What's up with the romance in the restaurant show?
I, a romance lover, was admittedly not thrilled by the addition of a certain romance in "The Bear."
Spoilers below image for Season 2 of FX’s The Bear.
As the credits rolled on S2E9 of The Bear, I was near screaming, “He didn’t call the fridge guy!” over and over at my TV.
Reader, I was right to be screaming! Carmy locked himself in the fucking fridge! He missed the absolute high of Syd and Richie getting the team through the peak of service and delivering an incredible friends and family night experience to all the diners (though that probably wouldn’t have happened like that if Carmy hadn’t been in the fridge.)
Why didn’t Carmy call the fridge guy?
Because he was distracted by a girl!!!! (No hate to Claire, as Carmy tells Syd earlier in the finale or maybe the penultimate, him being distant and distracted isn’t her fault. He’s right.)
I’ve now made it through the second season of The Bear twice. Is that insane considering it came out only 3.5 days ago and one of the episodes is nearly 1.5 hours long? Probably, but I LOVED this season.
Despite being intrigued by the introduction of Molly Gordon’s character, Claire, in the trailer, on my first watch of this season I kept finding myself annoyed when she’d show up on screen.
I was shocked by my attitude toward the Carmy-Claire romance as a noted lover of anything romantic, but I was really concerned with whether the restaurant would be ready to open on its 12-week timetable.
It also just didn’t feel like there was much chemistry between the two, even after the revelation in Episode 6 that Carmy had a crush on her growing up and the clear girl/boy-next-doorness (a trope I ADORE!) of it all.
The party scene felt unnecessary, so did Carmy and Claire driving to drop off the license in that strange mailbox and the random clips of her in the hospital mashed together with Carmy grocery shopping for shallots at the end of Episode 8.
Then we got to the finale, and that’s when the addition of Claire’s character and that part of Carmy’s arc clicked for me.
In my opinion upon second watch, Claire being a distraction to Carmy was also meant to be a distraction to us. I think it helps to blur some of the “How are they getting all that done on the restaurant?” by taking us away from the A plot in a way similar to seeing Tina, Ebra, Marcus and Richie do their training and staging throughout the season.
There’s also definitely character development there for Carmy – learning how to balance responsibilities, let someone care for you, how to have fun, etc. – that I think we’ll see the full effects of next season, which I’m suspecting (and hoping) will be the last based on the structure of the show thus far.
So while at first I was like, “Oh my god, why did they do this?”, I’m now like, “Okay, I get why they did it. I just wish maybe it was done differently.”
I do think by the end of the show Carmy and Claire will be together. I can’t see them introducing someone with such history with the Berzattos into such a prominent role for only a season.
Carmy’s just gotta grow a little!
Sparks in the kitchen?
Feeling slightly silly writing this after my friend Kennedi likened shipping Carmy and Syd to shipping Ted and Rebecca on Ted Lasso, a ship I am violently, violently against.
So let me get this out of the way for Kenn, the person on the Twitter I saw vehemently shutting down Carmy/Syd shippers and anyone else ready to close out of this email now that I’ve brought this up.
I don’t ship Carmy and Syd.
But I do think there were some ~interesting moments~ that could be read as being romantic or sexual tension.
The above-pictured moment was probably the most tense romantically between these two, when Carmy asks Syd what she’s doing when they leave in one of the early episodes and they both kind of waffle a bit and then don’t make plans.
But there’s other things, too.
They’re wearing identical outfits (blue crewneck sweaters over white shirts) in Episode 2. The look on Syd’s face when she first finds out about Claire, and then when Carmy says he was working on the menu with her – maybe some jealousy? The scene in Episode 9 where Carmy and Syd are fixing the table and he says, “You deserve my full focus … I wouldn’t want to do this without you. You make me better at this.”
I think the most damning (or at least interesting) scene to this whole potential romance was at the beginning of Episode 9 when Carmy’s having a panic attack in the back alley.
He keeps seeing Claire in his mind at first, but then memories of Syd first arriving pop in and he calms down. Granted, it is memories of her calling him a good chef and stuff, but still.
It doesn’t seem like this is at all in the cards – Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri have both expressed they don’t think it is. But if that’s the case I need JAW to cool it with his romanticism!
The new chef to fawn over
Carmy being in a relationship and thus in the kitchen less meant we needed a new man in a plain T-shirt and an apron with sexy arm tats to fawn over, and boy, did this season deliver!
Will Poulter’s Episode 4 cameo as the pastry chef Marcus stages with in Copenhagen was unfortunately spoiled for me, and I was really upset about it, but I also only expected him to be in the show for a brief moment – not a full episode.
Episode 4 was just such a nice little escape (that still moved the plot along!) with two wholesome guys whipping up some delicious looking desserts. Dare I say it made me miss working in a donut shop.
Though Poulter’s chef was giving a different energy than Carmy in Season 1, it still did the trick for me.
PLUS we also got a full episode of Jon Bernthal with a beard. Truly a blessing. RIP, Michael.