‘The Bear’ Recap, Season 5 Episode 6: ‘Focaccia’

Focaccia

Season 5

Episode 6

Editor’s Rating

4 stars

****

Finally, things are really happening in the restaurant. Unfortunately, way too many things are happening at once. The dining room of the Bear is absolutely packed, so much so that Richie is literally cramming customers into any corner he can come up with, including the actual kitchen. The chefs are running super-behind, so service is slow. Also, because why not, an actual fight breaks out in the kitchen between Marcus and Luca, normally two of the more level-headed people on staff, whose tempers suddenly explode like that wonky pipe in the basement behind the standee of Paul Rudd.

In short, it is chaos. Which is exactly what everyone — meaning the characters in The Bear and those of us watching them — expected from this high-pressure dinner service following a day of challenges that, at least in Neil Fak’s mind, are borderline biblical. Chaos is also the state in which some staffers (Richie, most notably) thrive. It’s definitely the state in which The Bear, the series, does its best work. Watching everyone rush around, scramble to plate dishes, attempt to placate diners, and keep their gravities centered — it feels like the show is finally itself again in its purest form.

Of course, there is one key difference between this particular evening of Berzatto-related bedlam and the usual: a Berzatto is no longer in charge. Sydney is the head chef, and she is doing her best to control the chaos, or at least deal with it in softer tones and with a calmer demeanor than we have typically seen on Carmy’s watch. Ayo Edebiri is outstanding in this episode, especially in her interactions with Richie, during which she frequently gestures wildly to indicate that he should lower his volume. (Gesturing wildly and making annoyed faces is Syd’s way of being loud. You know what? I like it.)

“Is this fighting? Is this nice?” Richie asks Syd after a disagreement that doesn’t involve either of them hurling profanities at each other. “I think this is organization,” she says. “I think this is communication.” When you consider where the relationship between these two started, this is enormous progress … progress only derailed slightly when she realizes that Richie didn’t cancel the 15 tables she asked him to cancel hours earlier. To be more specific, he canceled zero tables.

His reason: He couldn’t disappoint the customers because “I used to be a people hater, and now I’m a people lover.” That’s great for you, Richie. For real, I think that’s wonderful. But you also screwed over literally every one of your co-workers because you couldn’t man up and rescind some reservations. Actually, what Richie does involves even more hubris than not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings. Richie believes he and this restaurant can perform magic and accommodate guests even when the math isn’t mathing. Cue Richie’s Frank Capra–esque speech: “In this building, I have seen people love and laugh and live and cry and die,” he says while Syd, again, indicates he should lower his volume. “And there are metaphysical concepts at play.”

“Sydney, it’s raining outside,” Richie continues, proceeding to highlight all the metaphors in this season of The Bear. “That is a cleansing. That is a renewal. We are beginning a new history right now, and everything that has ever happened in this room is informing this very moment.” Sydney listens to all this and responds in a very composed, professional manner: “I’m gonna beat your ass. Not, um, metaphorically. Physically. Genuinely.” Sydney is right to say this, even though violence is never the answer.

Or perhaps I should say it’s never the answer until it suddenly becomes the answer in the middle of a very busy dinner service. After Carmy asks Luca to entertain the two couples that Richie has shoehorned into the kitchen because he has nowhere else to put them, Marcus blows up at Luca for slacking off. For the record, Luca has not been slacking off; he’s been yanked between stations and asked by Carmy to schmooze. But Marcus feels abandoned because he’s been left alone, physically at the pastry station and, more importantly, figuratively by Luca’s decision to go back to Copenhagen. Marcus has to be physically restrained by Carmy to keep him from actually hitting Luca as Jess warns that people can hear them in the dining room.

While no punches are thrown, Luca gets in a pretty devastating verbal blow at Marcus and also Carmy. After Marcus yells at him to just go back to Copenhagen, Lucas replies, “Gladly! I was trying to get away from shit like this so I don’t become fucking Carmy.” Which: Damn.

Carmy yells back that he was trying to help Luca by giving him this gig, and you know that interaction would have escalated, too, were it not for Sydney insisting that cooler heads must prevail. After Richie bursts in to ask if punches were thrown, director (and series creator) Chris Storer stages a lovely transition in which Richie opens the kitchen door to ease back into the dining room, which cuts directly to Marcus opening the back door to get outside and away from the place.

