‘Nothing less than extraordinary’ – How The Bear made TV’s best comeback | Bear

nThe show should end like a bear. The series initially made its name as a vehicle for pure progressive momentum, the story of a burned-out upscale chef who is recruited to fix and save his deceased brother’s sandwich restaurant. Across eight breathless episodes, we see Carmi repeatedly exposed to the pressures of the job—the fights, the demands, and the occasional stabbing—as he seeks to rebuild it in his own image.

With the benefit of hindsight, this probably should have been the whole show. Because the bear was such a mess to get where he wanted to go, when he got there, he had no idea how to proceed. Seasons three and four stalled poorly, in a miasma of montages and flashback episodes that felt like placeholders. The decline was significant.

We found out a few months ago that Season 5 would be Bear’s last. As such, she had one last chance to get back on track; To put an end in his sights and shoot at him like the good old days. And I’ll be damned if they don’t pull it. We’ll get to the end in a bit, but, as a collection of episodes, Season 5 may qualify as the most entertaining since the first. There were moments watching where I found myself completely overcome with relief. My old favorite show is back in action.

For the most part, Season 5 takes place over the course of a single day, during which everything goes wrong. The employees have left. The weather is bad. Plumbing on the fritz. We’ve run out of money. There is not enough food and there are too many people. Which sounds incredibly stressful, but that’s the point. Despite what producers may have thought over the past couple of years, people haven’t been watching The Bear to witness a succession of food-based screensavers. They wanted to see a group of people dealing with an endless series of obstacles in the workplace. Finally, this is what we got.

But more importantly, we got to see the competent version of it. This was the version of The Bear (the restaurant) run by Ayo Edebiri in Sydney, following Karmi’s resignation last year. Her calm handling of multiple crises echoed the old favorite therapy mantra that stress is universal, but acting on it is a choice. As such, much of the season scratched the same kind of itch that The Pitt does, where you get the joy of seeing talented people solve problems together.

And it was fun too. Having won multiple Emmys for comedy, despite its apparent lack of comedy, it seemed as if The Bear had something to prove. Almost every character was allowed to be entertaining this time, from Ibra’s constant insistence on not being dazzled by Carmi’s blue eyes to the highlight of the entire series – a Greek chorus of diners crowding the kitchen, oblivious to the disdain of the actual chefs. It’s not impossible to read this as an affectionate jab at The Bear’s viewers, who all went out and bought Carmy’s heavyweight wheeled T-shirts all those years ago.

The ending itself was another change of pace. Stripped of the Hans Zimmer-produced electronic pulse that accompanied much of the series (which replaced the rock needle drops that had previously been characteristic of the show), the finale was essentially an epilogue, consisting of several frictionless scenes in which everyone basically got what they wanted.

The restaurant has been recognized by Michelin. It solved its financial problems by becoming a franchise. Cousin Richie, a man who once considered a 40-minute car ride an epic road trip, has finally left the country. Karmi, as promised, left the restaurant industry. This was an interesting choice, because throughout the show he showed a natural talent for cooking, and a portion of the audience might find themselves disappointed that he didn’t continue to pursue his passion.

The fact that he didn’t did that opened up a more nuanced conversation about what to do when you start hating the one thing you’re good at. His last shot – at last feeling at peace, perhaps for the first time ever – seems to indicate that moving forward is a risk worth taking.

The bear has been an incredible roller coaster. The highs were as high as you can get, but the lows were bewilderingly terrible. The fact that it ended as strongly as it did is nothing short of extraordinary. I can’t imagine saying this two years ago, but I’ll miss it.