The Bear Season-Premiere Recap: Perfect Means Perfect

If you ever had to sum up The Bear in one word, you really couldn’t go wrong with pressure.

That’s certainly true for the season-three premiere, “Tomorrow,” which finds our old, handsomely fucked-up pal Carmy Berzatto flashing back through every moment of his chef life. When we last left The Bear, the restaurant had just opened its doors to family and friends, and while the food and the experience seemed great, life behind the swinging kitchen door was anything but. The staff got in the weeds. Carmy got stuck in the freezer, accidentally broke up with Claire, and then got into a screaming match with Richie. And while things certainly aren’t all roses for them, you can have a little hope, because Richie is fresh off a life-changing stint in Olivia Colman’s restaurant, where he’s learned patience and service.

We get an idea of Carmy’s culinary journey that led him to that moment in the premiere, which flashes through a series of memories. Chef Daniel Boulud walks Carmy through his recipe for potato-wrapped sea bass in New York. (It has a fancier name, and there’s a recipe if anyone feels bold enough to try it.) Carmy spies Nomi’s Chef Rene Redzepi eyeing pictures of the Danish spot’s bold plating and takes it upon himself to snap a pic of a particularly lush plate for his brother, who totally doesn’t understand it. We see him working alongside Luca (Will Poulter) while Chef Terry (Olivia Colman) hovers nearby, and we see him crumbling under the exacting, dickish pressure of “NYC Chef,” played once again by an absolutely brutal Joel McHale. We know he’s a jerk because, at one point, after Carmy adds maybe two sauces to a pretty austere dish, NYC Chef rips into him, saying it’s trash and quipping, “You basically made nachos.”

Carmy’s whole culinary career has gotten him to where we find him now, unable to sleep after family and friends night and churning out what seems to be a whole new menu. (That’s a guess based on the trailer.) That’s unsustainable and, frankly, annoying for diners, but it’s also a sign that Carmy is flailing. The Bear is barely open and already he’s looking ahead to the next step. They don’t even have their feet under them in terms of service and he’s already trying to get a Michelin star. While you could make the argument that good, boundary-pushing restaurants probably do think about these kinds of things from day one, they’re also (hopefully) run by crack teams of people who aren’t leveraged to the hilt with stolen money or who desperately need therapy of literally any kind to deal with decades of emotional trauma. (And I’m not just talking about Carmy, either.)

But we’ve always known Carmy was a little fucked up. That became even more abundantly clear during his accidental refrigerator lock-in during the season-two finale, when he round-about broke up with Claire because he doesn’t think he deserves love. He can’t control his feelings around Claire, and he thinks she makes him unfocused, which won’t get him where he thinks he needs to go to be complete. It seems like Carmy wants absolute control of pretty much every aspect of his life, and in some ways, that’s understandable; he must not have had control of anything growing up, both because he was the youngest, quietest child and because he had a skittish, unpredictable mom who kept the whole family on edge. He can control things in the kitchen. Food works in predictable ways once you figure out flavor profiles, and Carmy’s brain just seems to get how everything works. He could very well be the world’s new Boulud or Redzepi if only given the chance.

Or maybe it’s not about chances. Maybe it’s about learning to let go, to let it rip, if you will. The way this episode and the trailer set the season up, it looks like Carmy’s trying to white-knuckle his way to success, an act that’s probably more out of service or love than it is out of pride. The food looks fucking amazing — a nettle purée? A squash veloute? Sign me up! — but every part of a restaurant makes it earn a star, from the design to the wine list to how you’re treated when you walk in the door. Carmy can’t control all that no matter how hard he tries, even after countless tough hours spent working in kitchens worldwide. However, if we know anything about The Bear, none of that will preclude Carmy from putting immense pressure on himself to somehow circumvent it anyway.

Small Bites

• Here we go! I’m one episode in and already screaming, “Chill out, Carmy!” at the screen, so that’s classic Bear. Also, shout-out to this episode opening with a Metra train rather than an El train. Good to see that Chicago transpo getting its own shine.

• Speaking of shine: We sure saw a lot of Carmy’s cut hand this episode! I have no idea how or when that happened, but apparently we’re going to find out.

• Carmy’s call to Richie was very nice. I’m sorry Marcus’s mom died. Claire’s shot-giving technique is unparalleled. And I can’t believe Sydney got Carmy’s one dish in NYC. Kismet.

• It was nice to see some of our old friends back for this episode, from Colman and Poulter to John Mulaney, who covers Carmy up while saying he smells like a donkey. I’d like to know how all of this was shot, schedule-wise. Did they bring Mulaney back for a day to shoot these bedroom bits? The whole episode seems like a massive puzzle that must have taken an eternity to plan and edit together, so color me impressed.

• Speaking of being impressed: This episode was co-written by Bear creator Christopher Storer and Matty Matheson, an excellent chef/Bear producer who also happens to play our beloved Fak. Given how much cheffing goes on, his writing credit makes a lot of sense, but shout out to Matheson either way for getting the call. Ayo Edebiri directs an episode later in the season, so it’s nice to see the cast getting some shots behind the camera, too.

• I’ve had multiple people ask me if this is the season The Bear jumps the shark or runs up against some critical or cultural backlash. One episode in, I don’t know. I can see people wanting to shit on something just to do it, but then again, people seemed to really love something like Succession right up until the end, so perfection isn’t impossible. It’s just really, really, really, really hard. Almost like getting a Michelin star.

• There’s a part of me that thinks they tried to de-age Carmy for all the restaurants. He looked younger at Chef Terry’s than he did at Joel McHale’s. Was that just me reading much too much into what I was seeing?

• Chef Terry’s restaurant IRL is actually Ever, Chef Curtis Duffy’s two-Michelin-star spot in Chicago. No wonder all their silverware is so clean.

• According to the credits, Chef Dave Beran was also somewhere in the episode though I don’t know if I caught him. If you’re not familiar, he came up in Chicago at spots like MK, Tru, and Alinea, and then was the opening Executive Chef at the latter’s NEXT when that opened in 2011. (I went to NEXT twice when living in Chicago. Mind blown wide open both times. Same with Alinea.) Beran’s in L.A. now, where he owns and runs Pasjoli.

• Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score really worked this episode. It was like one long drone song for 30-plus minutes, and I want to listen to it every time I work from here on out.