[Editor’s note: The recap of episode four publishes July 2. This recap contains spoilers.]
Last year, The Bear pumped the brakes on the frantic, ulcer-inducing energy of its first season, as one restaurant shed its skin to make way for the next. This audacious shift in rhythm signaled that, like the addled wunderkind at the heart of its story, the show is always ready to change up the menu in the name of innovation.
But what happens once the renovations are done, once culinary journeys across Chicago and Denmark have come to an end, once the dream of a high-end restaurant built with cash secreted away in tomato cans (and a big ol’ loan from Uncle Jimmy) becomes a reality? What happens is the actual day-to-day grind of running a dining establishment, of trying to rise to the top in a notoriously competitive industry, of spending hours on your feet in the literal and proverbial heat of a bustling kitchen, of never being able to escape the people you love so much that you could wring their lovely necks?
One of The Bear’s greatest strengths has always been its ability to make viewers internalize characters’ emotions, and “Doors” is a whirlwind of them. Over the course of half an hour, the episode takes us through a month at Chicago’s hottest new restaurant, as Carmy and Sydney put their brigade de cuisine model into practice in a kitchen—one staffed by people who, less than a year ago, were working at a neighborhood sandwich dive.
“Doors” opens by closing a chapter of one Bear staffer’s life. It’s time for Marcus’ mother’s funeral, and the gang files into an echoing church to pay their last respects. Our sweet pastry chef is a man of few words—but as we know from last season’s excellent “Honeydew,” the things he does say hit like rain on fallow ground. His eulogy is unadorned and straightforward, praising his mom for her kindness, intelligence, creativity, and sense of humor—and, of course, for being cool enough to let her son watch RoboCop as a young kid.
Most of all, he expresses how loved and seen she made him feel. Mother and son understood each other implicitly, he says, even when she became too ill to speak. “It almost felt sometimes like that communication was better—like we really had to pay attention to each other and look really closely at each other,” Marcus says. Unfortunately, it’s a message everyone forgets as soon as they exit the church.
Then we’re off to the races—and in the shit. The entirety of “Doors” is set to classical selections by composers like Giuseppe Verdi, Pietro Mascagni, and William Vincent Wallace, with Carmy and Sydney taking turns at the conductor’s podium. The soundtrack alternately gives the episode the elegance of a ballet, the absurdity of a farce, and the high melodrama of an opera.
The divos here are, of course, Carm and Richie, who continue to fight a two-man war attrition and invade each other’s territory. But the kitchen isn’t just Bear’s—it’s Sydney’s, too. At 5:30 p.m., five nights a week, she pours a tall bottle of Coke into a takeout container and leads her troops in their ongoing mission to serve diners the best food possible.
On the first night, the atmosphere is serene and supportive, the kitchen as formal and sedate as the ones Carmy staged in. It all moves to the steady metronome tick of “Doors!” “Hands!” “Hamachi!” But the cracks are already starting to show: The cousins are butting heads about whether to prioritize customers’ dietary restrictions (hint: they absolutely should); Richie flubs ingredient names when he’s prepping the servers for the evening ahead; and Gary breaks a cork inside a bottle of red.
The machine continues to accumulate gunk as The Bear’s popularity grows. Richie yells at Carm because table 17 has been waiting half an hour for their wagyu, which in turn causes Carm to yell at Tina for her shoddy cooking job. Richie wants speed, Carm wants perfection, and Sydney just wants them to stop screaming at each other while she’s trying to do her damn job. Meanwhile, Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) is in over his head as the sole employee manning the beef-sandwich window.
Despite good press and a full house, the restaurant is barely staying afloat. While the rest of the crew scrambles to keep the engine firing, Natalie and Uncle Jimmy are struggling to put gas in the tank. Thanks to Carmy’s insistence on reinventing the menu every night and only ordering the most high-end ingredients, they’re bleeding money faster than they can make it. When the two confront the chef de cuisine, he waves them off with a brusque, “Figure it out.” Nat’s professional mask falls when she faces off with her stubborn brother: “Don’t buy fucking crazy shit and then use it once, Carm! It’s so wasteful! Duh! Duh! Duh! Duh! Duh!” This is why it’s a bad idea to run a business with family.
The tension at the top begins to trickle down, to the point that dirty plates and cups are piling up so fast that broken glasses start slicing the dishwashers’ palms open. Once-pristine kitchen surfaces are now splattered with congealed sauce and blood from knife-nicked fingers. And the spray of crusted flour on the walls has rendered the “EVERY SECOND COUNTS” sign almost unreadable.
