‘The Bear’ Season 5, Episodes 5-8: Every Second Counts

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1:25Welcome to the Prestige TV podcast. I'm Charles Holmes. He's Van Lathan. Together, we're known as the Midnight Boys. And we are back for the series finale culmination of The Bear. It has finally happened after five seasons. The beef, The Bear, has narratively closed. Even if, spoiler alert, the story rolls on. Van, they decided to do a big gamble this season. everybody's like oh this reminds me of the pit the structure of this is one night in the restaurant can they pull it off can they work together and in the back of my mind i was like are they gonna land this plane and i cannot lie once episode seven hit i was like they did it they did it i was i was actually i was getting chills i'm like okay this is why we watch tv this is why you invest five years of your life this is why we love these characters seeing them finally get to the summit was some I did not realize that this show could still make me feel the same way that I felt in season one season two in terms of just like what it is to see people achieve their dreams in this way and they did something daring they ended the show with by taking carmy out of it yeah carmy had to go find something different he had to find fulfillment in a different way he had to leave all of that.

2:49You thought that this show was the origin story of Carmi as the best chef in the world, but it was really kind of the origin story of Carmi as a healthy person, which is that journey is kind of just beginning. What does he say to break patterns? You have to break patterns. Yeah, to break patterns, you have to break patterns. And like, not everyone is suited for the amount of stress and amount of strife and strain that comes along with doing the thing that you actually might be great at. Sometimes health is the path of least resistance and least resistance for him is doing something totally different.

3:20Maybe he cooks for his family at some point. Maybe he cooks for people in his life at some point. But doing it the way that he was doing it was just going to eat him alive. And episode seven showed that from him, showed that he could be a part of a team, but also showed that the healthier place for Carmi is outside of the restaurant. I mean, to your point, that was season one where he comes back to the beef and he sees a vision of this place that no one else can. And I think in a lesser show, they would end on episode seven. They would end on the thing finally happened. This man finally achieved his dreams.

3:57And instead of that, it does the more difficult, naughty thing, which is like, yeah, you can achieve your dreams in real life. There's still something after. And maybe that thing you were chasing and you were achieving is not actually what's going to make you a fully self-actualized person. because what I love about this, and we're going to jump around a lot, is that scene where he tells Sid that they got two stars. Sid goes back to cooking and the burner and they shoot it in that same way that we've seen Carmi, where that clicking sound, that igniter sound of the stove represents a certain type of anxiety and the walls closing in.

4:39And for the first time in the show, Sid does something that Carmi almost can't, which is she runs out and hugs him. And there's always been that thing in the show. It's like, is this a love story? And I'm like, oh, this always was a love story. It was not a romantic love story, but it was Carmi realizing in Sid that actually for me to be my full self, I have to not only step away from this woman, but allow her to take on something because I can't. Yeah, this is her thing. Yeah. It's like not really your thing. Like you thought, like, man, some people are Luke and some people are Obi-Wan. Yeah.

5:22You know what I mean? And Obi-Wan at one point was Luke. Obi-Wan at one point was the person that everybody was getting ready to go out and live his life as a Jedi. Then what you realize is the greatest contribution you have might be getting the greatest Jedi of all time ready to go do their thing. It might be giving back. As soon as this show stopped being oriented around Carmi, the depth of the show, and that was by design by the writers, I should say, particularly this season, it wasn't oriented around Carmi anymore. And the show got deeper. It got richer. It got fuller. And it got easier to see where they were going and what the purpose of the show was.

6:01The purpose of the show was to show what family can build, what can be built when you invest into people. We had these... these sort of examples early on with Carmi being around these chefs. We have this idea of executive chefs being these people who are consumed with this, who can't stop doing it. This is their whole life. Wake up in the morning early, they get fish, look at the fish all day. They make a restaurant, they make a dish, I don't like this, it sucks, all of this stuff. And at some point, the structure that was put into the beef and the discipline that was put into it was going to be the thing that made it worth being there.

6:39and that's not what made it worth being there. What made it worth being there is the questions that it answered for all of the people that were involved. The fact that it helped them develop as human beings, that it helped them sometimes find love, answer questions about their life, reconnect with family, like connect with other people. That's the thing that's going to keep that entity running for a long time. Not because Carmi is the dopest cook or because they make the best food in Chicago. And like, I would have never thought that the bear was going there. I would have never thought that the bear was going there.

7:10Maybe it already was, or maybe it's something that they learned along the way. It was heartbreaking because it was one of the most realistic scenes, and it made sense why they had released that long Gary Indiana episode. Right. When Richie reveals that he's never been on a plane or out of the country, that revealed something to me not only about him as a character, but what Carmi was returning to. Similar when his mother was going through his journals of like New York and the French laundry and seeing like him point and be like, I stayed on that boat in Copenhagen. You're realizing that for Carmi, he's returning with all of this knowledge about the world to people who haven't been able to travel.

