Legacy – As this episode of The Bear begins, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) hangs out with Claire before being shown at the restaurant. Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) remembers arguing with Carmy and thinks about the partnership agreement. Adam Shapiro messages her because something cool popped up. Carmy listens to someone speak about their experience during a meeting. A woman talks about the difficulty of apologizing. Uncle Gary Fak (Bill Reilly) finds Neil (Matty Matheson) and Theodore (Ricky Staffieri) working on the lights at The Bear. He gives them a light bulb. Shapiro tells Sydney that he is out of a job. He thinks it’s a good thing because he would’ve been there forever if she hadn’t quit.

This is forcing him to move on. He goes on to say he’s going to open his own place. Shapiro wants to hire Sydney as a CDC. He says it can be whatever she wants it to be. It’d be a partnership stake with 80k to start. She’d get benefits and a bonus upon review. Shapiro would want to move quickly. He’d want to talk to Carmy because he doesn’t want it to be a gross poaching. Marcus (Lionel Boyce) looks through a book and finds a picture of chefs with “Legacy” written under it. Carmy tells him it is Nobu Matsuhisa, Daniel Boulud, and Thomas Keller. He believes he cut the picture out of a magazine. Marcus suspects the guys pushed each other. Carmy tells him how they’d talk about legacy. Sydney walks in while Carmy is talking about it. Marcus asks her if she thinks about legacy.

If Carmy was going to leave something behind, he’d want it to be panic-less and anxiety-free. He’d have to be square with everything and everybody. Marcus says he’d like his legacy to be that he kept his chin up, listened, and learned. Chuckie (Paulie James) and Chi-Chi (Christopher Zucchero) clock in and get to work. They teach Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) what to do. When Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) arrives, she learns they’re out of C-folds. Then, the team begins serving customers. Ted asks Gary “Sweeps” Woods (Corey Hendrix) if he’s sober. Sweeps tells him how he got popped for steroids and misses playing the game. For a while, he didn’t have a purpose. Ted reveals he used to bet on Triple-A baseball. Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto (Abby Elliott) and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) talk about the recent cancelations. Richie says he’s going to choose to let it go and be positive.

They talk about the house and Natalie’s pregnancy. Richie tells her where he was when Tiff went into labor. Then, she asks about the trip with Michael. Richie explains they had to drop some stuff off for Jimmy. He gets emotional talking about it. Sydney talks to herself while crushing boxes in the trash outside. Tina speaks to Ebraheim who is starting his prep right now. She gives him a clipboard and insists it’ll make his life a lot easier. Natalie speaks to Pete on the phone about his return. Tina checks on her after the call. They discuss the pregnancy. Tina tells her that they’re short on C-folds. Natalie tells Ted and Neil that she’ll grab the C-folds. Sydney listens to a message from her father. Natalie joins her outside and asks if she needs anything at the depot. Sydney only needs C-folds. Natalie urges her to sign the agreement before leaving.

Meanwhile, Chuckie and the others talk about getting a delivery robot. They talk about hauntings. Natalie makes it to the Restaurant Depot and grabs what they need. Richie speaks to the group about teamwork and having each other’s backs. Sydney tells them to get in there and stay sharp. Richie admits that wasn’t his best before thanking Sydney. Carmy tells Sydney he’s trying to get ahead on the menu tomorrow. They quickly begin putting it together although Carmy makes most of the decisions. Natalie seems to go into labor while loading her vehicle.

 

The Bear Review

This episode of The Bear was very predictable or at least Sydney’s story was. The show has been pushing Sydney to become more than Carmy who has constantly been devalued at every turn. It was only a matter of time before she was given an opportunity that she likely won’t take.

The other characters in the background continue taking a back seat despite having stronger stories and usually being much better acted. There’s so much more than The Bear could do with the story and these characters, yet it continues taking the most predictable path with the least resistance.

The third season of The Bear is beginning to feel like the appearance of the restaurant. The personality, uniqueness, and life it had previously have evaporated and it has become just another commercial entity. The emotional connection is rarely present.

While not necessarily bad, it feels like the show is just going through the motions to reach its predictable ending in which chaos will ensue once again. Overall, this was easy enough to watch without too many annoying moments so it scores a 5.5 out of 10. Recaps of The Bear can be found on Reel Mockery here.

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