Can The Bear claw its way back to prestige TV relevancy? Season 4 seems to be cooking up a plan.
FX just dropped the first trailer for the new season of its culinary comedic drama, and this time, the stakes are even higher for The Bear team. The third season ended on a cliffhanger, leaving viewers guessing whether the restaurant clinched a positive review from The Chicago Tribune, which could massively impact the business’s future.
That the trailer finds the chefs grappling with what seems to be a middling review of the restaurant is certainly a meta twist, given the intensity of the backlash the show itself received from fans and critics during Season 3.
Season 4 appears to pick up right where the previous season left off, with Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) under pressure from Cicero (Oliver Platt) to make the restaurant profitable. Unfortunately, time and money are running out faster than anyone could have predicted for this head chef.
“That clock is showing you how much money we have left,” Cicero explains to the kitchen staff. “When that shows zero, this restaurant needs to cease operations.”
This season is all about the pursuit of excellence, and the difficulties that arise from embarking on that path—an issue that the show itself has been grappling with after a divisive third season.
When a fierce backlash from fans began brewing, The Daily Beast’s Obsessed’s Kevin Fallon theorized that the unhappy reactions might have something to do with the show reheating their own nachos, so to speak: “When you’re being presented with familiar dishes, now for a third time, it’s a natural reaction to sigh: ‘This again?’”
The Hollywood Reporter came to a similar conclusion, describing the show as “stuck in a rut.” Meanwhile, The Age called season three a “frustrating” watching experience, explaining that the lack of story development for both the characters and the plot was heart of the issue.
Reactions to the Season 4 trailer seem to be cautiously optimistic, with many hoping to see a new and improved The Bear.
The newest season of The Bear sees the returns of stars Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Lionel Boyce, Abby Elliott, Matty Matheson, Liza Colón-Zayas, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The entire season will be released Jun. 25 on FX on Hulu.
