SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Season 5 of “The Bear,” now streaming on Hulu.
“The Bear” returns with another race against the clock in the kitchen, the entire season being set over the course of one day as the restaurant aims to finally earn the long-coveted Michelin star.
But in Episode 7, titled “Caramel,” The Bear is filled to the brim with reservations on a day that’s already seen a flash flood, the ceiling fall through and personal tensions in the kitchen. And as the clock hits six minutes, we see Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) do something he’s never done before — drop a dish on the floor.
“It’s a heartbreaking moment where you think all might be lost, or Carmy thinks all might be lost, but the truth is it was such an important moment for Carmy’s growth,” Jeremy Allen White tells Variety. “In the moment, it’s the end of the world, but ultimately it allows him to really step back with some confidence and allows him to accept help and support, which he’s been really incapable of for the whole time that we’ve known him.”
After getting distracted by the lights flickering on the ceiling, Carmy drops the plate of lamb he’s been carefully preparing. Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) instantly steps in, reassuring Carmy as he proclaims that he’s “fucked everything up.” It’s a difficult moment that Carmy has to work through, putting his full trust in Sydney as a leader to find the best solution.
While filming the scene, Edebiri recalls thinking: “‘OK, I have to suppress all the anxiety that I might be feeling because of the practicality of the situation, while also wanting to be there for this person who I know is going into the worst places in his head and in his mind — while also getting rid of all that, and getting down to brass tacks.’ But the way that we have to do this is by being together and then is, in a weird sort of way, I think both of them [discover this idea of] having the humility to have confidence. They’re both going through different versions of ego death.”
This season, Carmy performs his last act before Sydney will step in to lead the kitchen (although the news slipping out in an earlier episode only fuels discomfort among their co-workers.) White explains that “intellectually,” Carmy quitting his job makes sense: “But there is this muscle memory, and this ego that Carmy has that’s been rewarded and sharpened over the years.”
Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who makes waves this episode after going behind Sydney’s back and not canceling orders to help manage the crowd, walks into the kitchen after Carmy drops the lamb. He tells Carmy exactly what he needs to hear: “We got you.”
“One thing that I love about that moment is the danger and fragility of the kitchen, and how chaos and just a mess lurks around anything,” Moss-Bachrach says. “And a simple act of just dropping a plate, which we all do every day, can unleash just complete terror.”
Allen says that Sydney stepping in over Carmy was “being built from the beginning” of the series: “In a sense, these people entered each other’s lives at this point. Sydney has always seen something in Carmy he’s not really been capable of seeing in himself, and vice versa. There has been this balancing act and power struggle going on for a really long time. And it felt honest.”
Throughout the season, Sydney advocates for the kitchen to function without people constantly yelling over each other. As she steps into her own, Edebiri says it’s crucial for Sydney to be a “different” type of leader: “There’s this expectation that she sort of has on herself, but I think is not completely unfounded — she can’t become Carmy for a lot of reasons. For the restaurant, but also because of her own growth and her own internal journey. Part of her journey this season is reckoning with the fact that she can’t do what Carmy might do in that situation.”
As Allen’s mind goes to Carmy’s journey beyond the show, he doesn’t know “what the step-back looks like, or if he’s leaving kitchens.”
But as somebody who’s played Carmy for five seasons now, and even won an Emmy along the way, he’s just happy to see someone like Sydney support him in a dire moment.
“I remember being relieved as someone that she cares for Carmy to see him make this admittance, and get honest with himself,” White says. “So I support!”