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The Bear

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‘The Bear’ Season 3 Episode 5 Recap: “Children”

‘The Bear’ Backlash Was Inevitable — But Calling It A “Bad Show” Is Disingenuous

The Bear Season 2 Episode 5 (“Pop”) begins with Tina and Sydney, working late, experimenting with Sydney’s messy-looking dish of assorted meats and greens that she wants to trot out as part of the planned Chaos Menu. Tina’s, like, whoa, which she should have done because otherwise Syd was bound to drown herself in a barrel of duck fat.

Also: Ebra is back–kind of. Tina hasn’t heard from him for a few days, and she’s worried. she leaves him a voicemail message. We find him alone in a park bench by a lake, smoking a big cigar, contemplative but afraid-looking. Ebra is not long for this fancy-cooking school world.

Meanwhile, at The Bear, Richie and Carmy are testing their kitchen for optimal efficiency, but The Bear is still devoid of plumbing, electricity, and drywall. Uncle Jimmy strolls through, dick swinging, outwardly frustrated and confused by how behind the restaurant is. “As much as I love to piss away $450k, this won’t work for me.” (Sugar Nat reminds him that it’s actually $550k.) Eventually, Natalie gets up the nerve to sweet-talk Uncle Jimmy into using his leverage as an *ahem* legitimate businessman in Chicago to expedite some of these permits.

So things at The Bear are still not so great. Tina interrupts and asks if she can borrow a knife for culinary class, Carmy insists that she use his knife. She’s over the moon. It’s a nice moment between Jeffrey and the Chef.

And then when she gets into class…Tina’s all business.

To get out of The Bear for a bit, Carmy decides to take a ride up to Winnetaka with Claire to drop off a liquor-license application and clear his head. The banter between them is short and quippy, with Claire driving the car and most of the conversation. We find out that throughout his life, especially in high school, Carmy was always taciturn and inaccessible. After the permit drop-off, Claire continues to try to pry a meaningful conversation out of Carmy. They share tidbits about their past. Claire confesses to shoplifting gum from Walgreens. Carmy admits they didn’t talk much in high school because she intimidated him because she had so many friends, and he always wanted that. “Mikey had that,” Carmy says. “Mikey was cool,” Claire says. “But like he would set something on fire.” Carmy is caught off guard when he’s forced to think about his brother. “Speaking of dead brothers….” she says. Then Claire invites Carmy to a party in the suburbs, but it turns out that Carmy has discovered he’s never actually been to a party in his life. (Least surprising news ever, if you ask me.)

The party is being thrown at Claire’s friend, Kerry’s house who’s just been dumped. Claire says she’s good at dealing with sad, drunk people and Carmy says he is, too.

When they enter the party, there’s an excellent needle drop featuring the Psychedelic Furs’ song “Pretty in Pink” off the movie soundtrack. (Director John Hughes based many of his movies in the same drab stretches of Chicago suburbia where this current kegger resides.) Carmy lets Claire tend to her friend while he mopes around the party, when former classmates mistook him for someone else–a kid named Logan, who did “that shit with the spoons”– and Carmy doesn’t even attempt to correct him. He spends the whole party pretending he’s someone else, and now he’s finally found the “fun” he’d been Googling.

After they leave, Carmy finally takes Claire to see The Bear. When they walk inside, there’s the usual insane drama and yelling, this time between Richie, Natalie, and Sydney. Richie got caught stealing electricity from a neighbor, an attempt to help get some electricity in the restaurant just as a stop-gap. (He’s still trying to find his purpose and it’s become increasingly clear that the writers are determined to find him one.) Sydney introduces herself to Claire and attempts to talk Chaos Menu with Carmy but quickly exits when it’s clear he’s more interested in swanning Claire around the dilapidated fire hazard, The Bear. Once everyone finally leaves, Carmy and Claire make it all official:

THE BEAR SEASON 2 EPISODE 5: LEFTOVERS

INCREDIBLE MIDDLE-AGED DAD NEEDLE DROP: “Can’t Hardly Wait” by The Replacements. I actually feel like I summoned this. After episode two, I said, “I’m surprised they haven’t used any Replacements songs.” And then–bang. We get two in one episode. It started off with “Bastards of Young,” but then the whole 25-second makeout session is all “CHW.” (This song was teased earlier in the episode when Fak discussed his favorite Replacements albums with dry wall guy.)
QUESTION I STILL HAVE: Coach K. is still a free-floating presence but why? Sydney keeps asking people if they’ve heard of him, and everyone answers affirmatively, and she’s stunned by this news. Her dad must know something that we all don’t. Because Coach K, on the one hand–a great leader. Counterpoint: his leadership skills are self-serving, and he’s a power-hungry madman.
CARMY ARM PORN: LFG.