The Bear Fans Have Convincing Theories About That Season 3 Cliffhanger
Admit it, you were pausing every second, too.
After chowing down on all the chaos on this season of The Bear, the show withheld dessert. The final moments of Season 3 built up to a long-awaited reveal, only to end on a frustratingly vague cliffhanger. Thankfully, a few clues did flash on the screen very quickly, and that was enough for fans to put together some convincing theories.
Spoiler alert: This post discusses the finale of The Bear Season 3. For most of the season, Carmy, Sydney, Richie, and the rest of The Bear crew obsess over an upcoming restaurant review from The Chicago Tribune, which can either make or break the new restaurant’s reputation. Of course, the review is finally published at the worst time, as Sydney has a panic attack and Carmy has a very unfulfilling run-in with his past tormentor. Even worse, viewers don’t get to see what the review says!
Well, that’s not entirely true. Little snippets are shown in quick succession as Carmy feverishly digests the feedback. There’s not much to go off of, as the words shown seem to contradict each other — for every positive-sounding critique (“innovative,” “excellent,” “delicious,” “talent”) there was an insulting descriptor canceling it out (“sloppy,” “inconsistent,” “confusing,” “disappointed”).
There are a couple other context clues to go off of when deciphering the review. Prior to clicking on it, Carmy’s phone displayed several missed calls from his financer Cicero and newly hired accountant Computer. Clearly, the money people behind The Bear are concerned about something. There’s also Carmy’s response to reading the review: an exasperated, “Motherf*cker.”
Although there isn’t much to work with, several fans have put on their detective hats and tried to piece together whether the Tribune’s review was a positive or a negative one. NPR’s deep dive came to the conclusion that the review probably praises Carmy’s technical genius, but bemoans that it’s wasted with a staff and environment that can’t keep up with him.
Vulture’s write-up had a similar read, pointing out the negative words could easily be red herrings. On Reddit, fans also theorized the review was positive but will only further worsen Carmy’s loneliness, while Forbes condemned the cliffhanger for being purposefully incoherent, claiming the show doesn’t want fans to piece anything together from those words.
Clearly, there are a lot of different readings of these jumbled up words, but most of them seem to agree on an overarching theory: It’s probably a good review. That means The Bear will thrive even more in the already renewed Season 4... which will undoubtedly only add more pressure to an already explosive environment.
