The fourth season of The Bear could have easily been its last. In the final episode, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) revealed he was leaving the restaurant behind, moving on from his life's work to find something new. It would have been fitting for a journey that started with loss to end with a new beginning for TV's most stressed-out chef.
There was even a clock that literally counted down these final episodes, representing just how much time the The Bear (and The Bear) had left.
So when it was announced that the show would return for one last season, it felt risky, like a menu switch-up just minutes before the front door opens and the guests arrive.
That's nothing new for The Bear though. Showrunners Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo have always walked a tightrope as intense as the central kitchen which features so prominently. More than once, The Bear has deviated from its usual recipe, often in the form of standalone episodes (and even a standalone release earlier this summer with a special prequel chapter titled 'Gary').
So when Syd (Ayo Edebiri) switches the clock back on in the season five premiere, it represents a new direction for The Bear in its eleventh hour, a deliberate pushback against those who felt it was time for this kitchen to close once and for all.
This wouldn't be the first time that the writers have acknowledged wider perception of the show. After season three was accused of spinning on its wheels following the acclaim those first two chapters received, season four cheekily opened with Carmy watching Groundhog Day, poking fun at this idea of repetition.
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No such accusations can be made here though. With the clock now counting forward rather than back, The Bear reframes its entire trajectory in real time, serving eight final episodes that span the course of just one day (and night) in the restaurant.
We pick up with the gang in the next morning following Carmy's decision to leave. Only Syd, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Natalie (Abby Elliott) know the truth at this point, but what's clear to everyone is that no money is coming in and this could very well spell the end of their time together in the restaurant.
As if that wasn't tense enough, season five casually throws in a storm of biblical proportions, which doesn't exactly do wonders for the number of customers who can make it to their bookings, not to mention issues that this causes with plumbing in the building itself.
If a raging storm might be a little on the nose, metaphorically speaking, it's easy to forgive The Bear given just how inventive the framing of it is.
There's always been tension in this show, sometimes to a nigh on unbearable degree, but honing in on this in real time distils the essence of what makes The Bear so unique, forcing our faves to strengthen as a community under this pressure valve that threatens to blow any minute (and actually does so quite literally at the end of episode one).
Everything that could go wrong goes wrong, almost to a comical degree, yet the one thing fans of that 'Gary' episode might expect to go extra wrong actually turns out OK. Richie's car crash, which that special ended with, isn't a big deal after all, almost as if the writers just wanted to remind us that more episodes are coming that we should be tuning into.
Are we mad about it? No, not really. As manipulative as that might be, we'd rather see Richie and everyone back in their element one last time rather than deal with extra hospital shenanigans. In fact, we rarely cut away from the restaurant in this eight-episode long movie of sorts, except when it comes to some bureaucracy and a few Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) check-ins.
Despite the lack of stand-alone episodes (like the ones Donna so often takes a central role in), season five delicately carves space for the development of each character still. In fact, there's more room to manoeuvre in than normal because the real-time format naturally creates little pockets where we can get into the nitty-gritty of each personality and how they relate to each other.
Syd and Carmy's power dynamic, Richie's anxiety, Natalie's relationship with her mother (and motherhood)... season five excels most in the conversations that emerge organically in between bouts of tension, which more than justifies the existence of these final episodes.
Resolutions aren't easily won, but that's life, and while The Bear is still a bit more shouty than most people's usual day-to-day, the gradual development we see here is just wonderful to watch.
It's unfortunate then that some characters do still get short thrift. Tina could certainly do with more focus, for example, which is especially surprising given that Liza Colón-Zayas actually won an Emmy for the role a few years back (making her the first Latina actress to nab the trophy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series).
Some surprises baked into the actual story do also border on predictable, although the short snappy runtime of each episode certainly helps in that regard. There's nothing like season four's 70-minute-long episode 'Bears' here, and rightly so, because the momentum of these bitesize instalments is key to the success of this final season.
Choosing such an approach could have easily come off as gimmicky, and the same could be said for even continuing The Bear after what already felt like a natural conclusion for many. Yet rather than it feeling like one last desperate push to keep fans interested, this risk instead solidifies everything we enjoyed most about the show in earlier seasons, even if season five doesn't quite reach those heights.
Ending the show with Carmy's decision would have also worked, but there's something special about this being the rare show that would even think to explore the aftermath of this, following our lead's search for something meaningful beyond the restaurant that once defined him.
As such, season five acts as a wonderful epilogue to The Bear that's worth seeing in its own right, giving this era-defining show the thoughtful, if chaotic, send-off it deserves.
The Bear is available on Disney+ in the UK.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
