even before it’s discussed, he has already made offers and hired the staff from Ever, the restaurant that served the funeral meal in the Season 3 finale. He welcomes Jessica (Sarah Ramos), Garrett (Andrew Lopez), and Rene (Rene Gube) to The Bear team with a promise that now he won’t hire any more people and spend that extra money.
What follows is the fine dining version of the Rocky in Russia training montage. Jessica, Garrett, and Rene (with their green and red slips of paper) try to whip the kitchen into shape, improve their timing, ramp up efficiency, and institute systems for pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce), sous chef Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), and beef window manager Ebraheim (Edwinn Lee Gibson). Everyone seems to be buying in and nailing the details, but at least at the end of this episode, as the clock strikes 1,200 hours, there are still so many open questions that I—and assuredly all viewers—have when thinking about the time left on the clock.
The first thing on my mind is this idea of earning a Michelin star in two months. Simply put, this can not be done. Even according to Michelin’s own standards, the consistency of the dining experience is a key component. Michelin evaluators will often visit two or three times before making a determination. How exactly does Carmy plan to squeeze that process into less than 1,200 hours?
Second, why exactly is Sydney still at The Bear 200 hours after this conversation that basically confirms the restaurant is closing? When Season 3 ended, she had an offer from Ever chef Adam Shapiro (playing himself) to join him at his new restaurant for more money and more benefits. After all the chaos unveiled in Season 3 between Syd and Carmy, she still trusts/respects him that much to stay with him at a dying restaurant when she has a better offer on the table? Was her meal from Carmy at Empire all those years ago really that special?
Third, we see 200 hours fly by with no mention of any adjustments made to the menu, the stability of the courses, or the overuse of ingredients. One of the reasons the Tribune article surely pointed out the “dissonance” The Bear gets wrong was because of their chaos menu. Always changing. Did they decide to keep that over the next 200 hours? I’m assuming the next nine episodes will go into more detail about all these questions and more, including where Claire (Molly Gordon) is and how many more Fak siblings are out there.
But there is one more detail worth mentioning, and it’s a big one. The episode opens with a beautiful scene between Carmy and Mikey some point before Mikey took his own life. As Mikey teaches Carmy the finer points about how much garlic to put in a pasta sauce, Carmy brings up the idea of them opening their own restaurant together. It’s an idea that was first mentioned by Carmy in Season 1, but something that clearly never happened after Carmy pursued his culinary dreams and Mikey took over running The Beef.
Carmy knows the power of pulling people together around a table for food. He believes that “every one of our good memories happens in restaurants, right?” Like Homer’s Ice Cream after baseball. “People go to restaurants to feel less lonely.” They go there when they want to celebrate and they go there when they feel shitty, too. The only time Carmy can remember his dad being happy was then they were at some hole-in-the-wall, crappy restaurant with a name that neither of them can remember. It’s a detail forgotten, but one that still shapes who Carmy will eventually become.
On the morning after the Tribune review arrives, Carmy is on the train, and he sees a label for Kerigan Moving Company. That triggers something in his memory, and he pulls out his phone to text. “The restaurant’s name was Kerrigan’s” is the message he sends to the number he still has saved for Mikey, which is clearly not in service anymore. Over the past few months, he has also texted him things he will never see, like “Found the tomato cans” and “Thinking of you today.” But on that morning, he remembered a detail that he couldn’t quite recall in one of the last moments with his brother, and he had to share it.
The details make up the bonds we share with people, the relationships. Two people sharing details and moments throughout a lives build something that no other two people can have. Carmy and Mikey shared it. My dad and I shared it. Since he died more than five years ago, I have texted my dad several times to a number that doesn’t work with a message he will never see. Telling him I miss him. Wanting to know if he is proud of me. I miss the details we shared. Dinners out at countless Mexican restaurants. Teaching me how to grill a steak in the backyard.
In that conversation, Carmy suggests calling the restaurant they will build Mikey’s. But Mikey has a better idea. And while that detail is not spoken out loud, it’s implied that The Bear was formed in that conversation. Can Carmy do enough to save the restaurant and that special moment in the months (and episodes ahead)? That remains to be seen, but now we have a better idea of the details he is fighting for. And why it’s so important that he succeeds.
