With the doomsday clock ticking down, a strange sense of calm pervades The Bear

Elsewhere, Natalie, Pete, and Sophie are inside their own private bubble of domestic bliss. Sugar, who’s been chasing peace her whole life, wishes they could live in this moment forever. Pete jokes that they’ve gotta fuck the kid up at least a little. “What would she turn out like?” Nat asks. “Like you.” He means it as a compliment, but it wounds her. Right on cue, Donna starts blowing up her daughter’s phone. 

With 17 hours left on the clock and 10 hours until service, a strange sense of calm pervades The Bear. Sydney asks Richie what the hell they should do. “Leave it all on the dance floor,” he says. Coasting on a newfound sense of Zen, Carmy agrees to drop by to his childhood home to give Deedee the box of old photos he mentioned at the wedding. 

The slow-simmering chemistry between Richie and Jessica comes to a boil after she opens the door for him to talk about Mikey. As the prep front-of-house, he gives her the CliffNotes version of what went down before The Beef became The Bear, even admitting that he was happy when Carmy came back. He was only lashing out because he thought Carm was ashamed of him. Between Richie’s openness, Jessica’s curiosity about his past, and the sexy way they fix each other’s ties, the relationship between these two is surely headed toward the non-platonic.

Luca, meanwhile, has become the kitchen’s resident wise hunk. He gives Tina hard-won advice about working under pressure: Though it feels terrible at first, after you accept that it comes with the job, you learn to love the anxiety. “So then the challenge actually becomes: Can you live without that pressure?” He also assures Marcus, who skipped out on plans with his dad once again, that he doesn’t always need to be the rock in the storm for his friends. He’s allowed to lean on them too. 

Parked outside his personal haunted house, Carmy calls Claire instead of stewing in his own juices. After breaking down the refrigerator door between them, he’s finally willing to tell his ex about his biggest, scariest feelings. She gives him a gentle nudge toward Deedee’s door by asking if he could look for the sweatshirt she misplaced during a chaotic birthday celebration. Claire says she’s proud of Carm for going into the belly of the beast, and he tells her she’s wonderful.

“Green” goes from sweet to sour when the Computer walks into the office like the angel of death. He tells Nat that, even though the numbers are finally tipping toward the black, it’s only a matter of time before The Bear will run out of cash to pay its employees. Sugar wants to keep going for as long as they can, and the Computer wonders why she’d bother, if it’s all doomed anyway. Her answer is written on her face when she turns to look at the photo wall, which is plastered with snapshots of the ragtag family that have turned this place into a home.

Stray observations 

• • From a brief glimpse, the dish Sydney whips up on her nightmare cooking show looks to be half an avocado on a cracker balanced atop four egg yolks, garnished with a cotton-ball snowman and a toy propeller. Forget the scallop; this is Syd’s true masterpiece.
• • The Chicago Theatre isn’t the only historic Windy City institution director Christopher Storer visits in “Green,” We also get a glimpse through the window of Lou Mitchell’s, a diner that’s been slinging pancakes since 1923.
• • Noted Ridley Scott fanboy Richie Jerimovich tops off his nightly motivational speech with a quote from Gladiator: “We serve with strength and honor. At my signal, unleash hell… Happy Tuesday.”
• • R.E.M.’s downbeat romantic ballad “Strange Currencies” plays under Carm and Claire’s flirty phone call. We last got this needle drop when the show introduced Claire in season two.
• • Someone please make a YouTube video that’s just chill beats playing over looping footage of Luca prepping ingredients. So soothing.