7:53Even Sid was like, she hasn't been that well-traveled. And I thought that it was so interesting to end on that note of Carmi talking to the leader of that architecture firm and realizing the actual joy was of him creating a family again. Yeah. And like giving them the tools and empowering them that they're the CDCs, they're the head chefs, they can go to the Japan. And I was like, I am glad that they ended up there. I'm glad they didn't do the thing where it was like, Carmi does the buzzer beater, he makes the brioche, he's the hottest fucking chef, he has to stay in this kitchen because they can't survive without him.

8:30I love the narrative. Did you think he would change his mind and stay? I was so scared when he's getting emotional talking to that woman in the office. When he's realizing how much that day where they finally all come together and sing, I was like, please don't do the last minute. Actually, I need to go back to the bear. But what I also think, the reason why I was almost positive that they wouldn't do that is because Carmi is so resolute, not only in his decision, but he keeps going to Sid, that's your two stars. He's like, he is very much like, this is something that you did, which always made me be like, he's saying, I don't need the stars.

9:16For someone like, for his journey, if you think about it, he's already been where Sid has been at. Right. And it's destroyed him. What sense would it make for us to have watched five seasons of this where he's like, actually stars are really, really important. Right, right, right, right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because also what it proved to me was the reason why the stars can be important for Sid is because when Carmi's like, the difference between you and me is when I get overwhelmed, I yell at everyone around me. You come out here and you let it out by yourself. You don't take it out. I'm like, Sid's the type of person where the stars are not going to go to her head.

9:58Right. And she's also the type of person that everybody is going to work freely, better, maybe not perfectly. Even the errors are going to be useful. She's going to trust you more, which means there will probably be more mistakes. Yeah. But those mistakes are going to be out in the open. They're going to be useful mistakes because she's going to be able to correct. Carmi is the kind of guy that kept you on edge so much to where, even though he wasn't like the sort of fire-breathing dragon that we remember him as now, it's just the intensity that he brought was sometimes suffocating to people and he didn't let them be the full selves.

10:40So he's learning or has learned about himself, and we've also learned that for that particular restaurant, she's the much better leader. What was interesting to me about the latter half of this season is they give both Sid and Marcus, who are obviously going to be the inheritors of this thing, with Marcus having one best new chef, Sid being in the paper, getting the two stars, being the head chef. It was very interesting that this season gave them both moments where they became little Carmies, where the structure of this place was like, oh, it's not that Carmie was born like a megalomaniac, fucking, you gotta do this.

11:20It's like, no, the pressure of the star system and the accolades and needing to get the food out on time can turn you into a monster. That's what I tell you. Like, he was created that way. Yeah. And seeing both of them in different ways, seeing how Marcus and Sid in their own lives and in their own careers got up to that precipice and had to be like, no, too much. I got, because that to me is also true to life where it's like, it's not like you go in one day, you're like, I'm a fully realized person. I'm not going to be toxic in the workplace. I'm not going to get it, let it get to me. There's a moment in this season where they're just like, okay, now we have to do it all over again.

12:02Right. Yeah. Like there's a whole, like, I'm like, yeah, you achieve like excellence this one night. All right. Yep. Bring it. You got to bring it again. I was like, oh, right. So they're just at the beginning of something. Walt Carmi is at the end of something. Yeah. Did you think that the restaurant were closed? So early on, I thought that they were getting us ready for the restaurant to close. Yes. The first four episodes, it very much felt like a funeral, which is good writing where I was like this because of the structure of the season, I was like there's Michael Mann in this. There's Heist movie in this, but there's also like a sports movie analogy where it was like like this is our final game.

12:41Right. But then I was like, oh oh no, that almost funeral aspect in the latter half of the season, I'm like, this is their final game with Carmi. And that's what I realized where there's a moment in the penultimate episode where Carmi drops the, what was the dish? It was like - The lamb? The lamb, yeah, that he had created. And it's this moment where he's about to melt down. He's having all these flashbacks to when he was in the kitchen, the mistakes. and they think that it's going to be the critic that's going to give him the stars. And that was the moment where I was like, oh, this place isn't closing.

13:20Because they all, like, Richie's like, hey, we got you. Everyone rallies around him. And Carmi has that final moment where he makes the brioche, where, like, Luke is like, dog, that's not even the first time I've seen him pulled out something like this. I was like, oh, that was the writers, the creators, Christopher Storr, giving Carmi that final moment of, like, hey, yo, you won the championship. but this is no longer your team. Right, it's no longer your team. In that moment, Carmi didn't need correction. He needed care and that's what the entire restaurant needed from the beginning. He thought that everybody needed correction but what they needed was care.