Sydney follows him and listens to him express how lost he will be without the restaurant — “If this place goes away, I don’t have anything. I don’t know how I’ll get to tomorrow” — and explain why he invited his estranged father to dinner. “I did it,” Marcus says, “because I couldn’t invite my mom.” As someone who lost her mother, Sydney immediately relates. In fact, she senses that the absence of Marcus’s mom is at the core of his emotions before Marcus even acknowledges it himself.

“The secretary of the Dead Moms Club cannot act this way,” she tells him, referring back to a conversation they had in season three in the wake of the passing of Marcus’s mother. She adds that “there are a million restaurants in a million places that are at least 2 percent less of a shit show than this place,” meaning Marcus will find another job, and probably one that’s slightly less stressful than this one. “This building is not the foundation. It’s us.”

Once again, Sydney is doing one of the most important things a boss can do: she is listening to her employees’ concerns, giving them honest advice, and letting them know how much they’re needed. This is such a simple thing, and it’s something that so many bosses often fail to do because they’re so overwhelmed by all the things on their own plates, or because they’re overly focused on managing up instead of managing their actual employees, or because they’re so fixated on making their own mark that they can’t be bothered to consider how other people are doing. (In case you didn’t realize, Carmy fits in that last category.)

Richie and others are right when they say that working at the Bear has always felt like being part of a family. The problem is that the family has always been the Berzattos, the most dysfunctional clan in the history of the Chicago restaurant business. Sydney is trying to create a healthier family, one that involves compassion and a commitment to raising each other up instead of resorting to cutting each other down. Her unspoken mantra is similar to the quote that comedian Patton Oswalt famously attributed to his late wife, the writer Michelle McNamara: “It’s chaos. Be kind.”

Carmy recognizes that and shows her the kindness of letting her know that he notices what she’s trying to do. After she emits a primal scream outside, Carmy comes to find her. “You heard me scream? You think other people heard me?” she asks.

“I think they heard you in Michigan,” Carmy affirms with a smile.

“I try to scream alone,” she tells him.

“That’s the thing,” he says. “I would have chosen to scream at everyone.”

Carmy has an ego, but it doesn’t prevent him from admitting that Syd is better at being head chef than he is because she not only cares about other people but also makes the time to show it. Her attention to Marcus enables him to go back into the kitchen and reconcile with Luca. (Fist bumps all around!) It also gives Marcus the confidence to speak up when Richie notes that the Michelin-star guy is arriving soon, they have a lot more turns to deal with, and they’re also low on food.

“Ideas?” Sydney asks, and Marcus immediately offers: “I have one.” The episode ends before he explains what it is, because the point isn’t what the idea is. The point is that Marcus is in a space where he feels safe enough to come up with something potentially unorthodox and share it with people who are, individually and collectively, a total fucking mess. But those messes respect him and are willing to listen. The building is not the foundation. It’s them.

• Did anyone else find it completely unbelievable that Natalie — who is very busy at work, worried about her daughter, and freaked out about losing her job — would take off all her clothes to have sex with Pete outside, in the rain, behind the restaurant in the middle of this madness? I get that they probably haven’t done it in a while, but the idea alone that Natalie’s brother could catch them in the act seems like it would dampen the enthusiasm. Kudos to them for keeping the marriage spicy, I guess.

• Speaking of sex, I absolutely love the exchange between Syd and Jess where Syd inquires, in hushed tones, about Jess’s deal with her recent hand-holding partner, Richie. “So what’s the vibe?” Syd asks, then mouths the words “with Richie” in a comically exaggerated way that suggests they’re both in eighth grade. Jess is not sure. “Sometimes there is a vibe, but, like, I don’t know if it actually is a vibe,” she says. Which: Girl, you know damn well there’s a vibe. “Is that gonna be, like, a thing?” Syd asks, unable to mask how disgusted she is by the prospect. Yes, Syd, it’s totally going to be a thing.

• Speaking of Richie, I appreciate how simultaneously terrible and fantastic he is at his job. He is making things more difficult for everyone by adding new tables (table 22.5?), asking Carmy to whip up surprise bites for guests without telling Sydney, and parking diners in the kitchen so they can observe the staff as if they are zoo animals. Which, admittedly, sometimes they kinda are. But he’s also so good at what he does. He ensures that the customers feel special. He does what he has to do to make things happen, like getting a 7:30 table for Marcus’s dad. And he comes up with creative ways to keep the flow mostly going on the fly. When Carmy says he’ll whip up something for table 35, where a couple has been waiting ages for their courses, Richie shouts, “I love this shit!” He genuinely means it. Nothing makes him happier than what he’s doing right now, for better or worse. On the worse side of the equation: I’m not sure that deciding to throw some customers the equivalent of a kegger now that it has stopped raining is a great idea.

