[Editor’s note: The recap of episode six publishes July 1. This recap contains spoilers.]
The clock is ticking down before The Bear goes kaput. The problem is that the restaurant is run by people—and people live on their own timelines, which almost never align with each other. That’s the jumping-off point for “Replicants,” an episode that flits between characters, offering us glimpses into their lives both together and alone.
Even if he’s not telling anyone about it, Carmy is finally healing. He begins the episode at Al-Anon, listening to another attendee (played by the great Kate Berlant) give a monologue about the complexities of loving an addict: her brother, who after six months of sobriety relapsed and trashed her apartment while he was supposed to be plant-sitting. “He’s my brother, and I love him. I want to kill him and then love him and kill him again,” she says—a Zen koan for the modern age.
Afterward, Carm heads to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio to rediscover his sense of wonder. “I’m just a traveler, eatin’ up my travelin’ time,” Paul Simon croons as Bear roams the corridors of Wright’s masterpiece, running his hands along the furniture and gazing up at the arched ceilings. Incidentally, Wright was a perfectionist whose commitment to his art took a heavy toll on the people who loved him. Sound like anyone we know?
The next morning, everyone gets down to the business of being alive in an imperfect world. Tina tests out a new recipe on her husband (portrayed by David Zayas), making him promise he’ll be honest about the quality. “Sucks,” he says with a wide, loving smile. Meanwhile, Sweeps is going over his sommelier training while hitting balls at the batting cages, and Richie is obsessing over the fact that he couldn’t afford the giant teddy bear his daughter wanted, but friggin’ Frank could.
Elsewhere, Sydney is spiraling out. She’s frantically searching through her (still not unpacked!) moving boxes, searching for her favorite cleaver. She finally calls her dad (played by Robert Townsend), not to catch up, but to ask if he’s seen it. She freezes when she notices that he sounds sick, but he swears he’s fine. It’s an obvious lie, but Syd is too caught up in her own shit to notice.
We also check in with Marcus’ roommate, Chester (Carmen Christopher), who’s now side hustling as a real-estate agent. His first sale: Marcus’ mom’s house. He seems to truly believe in the value of setting up clients with their dream houses, but Marcus takes a darker tone: When you sell a house, it’s always for bad reasons—death, divorce, running out of cash.
Throughout this montage, Christopher Storer’s direction captures the common mood—part hope, part anxiety. (“If I have to live in fear, where will I get my ideas? / With all those crazy people gone, will I slowly slip away?” Lou Reed asks himself on the backing soundtrack.) There’s a particularly striking moment when the camera whip-zooms toward Richie mid-panic attack. The shot flashes between his sweaty face and his happiest memories: celebrating in the kitchen at Ever, cuddling with Tiff, sharing a peaceful silence with Mikey. All gone now.
Ebraheim gives Albert a tour of The Beef, including an introduction to certified weirdos Chuckie, Chi-Chi, and Teddy. Ebra is nervous when Albert tells him the operation is crazy small, but it’s a good thing: If he can succeed on such a tight budget, his next step should be franchising. Somewhere, Mikey Berzatto is rolling in his grave.
Carmy 2.0 shows up at The Bear ready to tackle his problems head-on. Tina points out the biggest one as he helps her unpack their paltry boxes of ingredients. She gives him a tough-love pep talk: He’s gotta stop changing the menu every night. Every dish is incredible, but it would be even better—and cost-effective—if he stuck with the same ones. “I just wanted you to hear something out loud,” she finishes. “You’re the shit, baby. You got nothin’ to prove.” If Carm’s ever going to believe in his talent, Tina is the one to get through to him.
Inside, he finds Marcus staring hard at the most gorgeous dessert in culinary history. Carmen is blown away when he tries a bite and over the moon when Marcus tells him that the flower-shaped cup is also edible. It’s going to be a beast to keep such a delicate creation intact, but Carm has a solution that delights Marcus as much as it does us: Luca (Will Poulter), the world’s sexiest pastry chef, has agreed to work as a stage for a few weeks.
But no one is more excited than Syd. When they run into each other, the chemistry they shared at the Ever funeral sparks back up immediately. She teases him about the way he pronounces “chives” in his English accent, and he counters with an adorably terrible attempt at a Chicago drawl. These two need to make out yesterday.
Then there’s Richie and Jessica, who have been quietly falling for each other ever since they met at Ever. He’s driving himself crazy in a futile attempt to write another “inspiring” speech for the team, and Jessica helps him express what he’s really searching for: “The Beef was fuckin’ rockin’,” he tells her. “It was alive, and you were a part of it, and it was a fuckin’ vibe in there.” She immediately gets it when Richie dishes about the Great Teddy Bear Feud, and he lights up when she tells him that she races cars. Now that’s a fuckin’ vibe.
Syd finds Carmy in the kitchen, ready to finally tell him about her gig with Shapiro. But she’s distracted when she notices tonight’s menu on the counter: all repeats. He apologizes for his insistence on changing it up every night, admitting that it was selfish and unfair. It’s exactly what she’s been waiting to hear at exactly the wrong time. He’s on the edge of telling her about the new terms of the agreement, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of Natalie and the cutest li’l baby you ever did see. (I love you, Sugar, but also, I really wanted to know what’s in that mysterious contract!)
The entire staff is smitten the moment they lay eyes on Sophie, but you can see the fear on Carm’s face: He’s terrified his niece is another good thing he’ll break. Natalie makes the right call when she passes the baby not to her anxious brother but to kind, steady Marcus. It’s equally adorable when Richie heads to the kitchen to meet the kid: “Who wants to melt some provolone on a fuckin’ baby right now?”
While Richie tells the baby about Carm’s “refrigerator complex,” Syd heads to the alley to take a call from an unknown number that’s been blowing up her phone. The moment her face falls, we know that The Bear vs. Shapiro decision is suddenly background noise. It’s Carmy who’s the first to hear the news that Emmanuel is in the ICU after he had a heart attack.
I saw this plot turn coming from a million miles away, but my qualms fell thanks to Ayo Edebiri’s painfully honest performance of a woman whose world is crumbling down around her. Carm offers to drive her to the hospital, but she tells him to stay, determined to deal with it on her own. A less emotionally stunted man would insist on going with her anyway, but Carmy is not that guy. Despite how far he’s come, he still has no idea how to be there for the people who need him.
Stray observations
- • The most haunting image from Georgie’s recollection of her destroyed apartment is finding her bed covered in torn-open ketchup packets. Drugs or no, what kind of person does that?
- • Rob Reiner and Edwin Lee Gibson are the comedy dream team we never knew we always needed: “I have two words for you: real-estate agent.” “That’s three words.”
- • It’s been a joy to see Edebiri flex her comedic muscles this season. On the way to work, Syd stops to shoot hoops and make a bet with destiny: If she lands a basket, it means she’s not “a complete total nightmare failure baby-ass fuckin’ bitch.”
- • “Chef Carmen’s your cousin?” “No.” “But Natalie is.” “Also no.”
