Last year, I made the mistake of starting season three of The Bear after returning home from Glastonbury. Why I felt compelled to do such a thing I can’t be sure, but it quickly sent me into a state of discombobulation, which wasn’t helped by the fact the first episode played as a long, sad, panic-ridden music video.
The Bear is the type of TV show that makes you want to press pause and willingly unload the dishwasher. Watching it feels like the sky has never been blue. I’d go as far as to ascribe it an almost Dickensian quality of bleakness. Yet, in 2023, it picked up six Emmys in the comedy category, including best comedy series and outstanding writing for a comedy series. It beat Ted Lasso, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Jury Duty and Abbott Elementary amongst other shows. The FX series has won 21 Emmys and five Golden Globes as a comedy in total.
Naturally, given the reasons just laid out, this is perplexing to a lot of people – including fans of the show. The Bear is an undeniably engaging drama, even if the dishwasher still beckons at certain points, but a comedy it is not. In fact, I’d argue it’s become less and less funny as the seasons have gone on. To prove my point, I conducted a laugh count experiment while watching season four of The Bear, and the results may or may not shock you. What they won’t do, regrettably, is make you laugh.
The Bear season four laugh count
Episode one: Groundhogs
Laugh count: 0
The title of this episode neatly sets up the narrative for the rest of the season – a rinse and repeat of season three storylines that will leave you with a heavy feeling in your chest. Despite successfully reopening as a fine dining restaurant, The Bear (the restaurant) received criticism for its inconsistent menu and chaotic atmosphere in a Chicago Tribute review and the team has two months to turn things around to make the business viable.
There is a character called Uncle Computer, but that’s about as close as we got to a crack of a smile.
Episode two: Soubise
Laugh count: 0
The sterile kitchen lights are on, but comedy isn’t home. The second episode sees Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) begin to simplify the menu as she grapples with another job offer. All staff remain miserable and stressed. There is little relief except for Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) who quotes Polish mathematician Jacob Bronowski in his pep talk to the chefs: ‘The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.’
At the end of the episode, Carmy is on the phone to his sister Natalie, who has recently given birth, and she pleads with him to come and meet the baby. It doesn't take long before it's post-partum Natalie consoling Carmie because, after subjecting his family to years of stress and chaos to turn their sandwich shop into a Michelin-chasing restaurant, he’s realising he’s falling out of love with cooking.
Episode three: Scallop
Laugh count: 0
Each character’s inner turmoil continues, albeit slowly, to thud along in the third episode. Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) discusses how to franchise The Bear’s sandwich window, the only profitable part of the business, while Marcus (Lionel Boyce) asks Carmy for more help on the dessert station despite the no-hire policy.
It climaxes with Carmy running to the house of his ex-girlfriend Claire (Molly Gordon) – who broke up with him after overhearing him call their relationship a ‘waste of time’ during the soft launch of his restaurant – to confront his past. They both cry on the doorstep outside her house on a dark, rainy Chicago evening. Pathetic fallacy.
Episode four: Worms
Laugh count: 0.5 (a titter)
Unsurprisingly, given that it centres Sydney, episode four brings some much-need light to the series. The chef visits her cousin Chantel to get her hair done and is left along with her daughter TJ while Chantel runs errands. It’s an endearing, smile-worthy interaction as Sydney slowly disarms TJ, cooks her the best pasta dish of her life and encourages her to attend a sleepover with her friends from her old school.
Sydney also uses an extended sleepover metaphor to ask TJ whether she should stay put at The Bear or accept the other job offer. TJ says the house she’s in now sounds ‘stinky’ and Sydney says, ‘I’d say it’s energetically musty’. This earned one titter.
Episode five: Replicants
Laugh count: 0
Episode five seens the return of Luca (Will Poulter) to assist Marcus on desserts, which brings a bit of excitement to the kitchen, including some flirting from Sydney and a few playful attempts at his English accent. Still no actual laughs though. If things weren’t hellish enough at work with smaller budgets, fewer ingredients and an erratic, depressive boss, Sydney receives a call just before service to say her dad had a heart attack. That’s The Bear for you.
Episode six: Sophie
Laugh count: 0
In this episode, Edebiri delivers a heartbreaking performance in the hospital waiting room as she confides in Claire, who helped her father recover, about the guilt she feels for making him worry about her. It’s an agonising, relatable and a stark reminder of how fragile life can be and how we could all do more to appreciate our parents. Not exactly full of gags. Elsewhere in the episode, the staff debate whether to go to Richie’s ex-wife Tiff’s wedding.
Episode seven: Bears
Laugh count: 0
In between heavy conversations, emotional heart to hearts and explosive arguments, there is a cute moment when everyone gets under a table to convince Tiff and Richie’s daughter to stop hiding. That’s all there is to say on the comedy front.
Episode eight: Green
Laugh count: 0
Sydney decides to call Shapiro and reject the superior job offer and he tells her she’s making the biggest mistake of her life. Otherwise it's more of the same, in other words, not particularly ha-ha.
Episode nine: Tonnato
Laugh count: 0
In the penultimate episode of the season, Carmy pays his estranged mother Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) a visit to drop off a photo album and, one year sober, she breaks down in tears to say she feels responsible for her other son Mikey's suicide and that she’s sorry for everything she’s done. It’s about as funny as you’d imagine, but both performances from Curtis and Allen White are gut wrenchingly good.
Doughnut pioneer Marcus receives the news that he’s been added to the class of Best New Chefs by Food & Wine. Validation at last.
Episode ten: Goodbye
Laugh count: 0
A slow, brutal finale that moves the story along for the first time in ten episodes. Sydney finds out Carmy changed the partnership agreement to remove his name, revealing his plans to leave the restaurant and, he claims, stop cooking altogether. In a post-shift argument out the back door of the restaurant, Sydney confronts him and they have an emotional, overdue conversation about their future, resulting in Sydney accepting that the kitchen will soon be hers to run alone. Richie then joins them and he and Carmy address the tension that’s been bubbling between them since Mikey’s death.
Sydney asks for Richie to be made a partner and Carmy and Natalie accept. It becomes clear that season five will be preoccupied with Carmy’s decision to leave the profession, but the fate of The Bear is still unclear. What is clear is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Total laughs throughout entire season: 0.5
Is The Bear billed as a comedy because it's scared of the competition in the drama category? Who knows. But awards shows as well as their boards and voting members have a lot to answer for. If one titter in ten episodes is a comedy, then I’m the Queen of Sheba.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across entertainment, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things pop culture for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow with equal respect).