The Bear is all about family, whether chosen or otherwise. And in the penultimate episode of FX’s Emmy-winning series, the gang is all about making magic happen — and doing it together.
The seventh episode of the show’s fifth season, “Caramel,” finds the characters locked in on making what could be their “last supper.” That dinner service continues during a massive rainstorm that has thrown off both their reservation system and their rhythm. They’re also waiting on an anonymous diner who could potentially award the restaurant with a Michelin star.
Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) has officially taken over from former business partner Carmen (Jeremy Allen White) as head chef, and the energy in the kitchen is palpably different. She insists on no yelling or swearing and even pushes Carmy to resist the urge to do everything himself. Edebiri tells Gold Derby that the crew is “figuring this thing out together” during that serving. “Even if the dynamics of the characters are shifting and rubbing against each other, maybe creating points of tension or friction, what’s still underneath it is the search for what partnership means to these people,” the actress notes.
Everyone has something to contribute during the nearly hour-long episode, which spotlights exactly why Carmy is handing over the reins to Sydney. “The themes in the show are so human and universal,” White says. “It’s inspiration, and it’s purpose, and it’s resilience, and it’s passion, grief. It just translates every which way.”
That partnership dynamic extends to real family as well. While Natalie (Abby Elliott), Carmy’s sister and former business partner, juggles helping with the assembly line and general kitchen organization, her mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), arrives and brings Sugar’s baby so they aren’t alone in the storm. “This is a really cathartic moment because Sugar is leaning on Donna in this way that Donna has always really wanted,” Elliott says, adding that Curtis has been a “wonderful friend” during the series. “Natalie’s relinquishing control over her new baby so that she can work in this place that she’s just figuring out that she really loves.”
As front-of-house manager Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) navigates stacked reservations with guidance from potential love interest Jessica (Sarah Ramos), he also shows how much he’s grown emotionally from Season 1, when yelling was his go-to response to stress. Richie’s charm potential is shown when he stalls the believed Michelin reviewer (Peter Grosz) and his guest, former WGN-TV Chicago weatherman Tom Skilling, one of a few Chi-town cameos in a love letter episode to the Second City.
“It’s such a pleasure and a privilege to get to take a character from darkness into light and have somebody’s heart open up and experience love, whether it be love of doing something or love of a place or even romantic love,” Moss-Bachrach says.
There are several pivotal moments in the episode when the crew has to make do with fewer ingredients or rethink a dish altogether, like when the opening scene of Season 5’s premiere episode comes full circle after Carmy drops the dish meant for who the team thinks is the Michelin reviewer. To buy time, Sydney asks Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), her new chef de cuisine, to fire up the Brussels sprouts dish Tina was testing out in Episode 1, something she christens “Family Meal.”
“It paid off because it saved the night,” Colón-Zayas observes. “Carmy and Sydney have been entrusting and investing in Tina from Season 1. So to get that opportunity out of nowhere, all of her hard work and perseverance has paid off.”
Pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) had his own emotion-filled moment as he prepared a special dessert, complete with caramel sauce melted within a candle, for the father (Chicago-born actor Harry Lennix) who wasn’t always there for him. “If you think about the earlier seasons, [Marcus] was so much wanting either Syd or Carmy’s approval,” Boyce remarks. “When this special guest comes, he’s finally taking ownership. He’s like, ‘I’m doing things on my terms.’”
Still, the acknowledges that the resolution for that father-son relationship isn’t an easy fix. “It’s a complicated relationship, but I think it’s a very mature thing to open up the door and extend an olive branch,” he says. “While you’ll want things to tie up in a clean knot, I think it’s a very human thing to be like, ‘I’m not quite all the way there just yet.’”
Reflecting on what he’ll be taking away from the series now that they’ve wrapped the final episode, Moss-Bachrach warns that he’s going to get “very cheesy,” before callling out the “thousands of conversations that I’ve had with people that have watched the show and felt like it reflected something about their own lives or something that they’re going through.”
“I’m glad that however the chemistry of this whole thing worked, we were actually able to deliver a clear message and be successful,” White echoes. “It’s always the dream when you’re making any art. ‘OK, how is this thing gonna be received? Is it gonna be received this way? And is it gonna translate? Is it gonna be communicated?’ I think we were on the same page and somehow we’re successful in delivering this message.”
Edebiri chimes in, noting: “I was in Japan and there was an old Japanese lady who was pointing at me, and I was like, ‘What is she saying? What is she saying?’ She was saying, ‘Sydney, Sydney.’ And I was like, ‘What is happening?’ We’re in rural Japan. In moments like that, you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re all feeling the same things.’”
For Elliott, who took a menu home from set, she will always remember what creator Christopher Storer told her when the series started. “In a lot of the episodes, the theme goes back to ‘just keep going,’” she says. “Chris said that to me once, and it always stuck with me. That’s what the show is really about — perseverance. Just keep going.”
