‘The Bear’ Falters With Its Season One Ending
by Frank Martin
The Bear receives a lot of praise — and rightfully so! It was a very tense drama that highlighted character growth while also giving viewers an inside look into the struggles and passions of those who work in the restaurant industry. That said, the first season ended on a particularly strange note. Rather than a fitting end to a long journey, the final episode contains a sort of deus ex machina that negated a lot of the character struggles and drops the ball on what could have been a more fitting and satisfying conclusion to their complicated relationships.
(Spoilers follow)
The Bear stars Jeremy Allen White as Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto, a world-class chef who returns home to manage his recently-deceased brother’s failing sandwich shop. His culinary style doesn’t jive with the way the shop operates, but that problem pales in comparison to the looming and many debts the shop has to pay. Over the course of the first season, it seems as if a lot of the systems and expertise the chef is putting into the shop is starting to pay off; a lot of his employees start coming around to his line of thinking. This feels like a strong direction for the series. But the season ultimately ends with him discovering a whole bunch of money that his brother had stashed in the shop.
This cash doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from a plot standpoint. If the brother had all of this, then there shouldn’t have been an issue with the debt. The story tries to explain this away in the second season, but it never quite lands the way it’s supposed to. However, there is a larger issue at work besides the plotting. This is the fact that the deus ex machina does nothing to help the characters on their journey. I gives them financing to revamp the restaurant as something else. But the money is, essentially, a gift that came out of nowhere. It wasn’t expected nor was it earned. The season seemed to be on a trajectory that allowed the characters to grow and find their own success. Instead, the season ended by circumventing all of that to just give them a way out and set up for season two. For a show as strong as it is, The Bear’s first season should have known better.
The Bear is now streaming on Hulu.
