Ceres – As the sixth episode of The Bear begins, Mikey (Jon Bernthal) washes his hands and begins cooking while asking Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) if they want to hear a story. He says they were at Ceres which is the bar at the bottom of the Board of Trade building. It opened at like 6:30 in the morning so traders could go there if they lost a lot when the market opened. It was named after the Goddess of Agriculture. Natalie (Abby Elliott) complains about Mikey and his stories. There was a statue of Ceres at the top of the building with her back facing east because all the trading had just moved to the Midwest. The architect, John Storrs, allegedly build the statue as a big F you.

Mikey goes on to say they were out all night and figured that the Ceres was the only place that was still open. They believed it would be a ghost town only for it to be a rager. Mikey claims it was packed with Blackhawks fans and Denis ‘Savvy’ Savard. Chelios Belfour was also there because Savvy had gotten inducted to the Hall of Fame the night before. Richie found a pamphlet about the bar and the Goddess before deciding he was connected to agriculture. He created an outgoing message before it wasn’t going well. Eventually, they heard someone asking them what they were during. When they turned around, they saw Bill Murray who asks why he was doing that. While Richie said it was funny, Bill Murray said it wasn’t and asked for Richie’s phone.

Richie repeats this story while out on a date with Erica (Abby Pierce). He tells her that she can hear the message if she calls his phone, but Erica doesn’t seem to care. Richie seems perplexed that Erica doesn’t want to hear the message. She can’t believe they were at a bar at 6:45 in the morning. Richie ends up walking home alone. The next day at the restaurant, Richie shows a picture of the woman to Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) who says she has nice eyes. Richie says she has no sense of humor or Chicago history. There are more fish in the sea. Manny (Richard Esteras) yells at everyone to take the green tape off before it gets to him because he can’t do it once his fingers are soapy. Carmy tells that they have two hours until the service.

Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) wants him to check out the new dish that would be great for to-go. It uses ingredients that they have sitting around. Carmen tells her that he is thinking and he called all the places she worked at before because they were excellent and The Beef is not. They all said she was incredibly smart, talented, inpatient, and green. He is just asking her to give him a minute. Carmen asks if she is sure she can make this work without ruining the flow and whether she talked to Manny and Angel (Jose Cervantes). Sydney says she did. Carmen hopes she can see where he is coming from because they’re finally getting to a place where things are more chill. He’d like to keep that for as long as possible.

Sugar bangs on the door while cursing Carmen. When he goes outside, she asks if he got it before telling him about the Internal Revenue Service. She explains that the people in this place haven’t given the IRS anything in five years and she is somehow a co-owner in this nightmare. If she doesn’t give the IRS some money, her home could be seized. She took time out of her life to get the documents together so she can pay them a smaller amount. Natalie asks if he can go in there and get the 2018 payroll documents for her. Richie comes out to find out what is going on. Natalie and Carmen go inside to look through the paperwork while she curses Mikey for organizing it like this. Richie steps out for a cigarette and finds that a building nearby is ready for a new lease.

Gary (Corey Hendrix) asks Marcus (Lionel Boyce) if he should be wearing a gas mask. Marcus says he is good before telling him about Richard Hart from Hart Bageri in Copenhagen. Gary reminds him that he’ll help him if he ever needs anything. When he was trying out for the Cubs, he was playing on the farm team and they wouldn’t put him up. Since he was broke, he got pretty good at figuring out places to stay. Marcus isn’t homeless and only started sleeping here to save time on his commute. He is so close to nailing the donuts and wants to make sure that they’re perfect.

Marcus is surprised that he used to play for the Cubs. Once Sydney checks on Richie, he tells her it feels weird out there now that the bar closed. He didn’t go there much, but it was nice to see it there. He admits the areas are different now and that is why he tells them to stop messing with the place so much. He worries that everything will change if they let up a little bit. He claims it is a delicate ecosystem that is held together by a shared history, love, and respect. He begins telling her about the goddess statue with a face. The architect said it was the tallest building in the city when they put it up there so it didn’t need a face. Now, every building is taller than the next and they all look out at the chick with no face.

Bullets fly through the window as a car speeds down the street. Richie steps outside to ask Crooked John (Vasily Deris) if he saw who shot their window. He reminds John that he asked them to wait down the street and not here. Richie doesn’t care what he does, but he’d like him to move over there and keep it at a reasonable volume. John says they can’t hang over there because it is construction dangerous. The vent went cold and the whole building is gutted. They’re building a Sweetgreen there now. Richie asks him to see if he can find out who shot up the restaurant and check Alice. If they do, he’ll let them hang out here and keep a low profile. Back inside, the others work to clean up the mess. Natalie asks if they should call the cops, but everyone quickly says no.

