The Bear season 5 starts a total slog – but it won me over

** Review based on seven episodes of The Bear season five **

The Bear restaurant, much like the show, has fallen out of noble favour.

After a blazing first two seasons, which launched the words ‘yes’ followed by ‘chef’ into popular vernacular and ignited an entire debate about the Emmy categorisation of what a comedy is, the latest seasons landed more like a disappointing meal.

The fiery and sometimes shrill Disney Plus show returns for its fifth and final season, the day after we last left off.

Carmy (Jeremy Allen White, playing the chef like he’s been put on a mood stabiliser) has quit, except he’s still working in the cursed kitchen, for now.

Sydney (Ayo Edebiri, nailing both jittery and beaten down) is in charge, but her leadership skills haven’t woken up to it yet.

Richie (Ebon Moss Bachrach) is naming nearby objects to cope with anxiety. Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) is so broke he’s pawning watches and trying to flog the air rights hovering above The Bear.

Outside, Chicago is being battered by a thunderstorm of biblical proportions, seen here a few nights ago. Roads are gridlocked. The restaurant has a busted tap and the place is flooding. 

The eight episodes (seven of which were available for review) are the build-up and execution of that night’s service, which is overstuffed with bookings because their reservations app was on the fritz (stealing from that one-take episode, just a touch).

It’s a nice problem to have when your owner is skint. Except they don’t have the cash flow for nearly enough food to cover the customers. In typical fashion, The Bear’s hired hands muddle through.

Watching these episodes was a curious experience because the first four are a real slog. No dynamism. Every conversation is one person saying they can persevere, while the other pours cold water on it. I found the repeated use of ‘heard’ as a catch-all response to endless heart-to-hearts quite cringey. 

Everywhere I looked, there were Faks. If you Google ‘The Bear Faks’, one of the first search suggestions includes the word ‘annoying’. Well, precisely. 

I longed for the scrappiness of season one or the unpredictability of season two. If I hadn’t been tasked with this review, I would have abandoned it. I’m not entirely sure I would have tuned in at all after the last two seasons.

But I’m enormously glad I did, because when service is finally up, it’s the best The Bear has been in years. At last, it becomes the chaotic, heartwarming thrill we were first wowed by.

That peppy optimism started to work its magic on me. There were genuine laugh-out-loud moments. 

Much of the constructive criticism from recent seasons appears to have been taken on board. I nearly whooped with joy when I saw the time stamps; most are a tight sub-30-minute affair. There are exceptions, but they wholly justify themselves.

The braggadocious cameos have been nixed. So too have the random side quests and romantic entanglements (for better or worse, Claire is never mentioned). 

The fan service is par excellence. The Original Berf shirts of yore get a gorgeous look-in. So too do tongue-in-cheek acknowledgements of the ubiquity of ‘yes, chef’ and the swirling fan theories around definitely soulmates Carmy and Sydney.

The Carm, Syd and Richie trifecta is hard to beat, even if the latter two have snatched the show away. Carmy’s melancholy nothingness is only interesting to watch for so long.

The core cast, including the additions of Will Poulter and Jamie Lee Curtis, each get tiny, beautiful moments of revelation. Even Neil Fak’s (Matty Matheson) entry works on me. Tina’s (Liza Colón-Zayas) is the best.

Is the back half worth powering through the sluggish front bit? I thought so, but opinions may vary.

‘Let’s finish strong,’ Sydney says when she comes up with a salvo for the stove crapping out. I hope the series finale does. Mange baby!

The Bear season 5 is available to stream on Disney Plus from Friday, June 26.