The cousins’ rancor has grown so vicious that Carm refuses to recognize Richie’s genuinely good ideas. Richie drafting his own Non-Negotiables may be a playground move, but his list on point: a 24-hour courtesy window for the kitchen to inform him about menu changes, a willingness to accommodate dietary restrictions, and “joy, just in general”—something that’s sorely lacking. The item that brought me the most joy? “An environment that embraces and encourages razzle-dazzle in the dreamweave.” Never change, Richie.
Above all else, The Bear wouldn’t have lasted a day without Syd. That she has less high-end restaurant (and life) experience than Carm is actually an asset. His baggage from working with toxic assholes like Chef Joel—not to mention years upon years of childhood trauma—means he has to constantly fight his instinct to lash out or shut down.
Marcus’ tribute to a mother who loved him unreservedly and made him feel heard rings beneath all the kitchen chaos. Sydney has that with her dad; but the love Carm grew up with—and continues to seek as an adult—is the bruising kind. Hurt people hurt people.
Inevitably, things between Carm and Richie reach a breaking point near the end of the month. A petty argument over a customer’s request for a dish to be served sans mushrooms becomes a full-on physical fight, only barely contained by an intervention from Marcus. I gasped in sympathy when all of Syd’s order cards got knocked to the floor in the scuffle.
In mid-July, Carmy completely loses it. His unanswered shouts of “Hands! Hands! Hands!” on the millionth exhausting night of his exhausting life lead to the beginnings of a panic attack: flashes of his imprisonment in the walk-in, Claire’s gentle smile, the breeze ruffling his hair on a sunny day in Copenhagen. Syd, the resto’s resident Berzatto whisperer, talks him off the ledge; but her patience is threadbare. “I’m not your fucking babysitter,” she snaps.
On the last day of “Doors,” we return to the silence that began the episode. But this is a very different kind of quiet from the somber peace of the church. Sydney, alone in the kitchen after close, glares at an order card abandoned on the floor, scuffed by a dirty shoe print. Stick a fork in her, because this girl is done.
Stray observations
- I hope that you’ve prepared all your loved ones for the fact that you’re going to be spending the next year or so randomly shouting, “STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THE DREAMWEAVE, CARMEN!” It’s the responsible thing to do.
- The show’s yearslong repetition of “Hands!” takes on a very different meaning at the funeral. During the eulogy, we see close-up shots of the Bear staffers’ hands in idleness: Neil resting his on Nat’s shoulder, Nat’s stroking her pregnant belly, Carmy’s turning the memorial card in his hand, his mind on the one that used to hang from a shelf at The Original Beef.
- Speaking of which, “Doors” is gorgeously helmed by first-time Bear director Duccio Fabbri. His cuts between shots and use of closeups are as integral to the rhythm and tone of the episode as the performances themselves.
- Jimmy’s utterly bewilderment when he opens an $11K bill for “Orwellian butter” leads to a classic “Who’s On First?” moment. When he asks his nephew whether the stuff comes from “a rare Transylvanian five-titted goat,” Carm replies, “It’s Orwellian.” “It’s dystopian butter?” “No, Orwell, Vermont. It’s the best!” “Oh, yeah? Suck me.” (This is, in fact, a real thing; Orwellian butter from Animal Farm Creamery goes for a whopping $60 a pound.)
- “Doors” sprinkles in headlines hailing the Bear as The next big thing on the Chicago restaurant scene. But tellingly, all the buzz is about “visionary leader” Carmy. That the media would focus on the white guy while ignoring his Black female creative partner is all too real; I have a sense it’ll become a major sticking point later in the season. (Also, I bet Carm is awful at doing interviews.)
- I really felt for Tina, who’s been tossed into the deep end fresh out of culinary school. It was nice to watch Sydney coaching her through prepping the raviolo, but it’s obvious the pressure is getting to T. Big props to Liza Colón-Zayas for the effortless way she conveys her character’s anguish through facial expressions alone.
- While Carm is blowing thousands on pricey ingredients, Richie is making his own mark using only plastic and papier-mâché. His cousin may loathe seeing piñatas and Super Soakers come through his kitchen. (No surprises! It’s Non-Negotiable!) But if Carm is really so dead-set against fun experiences for his guests, he should never have sent Richie to intern at Ever—where, in the words of Jess, they make someone’s day every night.
- Real-life chef Matty Matheson is at his slapstick best in this episode. He channels Charlie Chaplin when Neil volunteers to transport a dish out onto the floor with instructions to pour steaming broth over the mirepoix in front of the diners. He nails it until he doesn’t, bringing the food proudly back into the kitchen without actually, y’know, serving it.