I finally indulged and finished the fifth and final season of “The Bear.” I didn’t want it to end, and when I saw that most of the episodes were barely 30 minutes long, I deliberately rationed each bite-sized morsel and then tried to hold out between courses. I didn’t last very long. (don’t worry, no spoilers here about the finale if you’re not there yet)
As any fan of the show knows, “The Bear” is a masterpiece that exists on the brink of disaster and is as intricate and lovingly constructed as anything created by the chefs on the screen. There is so much to be admired, most of which is evidenced right there in the title of the show.
I will admit that I wondered about the title for the first two seasons. Here was this family struggling to keep grief at bay and keep afloat a restaurant called The Original Beef (or The Beef), so why was the show called “The Bear?” Sure, the family’s last name is Berzatto (bear-zatto), and Carmy, the baby of the family and his brother’s successor, is sometimes called Bear—if you even catch that amongst all the shouting and the fact that just about everyone is called “cousin” or more often “chef.” But I was all in, so I tucked the question away somewhere deep in my mind.
And then, in Season 3, it’s easy to assume the puzzle is solved when the new restaurant Carmen and crew launch is called The Bear.
One of the things I love most about fictional stories, delivered in any medium, is the opportunity writers have to make up names—for characters, places, businesses, et al. The best writers use names as a wonderful hiding place for meaning. And as discussed in a prior post which resonated with a great many of you, What’s in a Name?, well… everything.
Is the restaurant called The Bear because of the family name, or was the family given the name Berzatto because the creators knew they wanted to name the restaurant (and the show) The Bear? I’d wager the latter. And I adore them for slipping the deeper meaning of the word past our immediate notice by embedding it into a nickname (Bear, of course!) and by choosing something with a familiar association (both dangerous and teddy bear soft—just like Carmen, how perfect!) so as not to make us ask too many questions. It’s all hidden in plain sight. A verbal Trojan horse.
What’s my interpretation, then, of why the creators chose “The Bear?”
There are a staggering number of definitions of the word BEAR in my Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary, and every one of them fits these characters and this story perfectly.
To BEAR is to birth, and there are perhaps no sins held up to be as grave as the sins of the mother in this story.
Family must BEAR the weight of generational trauma, their suffering over a suicide ever-present and inescapable.
To BEAR is also to carry forward, to be answerable for, which is the burden that Carmen feels every day— perhaps unfairly and yet impossible not to feel acutely.
But to BEAR is also to endure. The show puts us in the midst of a battle every night, fought with knives and pots and fire, every service a test of endurance. We’re literally not sure if the restaurant will be able to survive the chaos.
But let’s not forget that one’s BEARING is what we present to the outside world, the front of the house, the perfectly constructed dish that shows none of the struggle that went into it.
In the end, “The Bear” is about family in every sense, the families we are born into and those we create. When Carmy announces at the end of the penultimate season (Season 4 —small spoiler alert here if you haven’t finished that season yet), that he will be leaving the restaurant, oh how I felt the emotion of that moment! I too was once the cofounder of a business that I chose to eventually leave, one of the hardest decisions of my life.
In this story, Carmen understands that he succeeded in creating a different kind of family at The Bear than the one in which he was raised, and simultaneously realizes that he can’t be the one to lead it without perpetuating the mistakes of the past. He knows it will be up to Sydney and the rest of the team to BEAR the beautiful burden of keeping a new kind of family going.
But luckily for us, Carmen doesn’t leave right away, not before we get the spectacular final course that is Season 5.
I am bereft that is has ended and grateful to have had the opportunity, from the comfort of my own couch, to BEAR witness to such a beautiful journey. What a privilege.
Are you a fan of The Bear? What show has most moved you most lately?
Until the next time, my best regards,
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