Episode 3 and 4 of “The Bear” Season 4: What is a Television Episode?

by Ted Kluck

Season 4 Episode 3 of “The Bear” was a masterclass in how to write and deliver a workplace dramedy, in that almost every character had a storyline, the emotional beats were perfect, and all of the high-horsepower cast members got to cook. In this, it felt like a Season 1 or 2 episode, back when the show was adhering (more or less) to conventions of making episodic television, and before Season 3 spiraled into short-film-making.

In Episode 3 we saw movement out of Carmy – who had spent much of his onscreen time just moping (Jeremy Allen White has a great face for moping), which moping provided a Tier One Richie moment (“Is it performative?”). Then, inspired by a trip to the refrigerator (in which he was trapped in a previous season), he takes a subway to Claire’s house, runs to her front door in search of a “Say Anything” moment, and is greeted by Ted Fak, who is in a relationship with Claire’s roommate. This, after an incredible scene of dialogue with Tina regarding a fight she had with her husband. All of this is top-shelf character work.

Which brings us to the enigma that was Episode 4, which was a short film and not an episode of a television series I’m enjoying. It was, albeit, a great short film, but it involved one character, in a non-previous location (Syd’s cousin’s house) interacting with two characters who have been spun up into the show but who will not have anything to do later. It would be akin to “Cheers” putting an entire episode in Carla Tortelli’s house, introducing two brand new characters, with none of the usual characters (including the bar) appearing. It might be very interesting but it wouldn’t really be an episode of “Cheers.” In the Episode, Syd uses a conversation with her cousin’s daughter to work through her own interior life vis-à-vis whether to stay at The Bear or go to work for Shapiro, whom the show is coding as an enthusiastic but accidentally semi-racist idiot. It’s also reflective of the show’s penchant for putting characters on the metaphorical chaise lounge a little too often, in that this is a tv show and not therapy.

Now it’s entirely possible that I have too low a view of television and what it can be – which is a boundary the show’s creators are clearly comfortable with pushing. It’s also possible that the show is moving, with its audiences, in roughly the same arc as Carmy’s fine-dining restaurant – inasmuch as he wants to give his patrons elegant tweezered scallops and the show’s audiences really want Italian beef sandwiches. If this is intentional, then it’s semi-brilliant.

In conjunction with our viewing of “The Bear,” we’re washing it down each evening with a 1980 British police procedural called “Bergerac,” which is set in Brittany (where we used to live), is classic “television” in that each episode is its own contained story in which a problem is introduced which the main character must solve, is sometimes ridiculous (how many people can be murdered per capita on the tiny island of Jersey?), but is always entertaining in that the characters are doing things, establishing relationships, ruining relationships, and solving problems. It was made within whatever the confines of 1980 British network television were, and was, for its time, probably also brilliant but in a completely different way than The Bear is brilliant in that The Bear is aware of its own brilliance at all times whereas “Bergerac” is more accidentally brilliant.