This wedding is gearing up to be a shitshow of monumental proportions. On top of the Richie/Frank and Sugar/Francie stuff, Donna and Claire are both coming. Carmy promises that his ex isn’t the reason he’s skipping the big day—it’s his tornado of a mother, whom he hasn’t seen in years. Marcus and the Faks are old hat at standing on the sidelines while the Berzatto clan volley insults across the kitchen; but Luca, Jessica, and baby Sophie watch the madness unfold like “What in the name of Chef Terry have we gotten ourselves into?”
Jessica approaches Richie in the dining room to talk about the bear. No, not the restaurant or the “narcissist bitch” in the kitchen—the giant teddy bear Frank bought for Eva. Jess’ wisdom is spot-on: Frank bought Eva an extravagant gift because he’s insecure about the fact that she’ll always love her real dad more. Richie tells her it still makes him feel so alone, but Jessica says he’s got help. (Every guest is family.) In the kitchen, Tina and Marcus have a heart-to-heart about Syd’s dad and the existential dread of realizing your parents are mortal: When something happens to them, no matter what kind of relationship you have, time resets.
Fortunately, Emmanuel Adamu’s clock hasn’t run out just yet. Only when she knows he’s out of the woods does Sydney let herself cry, and Ayo Edebiri delivers the performance of her career. Stuttering through big, messy tears, she tells Claire that she’d always assumed her dad would be around. And she hates that she’s such a screwup, that she needs him so much, that he has to spend so much time worrying about her. It’s an open wound of a monologue that reminds us just how young Syd is; she’s so good at projecting cool confidence that it’s easy to forget.
Claire, somehow wiser than Tina and Jessica combined, assures Sydney that it makes Emmanuel happy to worry about his daughter: “Worrying about people and having people worry about us is, like, everything we’ve got.”
After telling Carmy the good news, Syd arrives at Emmanuel’s bedside blurting out apologies and promising to move back home. He doesn’t want that; he wants her to spread her wings. The look in his eyes when he kisses his daughter on the forehead could mean a thousand things.
With the fires doused (for now), Nat tells Carmy that she wants him to stop hiding from everything. She does it, too, and it reminds him that they grew up stewing in the same trauma. He promises to set his fear aside and go to the wedding, because he’s learning that not everything is about him. The world falls away when Sugar passes over the baby. Carm has no idea how to hold her, but his chef’s hands know what it means to handle something delicate. Maybe he doesn’t break everything after all.
Richie is literally banging his head against a table when Neil tells him that they’ve zeroed in on the critic from Food & Wine, and he’s got a reservation for tonight. Finally, progress. When he sees Carmy holding Sophie through the kitchen window, Richie’s heart grows three sizes. But truly, what human being with a soul could watch Jeremy Allen White cradle a tiny baby in his big, strong arms and not melt?
Stray observations
- • Sweeps is the restaurant’s stealth MVP. He advises Tina to portion out her ingredients ahead of time so she can speed up prep and suggests to Richie that they bring in a few front-of-house stages to cut down on the lull between courses. Someone give this man some credit!
- • After overusing them last year, The Bear has been a lot more conservative about deploying the Faks this season. But this episode gives us a scene so cringey that I had to look away from the TV: Miffed that Nat has barred them from holding Sophie, the boys sneak into the office and start smelling her. If I were Sugar, I’d file a restraining order.
- • Right after Sydney tells Carm her dad is out of the woods, he gets a call from Shapiro. Looks like the partners are about to have that long-overdue chat.
- • Syd isn’t the only one scheming behind Carmy’s back. Out back, Ebraheim gathers The Beef boys to tell them about Albert’s franchise idea, and they’re all in. Teddy makes Neil promise to keep the mutiny under his hat, which I’m so sure will go totally according to plan.
- • Who do we think is gonna play Francie Fak? My money is on Aidy Bryant.
