[Editor’s note: This recap contains spoilers.]
Everyone thinks they’re the protagonist of their own life; that’s just the human condition. The only way to reach across the void between people is to crack ourselves open and try to explain what’s going on inside our separate skulls.
Across four seasons, TV viewers have seen deep inside Carmen Berzatto—the traumas he suffered when no one else was watching, his gradual journey to personal growth—leading to decisions that, from the perspective of the people around him, seemingly come out of nowhere. In the previous episode, Deedee told Carm that she didn’t know him but she wants to. She chalked it up to her failures as a mother and their years of estrangement. If only she knew that her son is a stranger even to the people he sees every day.
In the painfully intimate “Goodbye,” Carmy exposes his tender insides to two of the most important people in his life, opening the door for them to do the same. It’s audacious to close out a season of television like this, but the gambit pays dividends.
After the end of their shift, Carm finds Syd hiding outside behind the restaurant. He wants to know why the vibes were so weird between them tonight, as she didn’t speak to him at all during service. If he wasn’t so caught up in his own bullshit, he’d realize it’s because she found out about the updated partnership agreement.
Carm has been many things to Sydney over the years: hero, mentor, creative partner, tormentor, friend, stranger, brother. That familiarity is the reason she chose him over the slick, no-nonsense Adam Shapiro. But just when she’s allowed herself to trust him again, she discovers he’s pulled the rug out from under her once more.
Carm’s knee-jerk response: Removing himself from the contract doesn’t mean he’s leaving. (But, like, what else is it, dude?) He says that taking himself out of the equation is the best thing for the restaurant, and he’s got a plan to get the business out of debt. Plus, he thought Syd would be psyched! In response to this insane reasoning, she decides to smoke her first cigarette ever. It’s an apt occasion for Carm to ditch the Nicorette. If he can’t yet find the words to share his truth, he can at least share a smoke.
Syd is shocked to hear that he’s not just quitting the restaurant but the profession altogether. Doesn’t he love being a chef? Not anymore, he says. The well has run dry. It’s the reason he’s been putting so many hurdles in the way of his success—as if anyone ever reignited their creative spark by making themselves miserable. Besides, he’s not the only one who’s been keeping secrets: He knows about Shapiro. Syd’s all apologies but Carmy understands; if he were her, he’d also want to get the hell out of dodge.
It’s water under the bridge, anyway, because she’s already turned Adam down. She’d rather move onto the subject of Carm’s personal shit, a.k.a. “the elephant in the fucking restaurant.” When she expresses sympathy for everything he, Natalie, and Richie are still going through in the wake of Mikey’s suicide, Carmy trots out his favorite defense: “That’s not what this is!” Syd argues that since he’s been redirecting the anger from all that bottled-up trauma onto his colleagues, that’s exactly what this is.
Carmy says that’s the reason he needs to get out of the biz and give Sydney the reins. She’s everything he couldn’t be: considerate, patient, empathetic, caring, a natural leader. It strikes right at the heart of her impostor syndrome; it’s so hard for her to believe she’s up to the task. But Carm believes in her enough for the both of them. “Any chance of any kind of good in this building? It started when you walked in,” he says. Why? Because she’s the Bear.
The Bear has so many Bears: a guy, a restaurant, a family, a cuddly toy—and in Carm’s nightmares, the animal itself. So even though it’s impossible to put into words what it means for Bear to call Syd the Bear, we know exactly what he means. The Bear is dead; long live the Bear. Sydney isn’t ready to hear it, so she lashes out just like a Berzatto would. What if he’s wrong? It’s not fucking fair; he’s supposed to be in this with her; he’s supposed to be her rock.
Enter Richie just as their shouting match reaches a fever pitch. When Syd explains what’s up, he assumes it’s just another Carmy tantrum; but the tears in his cousin’s eyes tell a different story. Richie reaches for the resentment that’s always so close to the surface, accusing Carm of running away when the chips are down, just like he always does.
Just as Richie’s walking away, Carmy drops an atom bomb: He was at Mikey’s funeral. The look in Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s eyes is bone-chilling. Syd tries to make herself scarce, but Richie needs her to stay; she’s just as much a part of this family as he is. When he pressed his forehead against Carm’s and threatened to destroy him, I genuinely thought he might be about to commit a murder if Sydney hadn’t been there to intervene.
