It's almost easy to forget just how much of a sensation The Bear was when it first arrived. This little-heralded show about an ailing local sandwich joint in Chicago was a proper word of mouth hit, making stars out of multiple cast members and attracting some truly crazy cameos for subsequent seasons. Now, just four years later, it's about to end with its fifth season.
That's a remarkably quick period of time to get four seasons out, obviously, and the show has stood out as one of, if not the single best reason to get Disney+ here in the UK thanks to that hookup with FX. It's a delightful series, and extremely digestible thanks to often quite short episodes, and now we've got a sense of what to expect from its final season.
One of the criticisms of later seasons of The Bear has been that it tends to retread the same territory, with the core cast enduring some calamity from a maintenance perspective, then just about coming together by the end to make an important night go off okay. Main characters like Carmy and Syd, meanwhile, increasingly get frayed mentally, with their ability to work together constructively always looking suspect.
Well, don't expect a radical change of direction in Season 5 – the trailer makes it clear that The Bear (the in-show restaurant, that is) will have at least one huge problem. It looks like crazy weather will bring a wild flood with it to the place, and test everyone to their limit while they try to deal with it at a time when the restaurant simply cannot afford to stay closed.
It'll be fascinating to see how brutal or kind the ending of the show ends up being – at a time when many of us know full well that restaurants and the wider service industry are under huge pressure around the world. Will Carmy's dream restaurant rescue itself from financial oblivion, or is it moreso a case of "one last hurrah"?
We'll know when the last season airs on 26 June, so if you're not subscribed to Disney+ already you'll want to set a reminder to change that nearer the end of the month. This is one of those finales that likely will have a major surprise or two up its sleeve, if only in the form of one more wild cameo. Don't be against it!
