The third season of the Bear concludes on somewhat of a cliffhanger, albeit an underwhelming one: Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), fresh off a funeral dinner for his mentor’s restaurant, gets a Google alert for the Chicago Tribune restaurant review that will make or break The Bear. (If only critics had that power!) We still don’t know whether Syd (Ayo Edebiri) will jump ship for a different, less emotionally intensive job, whether Carmy will ever make amends with Claire (Molly Gordon) or Cousin Richie (Eben Moss-Bachrach) after season two’s freezer meltdown, whether the Bear will crawl out of its debt. What we do know, through Carmy’s anxiety-spiral, fragmented intake, is that the Tribune critic uses such words as confusing, excellent, innovative, sloppy, delicious, inconsistent – in short, a seemingly mixed review. And ironically, a decent-enough take on the season itself, which went down lukewarm with most TV critics.