• I’m also not sure it’s a great idea for Richie to dismiss James, the guy who shows up at the restaurant to buy the last of Jimmy’s brother’s watches. Richie is so confident they can save the restaurant that he doesn’t want Unc to have to give up something of such deep financial and sentimental value to him. Something tells me Jimmy will not be grateful for Richie’s gesture.

• On the other hand, maybe they can save the restaurant, a possibility raised by the fact that Cheddar finds Ebra’s prospectus and seems intrigued by the ideas he lays out.

• The Case of the Spoon Thief, which is also the name of my favorite Nate the Great book, remains unsolved despite Ebra’s vigilance. We now know Cheddar has nothing to do with it, not that she was ever a suspect. Contrary to what I said in a previous recap, I think Marcus and Luca are too preoccupied to be orchestrating a spoon heist. Hence, in keeping with The Bear tradition, I have decided to blame this on a Fak.

• I would like to note that Donna and Sophie have not arrived at the restaurant, so it is extremely likely that The Bear still has not reached maximum levels of mayhem. Uh-oh. Also: Yay!

This is the section of the recap where I highlight the laugh-out-loud moments in each episode as part of my crusade to prove that The Bear is actually funny. Some of the most amusing moments in this show take place in the midst of pandemonium, a truism proven by this episode.

• Neil is so, so careful to elegantly and quietly place that basement card table in the restaurant — this is what they’re resorting to now, the same shit I pull at Thanksgiving dinner? — and so proud of himself when he pulls it off. His whispered “ka-kaw” afterward is sweet and hilarious.

• Ebra’s response when Cheddar asks him to describe his deal is a quotable delight: “I’m a representative of justice.” “What kinda justice?” Cheddar asks. “Cutlery,” he says with dead seriousness. “Spoon.” From this moment forward, I am only interested in superhero movies in which the protagonist fights for truth, justice, and the American way for spoons, forks, knives, and, what the hell, also sporks.

• Teddy, Chi-chi, and Chuckie have, somehow, been put in charge of orchestrating this patio beer bash, relying on whatever resources they have. At this time, I would like to share the list of things these three think can contribute to the success of this high-class celebration: batteries, magnets, two joints in a glove box, a big fuckin’ speaker, pencils, pretzels, a porcelain doll, three boxes of Advil, Roman candles, some loose pills, cocaine (all agree this is a bad idea, you know, because of what happened last time), three piñatas that may or may not be stuffed, and a thousand bags of chips. Personally, I don’t see how this plan can go wrong.

• A shout-out to Pete’s shout-out to Chicago-area native Bill Murray. When explaining to Natalie the important jobs he has been assigned, he notes that “Richie told me to come tell him when it stops raining. So I got that going for me, which is nice.” The latter part of that comment is a famous quote from Caddyshack, spoken by Murray’s groundskeeper, Carl: “It’s in the hole!” Spackler.

• After Richie asks Carmy to chat it up with the Mitchells, he suggests that they take a look at Richie’s insane Paths to Success diagram. “You guys can read that quietly and to yourselves,” he says as if he’s a substitute teacher and they are third-graders who just need to sit still until recess. This made me cackle.

• Unfortunately for Carmy, Allan Mitchell, the husband in this anniversary-celebrating pair, wants to make conversation, so he starts talking about the movie Spanglish and how “Keller” showed Adam Sandler how to make the elevated BLT that appears in the film. He is referring to Thomas Keller, owner of the famous French Laundry in Napa, which is mentioned more than once in this episode. “It’s Spanglish, it’s just like this,” Allan says as he observes the kitchen. Sir, Spanglish is not just like this, because if it were, I would have liked that movie way more than I did.

• As misguided as Allan Mitchell may be, he ends up uttering one of my favorite lines this season. After the fight between Marcus and Luca, he drily observes, “This is not funny.” Which absolutely lands as a meta nod to the fact that so many people don’t think The Bear is a comedy. Well, joke’s on you guys because Allan saying “This is not funny” is actually really fucking funny!

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