Next, she visits hairdresser cousin Chantel, played with hilarious specificity by BAFTA nominee Danielle Deadwyler. She’s dropping hot goss as she works on Syd’s braids in her living room: Has she heard that Mary’s husband Darnell has a second family in Texas? Chantel calls upstairs for her daughter, TJ (Arion King), to bring more hair down. Unfortunately, they’re fresh out; so Chantel heads to the store and asks Syd to watch the kid while she’s away, promising she’ll be back in a sec. (Spoiler: She is not back in a sec.)
With her hair part-finished, Syd heads to her niece’s bedroom for a chat. TJ doesn’t want to talk about school, but she does want lunch. (Listen, if my aunt was a professional chef, I’d be all over it, too.) Finding Chantel’s kitchen mostly empty, she takes TJ on a shopping trip to introduce her to the wonders of Hamburger Helper. On the way over, TJ tells Syd about how she’s starting at a charter middle school next year, while all her friends are going to the local public school. Worse, she overheard them planning a sleepover without her, and they only invited her because they felt bad. Syd drops some less-than-helpful wisdom about how sometimes friends can be really mean because it’s easy to be cruel to the people you care about. She apologizes later, but still, yikes.
Back in the kitchen, she cooks up some elevated Hamburger Helper that looks almost as tasty as that scallop dish from last episode. It feels extremely on brand that the first person Syd asks for advice about The Bear vs. Shapiro situation is a fifth grader, via metaphor: She’s been invited to two sleepovers, but she can only go to one.
The first is at a “really special” house that’s full of “goodness and purity and fun and promise”; but it’s also full of crazy people and kind of stinky. The big brother there is the best video-game player in the world, and it’s so cool that he wants Sydney to play games with him, but sometimes he acts funky and doesn’t want to share. The second house is shiny and new, and the dad talks a lot, but he’s also super nice and lets Sydney use his credit card to buy as much pizza as she wants. TJ is like, “Duh, pick the pizza house,” but Syd can’t stop rhapsodizing about the stinky house. With the blunt wisdom of a child, TJ points out that neither of those places is her house.
Chantel blusters through the door hours later bearing fresh hair and news that she ran into her on-again, off-again boyfriend, who’s taking her on a surprise trip to Costa Rica. Syd fixes her a bowl of the upcycled Hamburger Helper—which is, of course, delicious—and Chantel finishes her braids.
Getting some long-delayed bonding time with her family makes Sydney remember that there’s life outside the kitchen; and it’s passing her by with every hour she spends bent over the stove or talking Richie down from his latest tantrum. She makes plans to hang with Chantel and Mary three Saturdays from now, and TJ decides she’s gonna go to that sleepover after all. “I think you should work wherever you want, even if it’s scary,” she tells her aunt as they hug goodbye.
On the sidewalk, Syd checks her phone: She’s got a text from Pete about the amended agreement and five cryptic ones from Carmy about an “issue” at the restaurant. It’s the push she needs to call Shapiro and ask if he wants to go over some paperwork, because goddammit, she deserves that pizza.
Bravo’s direction gives “Worms” an open, airy vibe, like all Sydney needed was the sun on her face to remind her that she deserves to be more than the Berzattos’ unlicensed therapist. And playing underneath it all, like the slow, easy trumpets of Curtis Mayfields’ “So In Love,” is the revelation that she’s so much bigger than the emotional labor she does for white boys.
Stray observations
- • All season long, we’ve seen Sydney screen her dad’s calls. The strain in their relationship hangs over this episode: She’s prioritizing one part of her family while ignoring the other.
- • It’s always fun to see what the gang chooses to wear when they’re not in their chef’s whites. For Syd, it’s a vintage Negro League Baseball Museum sweatshirt.
- • Shapiro is dancing so hard to show Syd what a good Black ally he is: Wouldn’t it be cool to bring Afro-Caribbean influences into the restaurant? Does she want to be in charge of making sure there’s diversity in the kitchen? Also, has she seen Good Hair? Because he just streamed it, and it was so great.
- • Sydney is less than jazzed when Shapiro shows her the open kitchen. I get that it cuts down on the yelling and the chaos, but it also sounds like a total nightmare.
- • The real reason Chantel hasn’t eaten at The Bear yet? Italian beef is a crime against god. “Put some cheese on it! Dip it! Keep it wet!”
- • Where The Bear has an unhinged amount of clocks, Chantel’s place only has one on the oven—and she hasn’t even bothered to set it. It’s a neat little way of signaling that out in the world, time isn’t the enemy it is in the kitchen.
- • “He has a second family in Texas!” “What’s in Texas?” “Girl, Darnell’s second family, girl. Keep up.”
