The Bear Season 4 Finale Receives Backlash From Fans
Divisive is an understatement.
Spoiler alert: This post discusses the events of The Bear’s Season 4 finale.
The Bear has left the building. In a shocking twist, FX’s culinary drama wrapped up its fourth season with its central chef — Carmy Berzatto — packing up his knives for good. Not only has the unexpected ending cast doubt on whether a fifth season will happen, but it’s also cooked up a heaping helping of controversy as longtime viewers are objecting to Carmy’s unsavory decision.
The main thrust of Season 4 focused on Carmy, Sydney, and the rest of The Bear’s staff honing their kitchen to try to keep the restaurant afloat as the threat of an imminent shutdown hung above their heads. In the end, the team turned their finances around, got some industry glow with Marcus earning a Best New Chef title from Food & Wine, and even explored franchising as Ebraheim charted out some promising growth for his beloved beef sandwich. However, it’s still not clear if this will all be enough to save The Bear by the season’s end.
Only to make things infinitely more disappointing, Carmy dropped a life-changing bombshell on Sydney, Richie, and Sugar in the finale: He is quitting The Bear and handing it over to his three partners.
It’s a shocking choice, but one that was hinted at throughout the season, as Sugar noted her brother may have fallen out of love with cooking, and Carmy saw how well Sydney could run the kitchen without him.
Still, the decision (and more importantly, how Carmy went about it) fired up social media, with fans enraged at how Carmy was abandoning Sydney shortly after a family crisis, and after he had previously promised he’d always be by her side.
FX has not yet renewed The Bear for a fifth season at the time of publication, but if the show does return, it’s safe to say that it’s going to have an entirely different vibe without Carmy at the stove.
