This review contains spoilers for The Bear Season 3, which is currently streaming on Disney+. Fans of The Bear have spent a whole year worrying about how Chef Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) would escape from a walk-in refrigerator – and more importantly, his demons. After methodically building up his support team and tentatively embracing love with his old flame Claire (Molly Gordon), Carmy’s meltdown on the opening night of his new restaurant (also called The Bear) was both a heartbreaking step back for the chef and a hell of a cliffhanger.
Unfortunately, a third serving of The Bear doesn’t move Carmy forward: He and everyone around him are still stuck in that fridge, metaphorically speaking. It results in a season that opens with some inventive episodes but the overall progress of the narrative treads water. An introverted shift for Carmy fails to make space for anyone else’s growth or decisiveness.
At least things begin on a high note, with creator Christopher Storer and team continuing to push their unconventional storytelling approach. A fever dream of Carmy’s OCD fixations and memories of his training and mistakes, season premiere “Tomorrow” provides the interior context for where the chef’s head is at. In nonlinear fashion, he cycles through the mentors, familial losses, and pivotal experiences that have shaped him for The Bear.
Its musical score is as relentless as Carmy’s brain and drive, a potent reminder of how broken he is after that terrib.
