‘The Bear’ Ends Its Run With a Sense of Missed Potential

The fifth and final season of "The Bear" premiered today on Disney+ and, based on the seven of eight episodes sent for review, it does little to erase the disappointment that has surrounded the show since roughly season three. The series, which began as a neighborhood sandwich shop and turned into a fine-dining restaurant, has always preached that "every second counts," but the review argues that it often wastes viewers’ time with repetitive, self-important storytelling.

According to the review, this season trims some of the show’s more pretentious montage sequences and the excess of cameos, but it still does not reinvent itself for the finale. Instead, it keeps recycling the familiar formula of crises, shouting, improvised fixes, more crises, more shouting, and more fixes, while leaning on the same themes it has already exhausted over four seasons.

The exceptions are episodes six and especially seven, the longer of the bunch, when the long-awaited service finally begins. At that point, chef Carmy, played by Jeremy Allen White, and chef Sydney, played by Ayo Edebiri, are actually put to the test, Richie, played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, faces both anxiety and impulsiveness, and the arrival of a Michelin guide representative adds real tension. The review says the series briefly recaptures its strengths in intimate, funny, emotionally sharp scenes, even making a caramel drizzle on a dessert feel moving.

Still, the critic says the show’s biggest failure is the gap between its appealing characters and its thin plot. Sydney, Richie, Nat, Marcus, and Tina, played by Abby Elliott, Lionel Boyce, and Liza Colón-Zayas among others, remain compelling enough that some could carry a spinoff, but the series buries them under too much stylized food imagery and repetitive therapy-style dialogue. The review concludes that if "The Bear" had understood that its characters, not the restaurant itself, were the real story, there would have been no wasted moment.