Carmy unloads like he’s at confession: He couldn’t handle being there, and it was shameful. And then when he came back to Chicago to run The Beef, he had absolutely no clue what to do, and in his terror, he lashed out. It took him until now to realize that Richie lost someone, too. (To me, this admission is borderline sociopathic; but it’s probably just an indication of how profoundly Carm has been lost inside himself.)
Hearing the truth shocks Richie out of his anger, and he spills the secret only Jessica knows: He thought Carmy was pissed because he resented Richie for failing Mikey. All this time, he believed the reason Bear didn’t show up to the funeral was because he was ashamed of Richie. And just like that, the refrigerator door shatters. They never stopped loving each other, even when they came to blows—maybe especially then.
Carmy says Richie is more than a cousin, closer to his own family than he’s ever been. (Throughout this conversation, I kept thinking of Deedee mentioning Richie’s name beside Carm and Natalie’s every time she talked about how much she loves her kids.) The whole time Carmy was getting his culinary education, Richie imagined he was on a grand adventure, living his dreams out there in the big world. Carm lifts his face to the ceiling, realizing how wrong he’s gotten everything. He’s probably never told anyone about his time working at David’s restaurant, how the ordeal sapped away his passion when he’d barely gotten started. And here Richie was, secretly buying the fiendishly complex French Laundry Cookbook, jealous of what he imagined was his cousin’s joy. Carmy has poured his entire self into this profession; how can he just give it all up?
Shucked raw, Carm is finally ready to express the real reason he’s walking away. “Outside of the kitchen,” he says, “I don’t know what I’m like.” This simple epiphany breaks the show wide open. It’s the reason he was so terrified to open up to Claire, to be truly known: If anyone sees the man beneath the world-class chef, they’ll realize there’s nobody to know.
Ever since she broke up their near-fight, Sydney has been a steady, silent presence in the background. These two broken men are her family, and it’s a privilege to witness them stitch their relationship—and themselves—back together. But like any great CDC, she’s a multitasker; and the gears have been turning this whole time. If she’s going to agree to an arrangement sans Carm, Richie needs to be the third partner. With a small, proud smile, Carmy agrees.
And tender, insecure Richie, the sand between the rocks, thinks the offer is nothing more than a gesture. For all his inspirational speeches, the one person he’s never been able to pump up is himself. “Who the fuck has time for gestures?” Syd tells him. When he finally believes it’s real, he’s so, so happy: “Fuck yes, Chef Sydney. It’s a fucking honor.”
Just as I was wondering whether anyone was going to consult Natalie about any of this, she comes inside to see three Bears with wide-open eyes. No one would blame her for taking a beat at the twin revelations that not only is Carmy leaving the restaurant game, but he was also at Mikey’s funeral. But it becomes crystal-clear why everybody calls her Sugar when, without hesitation, she walks into her little bro’s arms and holds him tight. She was the one who told him it’s okay to let go, and she couldn’t be prouder.
Day turns to night, and the hours slip by; the L train passes overhead, the restaurant waits in the dark for whatever comes next, and the Computer’s clock ticks down to zero. This episode is called “Goodbye,” but it’s hardly an ending. With everything out in the open between the big three, The Bear and The Bear are going places.
Stray observations
- • Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach have been stellar from the beginning, and they’ve brought us along on every step of their characters’ journeys. So it’s a privilege to watch them perform what’s essentially a three-person play. Give them those Emmys!
- • Carmy has his big conversations with Sydney and Richie the same day he cleared the air with Deedee—an 18-hour marathon to self-actualization.
- • When Richie finds out Carmy is abandoning his life’s work, he assumes drugs are involved. I can only imagine the Mikey flashbacks playing out in his mind.
- • I didn’t realize how much I missed watching Jeremy Allen white suck on a cig in his signature white T-shirt. Our boy is going back to the start.
- • When Sydney asks Richie to come on as a partner, he says he doesn’t need to be “the ambassador of St. Paddy’s Day.” Does this mean he thinks she sees him as a leprechaun, or…?
- • “Goodbye” isn’t big on comedy, but I laughed out loud when Carmy dismissed Shapiro as only a semi-decent chef. “I smoke him, and so do you,” he tells Syd.
- • That French Laundry cookbook is serious business; no wonder Richie is so impressed with Carm for hacking it in haute cuisine.
