[Editor’s note: The recap of this season’s finale publishes July 5. This recap contains spoilers.]
Up until recently, Carmy Berzatto has moved through life like a shark—muscling his way forward, never looking behind him. Now, exhausted from swimming against the current for so long, he’s letting himself be pulled back toward what’s been chasing him: Chef David’s cruelty, his unfinished business with Claire and Richie, and the realization that he’s fallen out of love with cooking. All that remains now is the scariest monsters of all: Deedee. In “Tonnato,” Carmy steps inside the belly of the beast and discovers that all he needed to do was open the door and let the light in.
When Donna invites him in for a chat, he enters the dining room like a detective walking into an active crime scene. But there are no bodies to examine—only the ghost sitting in Mikey’s empty chair.
As she did in last season’s “Ice Chips,” Jamie Lee Curtis turns in a fearless, vulnerable performance captured in unforgiving close-ups by director Christopher Storer. But reconnecting with her estranged son is a very different proposition than extending a hand toward Natalie. Unlike his sister, who wears her heart on her sleeve, it’s a feat of Herculean strength to pry open Carmy’s chest.
Donna enters with a selection of snapshots she fished from the box Carm brought her. Subjects include a succession of aunts and uncles Carm doesn’t recognize—all jagoffs, Deedee assures him—and one of Jimmy, who, despite his lack of Berzatto DNA, is the only uncle who’s been there for Bear all his life. Then there’s a shot of a young Deedee, looking radiant beneath the Italian sun. But she quickly dispels the illusion that she was happy that afternoon. After getting into a fight with Carm’s dad, she spent the day wandering the streets alone in despair. She remembers a friendly stranger inviting her in and making her a dish drenched in a sauce that looked gross but tasted delicious—tonnato, which Carmy notes when she describes the flavor.
She presses her lips to a candid of her and Mikey sharing a joke, then fetches a piece of notebook paper that’s crumpled from countless foldings and refoldings. Her confession has the rhythm of a poem: “I felt lost. I felt alone. I was sad. I was angry. I was bad. I was awful to my kids. I was awful to my family. I did drink. I did scream. I lied. And I yelled.”
As she forces her way through the words, shaking and gulping back sobs, Carmy struggles to fight back his own tears. When he finally lets them fall, it’s like a dam breaking. “I don’t know you. And you don’t know me,” Deedee tells him. “And I did that.” It’s everything Carm has wanted to hear but never thought he’d get to. Anyone who grew up with an emotionally unstable parent knows that letting yourself believe they can change is the most terrifying of propositions.
Donna says that, after almost a year of sobriety, she’s doing everything she can to be accountable for her mistakes. When she asks Carm if he’d be willing to let her back into his life, he smiles through tears and apologizes for not being around. The wall between them crumbles, and Deedee looks a thousand times happier than she does in that old photo. After spending four seasons inside Carmy’s head, we know that his offer to make Donna lunch is a huge deal for him. When was the last time he cooked a meal that was about expressing his love for another person rather than trying to prove something to himself?
Back at The Bear, Jimmy is mending fences—this time with Sydney, the latest niece in his ever-expanding surrogate family. They’re both convinced it’s their fault that the restaurant is on the verge of death, which leads into a larger conversation about art and commerce. Syd tells him about her mother’s time as a regional-theater actor and vivid childhood memories of the Adamu apartment packed to the gills with performers and artists and costume designers. Learning that Syd is half an orphan brings out Jimmy’s paternal instincts, which are always so close to the surface. He admires her talent and dedication—not to mention that she deals with Carm “walking around like a fuckhead”—and is amazed that she hasn’t jumped ship yet. Oh, Jimmy. If only you knew.
On the other side of the restaurant, Albert pitches his plan for franchising The Beef: locations in the north and south Chicago suburbs, plus a commissary in between. After talking it over with the boys, Ebraheim agrees to the scheme, provided Carmen gives his blessing.
While he waits for the chicken to bake, Bear walks into his teenage bedroom, preserved for the ages like a pharaoh’s tomb. There’s his well-worn copy of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, his CD collection, a pterodactyl model hanging from the ceiling. He’s already smiling when he finds Claire’s missing green sweatshirt in the closet. Nothing’s ever lost, only forgotten.
Carm revives his mother’s memory of that meal in Italy, serving her a beautifully prepared chicken tonnato, a dish he used to make every night when he was staging at French Laundry. Donna digs in with gusto, secure in the knowledge that her son has expressed his love in the best way he knows how. On a roll, Bear heads back to the restaurant and closes himself in the walk-in without a trace of fear. He leaves his uncle a voicemail thanking him for always looking out for him and his siblings, even though they sure didn’t make it easy. He apologizes for fucking up the restaurant, but promises that he knows how to fix it.
The atmosphere in the kitchen is a million miles from the clamor and chaos of the months prior; the Bears are a family who’ve finally learned to link hands instead of shoving each other away. Enter Natalie with a piece of genuinely good news: Food & Wine is featuring Marcus in their Best New Chefs issue! Everyone is so damn proud.
With eight hours and 27 minutes till the parachute gives out, Syd’s phone lights up with a call from Pete about that updated agreement, which she still hasn’t read. Pete translates the nut graph of all that legalese: The business is still an even split between Jimmy and The Bear, but Carmy isn’t listed as a partner anymore—just Sydney and Sugar. Suck on that, Shapiro.
Stray observations
- • Thanks to a nudge from Luca and Jessica, Tina finally whips up that damn pasta dish in less than three minutes. It’s nice to see her moment of triumph, sure; but after last season’s outstanding “Napkins,” I was hoping for more of our favorite Jeff this year than a dragged-out arc about penne anxiety.
- • Chester stops by The Bear with documents for Marcus to sign to finalize the sale of his mom’s house. But as far as the show is concerned, he’s there as an audience proxy to swoon over Will Poulter, instantly flustered when he gets a load of Luca’s muscly arms and kind eyes. He spends the episode loitering near the pastry station, sweating, and offering to make donuts or whatever. Carmen Christopher’s delivery of “I just didn’t expect him to be that sexy. He’s, like, tall and shit. He’s, like, nice, too. It’s just stupid” is funnier than all the Fak bits in this season.
- • Forget Carmy and Claire; the true love story of season four is between Albert and the Computer. When the two meet, the Computer suggests franchising The Beef before Albert can tell him it’s already in the works. For maybe the first time ever, Chicago’s most ruthless CPA sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
- • Richie’s inspirational quotes are drifting further and further from anything having to do with food service. Who gave this guy a copy of Ninja: 1,000 Years Of The Shadow Warrior?
- • Carm whips up a plate for his mom but not for himself. Despite how far he’s come, our boy still hasn’t figured out that he deserves care and feeding just as much as anyone else.