13:58They needed somebody to believe in them, to invest in them, to listen to them. And so when he got that, it probably was the time in his life that he appreciated it the most. Yeah. Right? And then it's just so interesting to go from that, to go from him learning that lesson to him still making the decision to leave. It's a ballsy choice. It's a ballsy choice because the big things that you set up for here are either the restaurant closing, Carmi leaving, or maybe something happening to someone, which would have been really cheap had they done that, right? Yeah. Sometimes shows do kind of crazy shit.

14:43I really think, I really thought that everybody was going to leave and go their separate ways and be better as people. But what I got in the brilliant seventh episode, and then, or the brilliant penultimate episode, and then the last episode, which was kind of like a postlude almost. Yeah. Like an epilogue. What I got was this deep understanding of how well I know these characters. But I didn't realize how well I knew them. How well I knew them, how much they've changed. Richie has changed as much as any character on television ever. To see him in a situation where he flying off to go do his thing, he kind of almost got his girl.

15:29No, he did because Jess was right there on the plane. And even that scene where he puts his finger on hers, he goes, I still got it. Right. You like, you, because I want to ask you this. What was genius about the latter half of the season is you knew what each character wanted. And they had created a moment where it's like, we get to see Carmi have his buzzer beater. We get to see Sid get to bring out that dish that she had made back in the first season. the one that I kind of put the beef on back on the map, the Coca-Cola short ribs. We got to see Marcus start a reconciliation with his dad and even someone like Ibra finally like get his moment of just like, oh, yeah, do it.

16:17I thought that was also brilliant where there was all of these balls in the air. And I was like, how are you guys going to land this fucking plane? And to get to the end of the series where it's like to your point, not only do I know these characters so much, I know what they want and I know how hard they've been fighting for this thing. I can see, even with Tina, this season starts with Tina waking up at the storm being like, this means so much to me. Like, what am I without this? I was like, oh, is her lesson gonna be that she'll be fine as a CDC? She could go anywhere? And it actually being that moment where Sid has to be like, to Carmi, she's got this.

16:59We're going to send her dish out there. I was like, oh. She got to call the shot. She didn't know how to do it. She was like, sitting down there, it's like, you guys take it, say hands, chef. Even that, all of that stuff, watching her come into her own and all of that stuff, it really, really worked. Yeah. It really, really worked. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? ZepBound Terzepatide may be able to help. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

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19:39Hit the street, grab a can, and get after it. Do you think that the bear did itself a disservice by maybe going one season too long. Yes. What if... Yes. Where... What if this season was last season? And was the last season? If this season was last season, I do think people would be having a different conversation with it because your biggest critique about Late Stage the Bear, and weirdly, I think the penultimate episode is poking fun at itself. The penultimate episode is very, very meta. because they have that annoying couple who's back there, the guy that's like, yes, chef. Yes, chef. Or there's the joke about, I think it's Carmi's mom.

20:30Or Carmi. It's like, oh, we have theories. And it was like, I think that what I loved about that episode was it was almost Christopher Storer. I think the bear could get so self-serious at points, and the previous season got so self-serious, it almost felt like the penultimate episode was Christopher Storff being like we can have fun again we can laugh again not only do I think this would have been better if it had one less season I will say with this final season I don't know how many people are going to give it a chance where it's like you do have to stay with this season because it's almost it is structured more like a movie than it is a season of television and it's at times at the beginning of this season it wasn't always easy to watch it was like a lot of shit going wrong at all times a lot of stress and strain on these characters.

21:18We haven't even talked about. Harry Lennox comes in and plays Marcus's dad. That stuff really worked for me. Yeah. It was very, very meaningful and moving to me. When he cuts the candle and his caramel's there. Yes, man. God damn it. It's like, who are you really cooking for? The reason why this matters is because that's something that you do out of love for someone, but for him, he can display his genius. and get like it's just this this underlying theme of family continues to be hammered into the bear and that's what that's enduring for me i mean even when because at times i was getting a little bit done with the facts of it all but even when fact did get that moment where richie and everybody's super fucking nervous like god damn he's talking to he's telling stories but then you see he's charming he's charming who they think is a restaurant critic I was like oh shit okay they have they have landed the plane on each and every single one of these characters and what I also think is kind of like a deft piece of writing and this is what you can do when your show comes back every year is that plot thread I remember that plot thread of like when Richie makes it snow and there's that guy sitting there.

22:42I'm like, that's the critic. That's the star critic. And we did not get it in that season. All we got were the bad reviews. Right. And for them to bring up the facts, I forgotten. Here's the thing. I knew that like instinctually, but to your point, I forgot that that had never paid off. I was just like, Oh, I guess he had just written. Well, when they, when they got the bad review, I kind of got confused between the reviews. review and the stars yes but i was like oh they got a bad review does that mean you don't get your star but i those are two completely different yeah those are those are two completely different things but to your point i once it like pops back and that guy popped on screen was like and he started talking about the snow i was like oh so i went back to that episode scallops to look at and i was like oh i do remember because this was the episode where richie's on his fucking game You know what I'm saying?

