Reflections on “The Bear”

WARNING! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE ENTIRE SEASON OF “THE BEAR,” DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER! SPOILER ALERT!

A SECOND WARNING! A BIG ASS SPOILER ABOUT TO COME DOWN!

Okay, you’ve been warned.

The Bear is the best thing I’ve seen on TV this year. [Along with Station Eleven which is also excellent]. If you’re with me this far, I will assume you have seen the entire season of the show.

Right up front in the middle of Episode 1, Richie tells his cousin Carmy this:

“Just make it easy and make the fucking spaghetti!”

This is a bone of contention between the two: Richie, who has run the restaurant since its owner (Michael, Carmy’s brother) committed suicide, has continued with the same “business as usual” approach to managing the eaterie as before. Carmy, who has been at the helm now for a couple of weeks, intends to “fix” the place. Spaghetti is not only the type of low-rent food Carmy does not want to offer on a new menu, but also represents the sloppy approach to how the restaurant has been run for years.

Thus, it’s established from early on: Spaghetti is not just spaghetti. It means something more, both to Richie and Carmy, a vision of what the restaurant is to be and who is running the show. A symbolic touch point in their turf war.

Cut to Episode 8. Richie gives his cousin a letter from Carmy’s dead brother Michael. Carmy heads out to the alley and opens it. On one side, it reads:

“I love you dude. Let it rip.”

“Let it rip” has special meaning to Carmy as we learn in the opening of the very same episode: a “confession” he gives at an Al-Anon meeting.

The fact Michael’s words beyond the grave have special meaning to Carmy is a gut punch in and of itself. Then Carmy flips over the note:

Carmy can’t help but laugh. Family Meal Spaghetti. An absurd final message for Michael to leave Carmy with. This from a guy who deserted his family by offing himself! What the hell, right?

Carmy decides to make spaghetti for the “family meal” (food for the restaurant staff) — and per Michael’s instructions —uses “the smaller cans” of tomatoes because they “taste better.” This is what Carmy discovers:

Cash. Lots and lots of cash, wrapped in plastic … three hundred thousand dollars to be exact … stored in cans of tomatoes which have been stacked in plain sight in the restaurant … this … entire … time.

Which means that if in Episode 1, Carmy had followed his brother’s advice — “Just make it easy and make the fucking spaghetti!” — he would have discovered all that money right from the get-go.

But he didn’t make the spaghetti. We can say that’s because he was trying to change the place, to fix it, and he was starting with the food they served.

And that’s true … inside the story universe.

But if we step outside the story universe and look at Season One as Carmy’s psychological journey, the reason why he didn’t make the spaghetti and find the money is because of this simple storytelling truism:

He wouldn’t have been ready.

Carmy had to go through what he went through in Season One — all of the ups and downs— to get his head screwed on in the right place.

That’s the nature of the Hero’s Journey: The journey they take is the journey they need to take.

Here is an excerpt from an Indiewire interview with the show’s creator and showrunner Christoper Storer.

The cash in the tomato cans was Uncle Jimmy’s (Oliver Platt) $300,000 loan, yes? (Minus the one can Carmy tossed in the pilot.)

Yes. We wanted to reveal that even though Michael was an addict, he was telling the truth when he told Uncle Jimmy he wanted to franchise, which in this case meant opening a restaurant with Carmy. Michael thought he could break the familial cycle and start something fresh and not “at fucked,” which may have been his way of processing his own disease, his own addiction, which he unfortunately didn’t get to see into fruition. I also think it was very beneficial at the time for Jimmy to have a way to clean some money.

— —

Trying to understand the windfall here: If it’s the $300,000 (minus one can), but Jimmy is holding Carmy to Michael’s loan (minus the credit from the two Season 1 parties), how is Carmy going to turn The Original Beef of Chicagoland into the Bear? There are also IRS and vendor issues. Is this more than $300,000? Or is the idea here that they’ll just keep the debts and use the money as seed money for The Bear, which will hopefully pay off the debts?

This is the question we wanted to end with and hopefully get to explore in a second season. Carmy gets some closure with his brother, but then how does he handle this going forward? How can he build something new and start from a more positive place?

There’s something beautiful in the idea that Carmy could have found this right off the bat if he would have made the spaghetti in the pilot, but then maybe he would have burnt out similarly to the way Michael did. I think by not discovering this immediately, he really learned the difficult lesson that not only was he sort of trying to “fix” this restaurant for all the wrong reasons, but that he also couldn’t do it himself. He finds in Sydney someone he had a shorthand with. They will definitely use this money as a seed, but Jimmy will be in the mix.

Doesn’t this remind you of something?

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

The Wizard of Oz is a classic hero’s journey tale. Dorothy had “the power” all along. She had to take the journey in order to “learn” that “for herself.”

Carmy could have found that money “right off the bat.” By “not discovering this [the hidden cash] immediately, he really learned the difficult lesson.”

He was trying to fix the restaurant when what he was really doing was trying to fix himself. And he “couldn’t do it himself.” That’s why Fate brought Sydney into Carmy’s life. Which sets up nicely for Season Two.

Joseph Campbell says the hero’s journey is not one of attainment, but reattainment, that the outer journey is fundamentally an inner one to discover a preexisting power within.

Carl Jung says, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you are.” That “are” state is already present in the individual.

Just like that cash in those tomato cans, that aspect of Carmy’s psyche which will enable him to move forward in life has been there all along. Part of that, of course, is his abilities as a chef. But among the many dynamics at work in his psyche he needed to work on in Season One, dealing with his brother’s death was front and center. His confession at the top of Episode 8 was the acknowledgement of what he’d learned about himself on his “journey.” That public statement demonstrated he had done much of the necessary emotional work to prepare himself for the journey that is to come…

From a restaurant called The Beef… to one called The Bear.

What a terrific TV series. Set right here in Chicago.

Congratulations to everyone involved.

UPDATE: It occurred to me that Michael’s note to Carmy in which he says, “I love you, dude. Let it rip.” is similar in function as Ellie’s note to Carl in Up.

In effect, both are saying: “It’s okay. Go do your own thing. Find your bliss and follow it.”