When Natalie complains she is going to lose her house, Carmy reminds her not to cosign for a drug addict. She believes he isn’t processing his trauma. They argue before Carmy walks away from her. He joins Richie outside where he admits he didn’t find the papers for Sugar. Richie asks if they taught him accounting at Noma. Carmen asks if they taught him at DeVry. When asked about it, Carmen tells Richie about the scar on his arm that he got at Mikey’s birthday party when he fell into the barbecue trying to break up a fight. Carmen asks if there is a word for being afraid of something good happening because you’re worried something bad will happen. Richie reveals his kid asked him the other night whether his real last name is bad news. He is in her mom’s phone was Richie Bad News. She says he is contagious and he only calls with bad news.

Marcus works on his donuts inside. Tina opens the restaurant as Richie begins greeting their regular guests. Carmen warns them to watch the heat on the stove since the chickens are coming out a little dark. Sweeps promises to clean out the grease trap, but he is still dealing with the circuit breaker. He finally takes the time to try Sydney’s dish and says it is tremendous although the sauce is a little tight. He says they’re getting closer to rolling it out as a special since he didn’t tell her it was perfect. She doesn’t like hearing it isn’t ready yet. Sydney gives the other one to a guest. While searching through the paperwork, Carmen begins worrying that it isn’t here. Natalie says it is. He finds a pill bottle in one of the drawers. Natalie admits she knew it was dumb to cosign even though Carmen says he would’ve done the same thing.

Carmen asks if she wants to fight because he knows she is mad at him. Natalie says the thing that ticks her off and she is too embarrassed to admit is that he never asks how she is doing. Plus, they never spend any real time together. Natalie knows it is childish. She claims this place is eating him alive. Carmen says she always blames the restaurant, but she never blames mom or Mickey. Sugar complains that all their time, money, and work get sucked up in this place. The only thing they get back is chaos and resentment. He tells her she sounds like their mom.

Natalie is serious that she just wants things to be calm and on solid ground. Carmen agrees it is reasonable to want things to be consistent. He goes on to say he feels like he is trapped because he doesn’t know how to explain how he is feeling. Asking someone how they’re feeling seems insane to him. He apologizes and says he wants to know how she is feeling so he asks. Natalie says she is doing just great. Then, Carmen finally finds the paperwork they’re looking for. While Sydney checks on the others, John begins arguing with people outside. Richie starts looking for his gun. Sydney tries to keep the guests calm before confronting the arguing men outside. She gets them to calm down enough to say their names are John and Mr. Carl (Richard Cotovsky).

Richie finally finds his gun while Carl and John begin arguing again. He walks around the corner in time to see Sydney defusing the situation by giving them food and drinks. As she walks back inside, she tells Richie that it is handled. Once they begin cooking again, Richie tries to tell Tina about something that happened. Sydney tells him he needs to get back on the register so he tells her to shut up. Richie throws some stuff around while walking outside where he tells Tina that this place used to be cool. Tina asks him to go home and cool off because this place is organized and her game has improved 300% in two months. She loved Mikey, but this is alive, real, and good.

Richie says they’re kids. She is just a baby and doesn’t even know. He reminds her that this is a delicate ecosystem and he doesn’t need this crap right now. When Richie says he is going to quit, Tina asks where he is going to go. Tina goes back inside where she cooks alongside the others. Sydney tells Carmen he doesn’t want to know what happened out there although she just gave some people leftovers. He apologizes if he was crappy to her earlier today. Later, Richie sits on the side of the building while the cops arrive to confront John and Mr. Carl.

 

The Bear Review

Thanks to the emotional scenes, this was one of the better episodes of The Bear. Carmen and Natalie had an emotional conversation that smoothed things over while Richie realized that the restaurant and everything around him is changing. It is good that the show is finally starting to slow and turn down the volume a bit since it is often over-the-top.

The Bear has only skimmed the surface in many areas because we’ve only seen Carmen go to one meeting, we know nothing about the guests, and we still don’t know much about Richie’s issues. We’ve only been given flashes of the characters, their issues, and their achievements. Angel, Manny, Gary, and Ebra are barely getting lines at this point.

The Sydney character is a bit too perfect and that really takes away from the accomplishments of the more relatable characters including Carmy. The shooting scene was interesting while the fighting drug dealers were humorously unrealistic. If The Bear can stick with the toned-down drama, it can end the season on a high note. The episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of The Bear can be found on Reel Mockery here. Support our work by visiting this link.