Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for The Original Beef of Chicagoland, the final episode of The Bear series, currently streaming on Hulu.
The real restaurant was the friendships they made along the way.
That’s basically the very serious claim of “The Bear,” which aired its series finale on Hulu on Thursday. Sure, this celebrated restaurant may grill acclaimed scallops, but it’s always the people who make, serve, and eat the food. That’s why everything has meaning. “There’s something” about The Bear that other restaurants don’t, says Will Poulter’s Luca in his cliched farewell monologue. So what is it? “family.”
The penultimate episode of “The Bear” features Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Evon Moss-Bachrach) and more. They survived what could have been their last brutal service. Thunderstorms, supply issues, and too many reservations pushed the kitchen staff to the brink. And Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), who had been financing the restaurant’s upgrade from an Italian beef joint to a high-end restaurant, has run out of money. (He even sold his watches to make ends meet.)
The entire season up to that point took place over the course of one night, and in a breath of fresh air, the finale spans the days after that disastrous but ultimately successful service. Natalie (Abby Elliott) tells Richie that he’s been invited to an international hospitality seminar in Japan, and she and Carmy urge him to take off on their first flight.
When Carmy finally receives Ebraheim’s (Edwin Lee Gibson) detailed pitch to franchise The Beef, the sandwich window portion of his lucrative restaurant, and an open-air ghost kitchen in the suburbs, Carmy approves. Marcus (Lionel Boyce) drops Luca off at the airport. His pastry companions plan to return to Copenhagen. and Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) is preparing to take on the role of Sydney’s head chef.
And finally, when the unknown number calls for the third or fourth time, Carmy answers the phone. It’s Peter Clarke, aka Starman, who breaks the news that The Bear has been awarded two Michelin stars. In one of the season’s most memorable scenes, Sydney asks Carmy, “Did you get the star?” Carmy shook her head no and replied, “There are two.” (That’s “you,” not “us” — remember, he announced his plans to leave the culinary industry at the end of season 4, and spent all of season 5 working for Sidney in Passing the Torch or Spatula.) Sidney and Carmy’s reactions are both subdued, and neither one knows how to handle it. But a few minutes later, after they parted ways, Sydney rushed out of the kitchen and hugged Carmy, wrapping her arms around her former boss, mentor, and best friend, crying as she hugged him.
Elsewhere, Jimmy and Beefboy begin a new adventure, investigating their first ghost kitchen. (In a nice tribute to the late Rob Reiner, Evra dials up his character Albert to tell him the good news.) With Sidney now in charge of the main dining room, The Bear will continue to operate as an elite restaurant, including a sandwich spinoff.
John Mulaney will appear later in the season as Cousin Stevie. He drops off Carmy, unusually dressed in a suit and tie, at a building downtown, where he meets a woman named Sue (Bonnie Hunt). This is an interview for something, but it feels more like a therapy session. Explaining why she was leaving the kitchen, Carmy admitted that the final service would have been “much worse if I had been in charge, if I had been the head chef.”
He is confident in his choice to leave The Bear in the hands of Sydney, Richie and co., and says it was great to see everyone “score”. “It was the worst, but it was the most fun I’ve ever had,” he says.
Eventually, it is revealed that Carmy is interviewing for an internship at an architecture firm, where she will apply her attention to food color, presentation, and design to buildings.
In one of the show’s final scenes, Richie takes his young daughter Ava to a restaurant where he prepares her for a surprise birthday party. The whole gang is there, including absentee guest stars Bob Odenkirk, Josh Hartnett, and Molly Gordon (Carmy and Claire’s romance is never fully unraveled). Everyone is singing, talking, laughing and enjoying their food.
Later, as Richie boarded a plane to Japan and nervously looked out the window, a hand reached out to comfort him. It’s his co-worker Jess (Sarah Ramos), resolving their long-standing “they would, they wouldn’t” dynamic. (It looks like at least one of the main characters will end the series with some action on the romance front.)
And Carmy is at her new desk wearing a white T-shirt and apron. He sends a message to his late brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal) that “everything is fine” and pauses to appreciate his new surroundings. Still, he closes his eyes and thinks about his happy place: the restaurant. Not because that’s where he spent his formative years pursuing greatness, but because that’s where his peers are.