23:38And even Carmi's pulling the sandwich and he's cutting it. And he's like, no, we want them all to share it. Marcus makes the hot cocoa. And even Sid has her moment with the scallop. And I was like, that to me is genius writing as well. But not to cut you off, but real quick, that is one of the episodes where you thought you were sure that everything was going to be okay. Yeah. You just knew that everything was going to be okay. And then it wasn't okay. so you thought you had already lost that battle right and then to know that everything was kind of okay the entire time yeah i mean not really but in a way you had already made your impression you already done this and the rest of i don't know it did like that was really to me something that they did really well i mean but isn't that also true to most artistic endeavors where if you're in the back if you're in the back of house if you're the person who's making the thing you see all the warts you see how fucking shitty yesterday was, today was last week, last month was but when you're truly doing it for the love and you're on top of the game the people in the front of house can't tell and I was like that was also interesting where it was like oh the real win and I think this series has always been toggling between does the recognition matter?

25:01Do the stars matter? And I think by hiding that and showing when Carmi's reliving that night, he's not thinking of like, oh, that was the night we got the star or we thought this person was there. He was like, no, that's when my team finally showed. That's when they were the best. And that was probably the moment where he was like, oh, I can actually leave now. I feel good about leaving because one of the best moments Sid had, and it's such a little moment, is when Carmi's doing his little Carmi shit and Tina's trying to help him. And he's like, oh, I can just do it faster myself. And she's like, she can do it, Carmi.

25:41You're like, oh, she is a better leader. Yeah. This isn't about, Carmi, this isn't about you scoring all the points. This isn't about showing us how fast you are plating, how fast you can cut an onion. This is about empowering everybody around you to be able to do it them fucking selves. when The Bear came out it was kind of a trendy show we talked about this in the last episode it was a trendy show, it was a show that cut through culturally and man, it could have like rested on that it could have continued to just be a show about beautiful people making beautiful food Carmi's love story and all of that stuff, we could have done the whole thing but they did something more daring in the end and they they kind of got away from themselves and some of the celebrity stuff and all of that stuff but it was just deeply emotional and moving at the end of it because you were just with someone and you remember sometimes it's like almost being like with a friend where you remember like how much you have in a tank with them like how long you've been with them I found myself at the end of the show being way more emotionally invested than I thought I was going to be same like I wasn't I wasn't even super looking forward to doing this because we've done these, me and you have done two shows in total.

26:59We've done more than that. But for Prestige, we've done, we did Atlanta. Yeah. And then I feel like we might've done, our first time over here might've been actually. WandaVision. WandaVision. So WandaVision aside, because that would have been on the Midnight Boys at that podcast, if it existed at that time. but us doing this and having done those two shows specifically this one felt more pertinent to my life right now yeah like i can understand how everyone feels and i felt good for them atlanta was so avant-garde that at times it was just like what are they what crazy shit are they gonna cook up but man i'm just happy everybody's okay all right this show is not the wire but it's funny how when The Wire comes out, it is not, if you're a true TV head, you knew what was happening.

27:52But it's not the most popular show. People had their problems with the second season. People had their problems with the last season. But now, not only is it talked about a different way, when you can watch the vision from front to back, you have a different conversation. And I think when you watch The Bear or Atlanta now, in a couple years and you see the full breath of it, I think people are going to appreciate the show more. You're going to be like, damn, this did reignite Jeremy Allen White. This did introduce us to Io Debris. This was the start of Lionel Boyce as like dramatic actor. You know, I was rewatching some Atlanta episodes recently and I'm like, this is so much more enjoyable outside of the take cycle.

28:38Like you appreciate the large swings way more because I think what people, what these shows get to is they start chasing, why isn't this show giving me the same feeling as it did in the first and second season? Why isn't this show the thing that all of my friends are watching? Why are people falling off? And that's what's different about it, where it's like, we're not actually talking about the bear. Half the time we're like, well, why is it a binge? Is it really a comedy? Two, three, four years. Who gives a fuck about it? You know what I mean? And I think it is harder now because less shows. I would not be surprised if third season of something like Widow's Bay, third season of The Pit.

29:22People start having these conversations because you can only be that show for a season or two before everybody's just like. Well, you guys aren't the center of attention anymore. You're not the center of culture anymore. I mean, weirdly, it's what we're talking about with something like Supergirl, where it's like, what are these movies now when they're not the center of culture? We're always going to get Spider-Man. We're always going to get Batman. We're going to get X-Men. Are you truly a fan when this thing isn't the epicenter? This sort of mob mentality that gets people both on something and off something is a double-edged sword.