Television

Mission UnBearable #2

LN Lupa

08 Jul 2025 — 2 min read

evilween_goatedinthesauce

Season 4 Episode 2: “Soubise”

This episode was markedly better than the premiere. There appeared on the horizon development, conflict, and growth. When Carmy made not one but two forward movements in his self-direction, I gasped aloud. We may still win this one.

The core events of this installment surround The Bear restaurant’s precarious financial state, but instead of merely montaging it out, we saw some actual scenes of characters experiencing emotions and taking action spurred by their conditions. Syd, long-suffering sous chef (somehow she is long-suffering despite the show taking place over, like, a year and a half max), convinces Carmy to dial down his grand ambitions a bit and focus on making good food. Ebraheim, impresario of the lingering and actually profitable beef sandwich-window, decides to hone his business skills rather than his culinary ones. Richie ponders the incipient collapse in purpose he will undergo if the restaurant closes.

There was some lovely nighttime imagery of Chicago as Richie wandered from restaurant to bar to home, a black-suited scarecrow man parallaxed against ink-scratch iron gates and midnight purple brick walls. Though Richie got a mindwipe from Olivia Colman back in season 2 and became a bit of a square, Ebon Moss-Bachrach remains one of the best actors working in America. He passes that essential test of a screen actor’s prowess: he makes Richie smoking a cigarette a lush and revealing expression of his inner life.

Several times during this episode I laughed intentionally at intentionally funny dialogue. Several times I also laughed at unintentionally funny dialogue--sommeliers cannot possibly expect to be taken seriously, can they? Though perhaps I would believe them if I could enjoy or digest wine.

The music still grinds upon me. I must, for the good of television as a medium, insist that it is possible to have tension and emotion in a scene with no score at all, let alone A Licensed Song which is also overtly referenced in the dialogue. Silence is the place where we can actually rest and reflect.

Carmy does actually reflect, finally, in this episode, which is the best news. He hears when his sister says “You can close the restaurant if it no longer makes you happy” and he sees when Syd proves herself quicker and sharper than he is. The “close The Bear” con may actually be coalescing before our very eyes. One ought not play the backseat driver for creators, but if we could close The Bear I would forgive most of the show’s sins. If we could close The Bear, agree that the neighborhood was better off with the Beef, and let Ebraheim retain all the rights to the sandwich-window, I would lobby the Chicago Pope to absolve the show’s creators of all sin, current and previous.

Mea culpa, from one Chicago Beef to another.