REVIEW: The Bear – Season Three [2024]

Rating: TV-MA | Episodes: 10 | Runtime: 40 minutes
Release Date: June 26th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: FX Network / Hulu
Creator(s): Christopher Storer

We’re going to change everything … every day?

From an eight-episode season to a ten-episode season to a … twenty-episode season?! That’s the trajectory that Christopher Storer’s “The Bear” seems to have taken and we can’t really judge whether it will prove the correct one until Season Four drops to finish the story threads begun in Season Three. Is that bad? Not necessarily. But it is problematic. Because while the payoff might prove masterful tomorrow, we’re left hanging today with what can only be described as a missed opportunity … even if it could also be labeled as a welcome change of pace.

I say that because I did really like what Season Three had to offer. The slower pace. The lack of a central purpose beyond letting the characters breathe (and implode). The abundance of emotional montages that utilize an actual score (even if it’s composed by an artist in Trent Reznor who also had a song, via Nine Inch Nails, playing in a previous season) while flipping through scenes we’ve seen before and others that help infer upon progressions and psychology. This is a season of vibes—even if those vibes are born from incessant screaming—rather than plot. “Tomorrow” is as much a recap as it is a season premiere.

And that’s great. Especially with the theme of “legacy” running through the background from start to finish. I loved “Napkins” and its look into how Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) got here. I love the stuff with Marcus (Lionel Boyce) dealing with the death of his mother—even if it kind of allows the writers to gloss over the potential romance/rejection with Sydney (Ayo Edebiri). Sweeps (Corey Hendrix) doesn’t get his own episode like so many characters did in Season Two, but his role evolves here. Same with Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson). It’s also great to watch the growth of Sugar (Abby Elliott) and Richie’s (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) dynamic after the latter’s transformation from arrested development to adult.

As for Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney themselves, though? It’s a full plateau. He can’t get out of his head and she can’t hold him accountable. He tortures himself with what he said to Claire (Molly Gordon) in the last finale and she finds herself wrestling with whether to stay with the dysfunctional family she’s grown to love or advance her career in a way that may turn her into a Carmy if she’s not careful. So, we wait for the proverbial shoe to drop, assuming it will come every episode post-“Children” because it must, right? Unless this isn’t a self-contained season. Unless it ends with a “to be continued.”

Now I wonder what a re-watch with that knowledge might bring. If I know there won’t be any closure to anything that goes on here—not to Carmy and Claire, not to Sydney’s decision, not to the tension between Carmy and Richie that also stems from the last finale—will it hit differently? Maybe. I will, however, say that I’m not going to try and find out because I simply don’t have the time to watch incomplete narratives anymore. I will re-watch Season Three when Season Four is ready to drop so that I can experience the full scope of what Storer and company are doing.

Because without that closure, all I can see when looking back now is that missed potential. The repetition of the emotional beats spanning multiple episodes to stretch things out over ten episodes despite ten more coming and the, frankly, unsuccessful decision to expand the Faks’ role to help fill the gaps too. Matty Matheson’s Neil is one of my favorite characters in the show precisely because he’s so unlike anyone else on-screen. Introducing his brother Ted (Ricky Staffieri) in Season Two was okay because it added depth in a very small dose. Making him a regular in Season Three? Too much.

Between Ted’s presence turning Neil from a change of pace to a punchline and even more Faks via a weird, silly scene with an uncle and the most glaringly bad bit of stunt casting I’ve ever seen with the show’s wildest cameo yet, we receive a perfect example of why less is always more. Stick to fun chaos like Sugar’s vendetta against Francine Fak without ever showing Francine Fak. Because the more we see the Faks, the more they become annoying rather than endearing. The more we hear Neil talk about being Carmy’s best friend, the more it becomes pathetic rather than sweet.

It happens, though. When you have a success like “The Bear”, you find the desire to go bigger. Thankfully, the show and the characters are so great that they can sustain a misstep in scope and keep us invested even if we might be growing tired of Carmy’s refusal for self-reflection (the obvious montage of what he’s thinking in “Forever” maybe, finally getting him to realize he’s become as bad as Joel McHale’s Chef David is way too many episodes too late) and Sydney’s refusal to push him like he says he wants her to. This whole season is Storer telling us what we’re supposed to see in the main plot despite already showing it during the previous two. Nothing is added on that front.

I only hope Season Four’s apparent conclusion to this first act will satisfy and not let the good character work on behalf of the supporting cast go to waste. Because watching Richie and Carmy scream at each other devoid of nuance and Carmy step over every word that comes out of Sydney’s mouth without push back isn’t interesting. Richie engaging with his daughter is. Marcus coping with the loss of his mother is. Tina struggling to help support her family is. Sugar getting a chance to speak her truth to Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the very good “Ice Chips” is.

Whereas Storer has been fantastic at letting the plot run through character development during Seasons One and Two, he’s lost in a disconnect here. Those aspects are operating individually in a way that shows how superior the latter is to the former. That was always okay because they went hand-in-hand. The moment you lose the synergy, however, is the moment you realize you don’t really care about the restaurant at all. (Sorry, Uncle Jimmy.) I’m about ready to wish The Bear will die so these amazing people can shine somewhere else. Who knows? Maybe that’s the point. Guess we’ll find out next year.