The Bear Season 3 Ending Explained: The Reviews Are In

This post contains spoilers for "The Bear" season 3.

Watching all 10 episodes of the third season of "The Bear" in one sitting is, I imagine, a bit like what working at its famed Chicago restaurant might feel like. Like the behind-the-scenes world of The Bear, the viewing experience is overstimulating, rewarding, frustrating, exhausting, delicious, and chaotic. It also has the impressive effect of leaving audiences hungry for more — even when the "food" we did get this time around was more like an experimental blood orange reduction than a hearty, satisfying beef sandwich.

"The Bear" skyrocketed to fame when it premiered on FX and Hulu in 2022, leading to a swift renewal and a relatively quick (for a post-Covid prestige cable show) one-year turn-around on season 2. The first two outings were wildly acclaimed, earning the show an impressive 10 primetime Emmy wins and 13 nominations. Stars Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri have seemingly graced the cover of every magazine known to man, while the show's hectic, fast-paced kitchen scenes have been parodied by everything from "Abbott Elementary" to "The Simpsons."

Yet season 3, which dropped in its entirety earlier this week, hasn't been quite as universally beloved as its predecessors. The show still holds firm with a 93% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, but it's also been the subject of reviews calling it "undercooked" and thinkpieces with titles like "The Bear Is Not A Good Show." What sets season 3 apart from the two all-star seasons that came before it, and why is it leaving some viewers hungry for something better? Whether you loved the new season of Christopher Storer's dramedy or couldn't get through it, there are plenty of plot developments worth unpacking — especially ahead of the expected fourth season.

While the show's first season saw professionally trained chef Carmen Berzatto attempt to save his late brother's restaurant, and season two saw The Beef crew try to turn their nest egg into a fine dining establishment, season 3 doesn't have quite so narrow a focus. The season takes place during the first few months in which the new restaurant, The Bear, is open, and while typical service industry threats — potential bad reviews, draining funding — loom on the horizon, there isn't a cohesive goal or struggle keeping Carmy and his crew together in the latest episodes.

This leads to some of the narrative drift that critics have pointed out as one of the season's drawbacks, but there's still a decent amount of plot unfolding in between scrumptious cooking montages, especially in the season's latter half. Carmy's sister Sugar (Abby Elliott) has her baby, reconnecting with her overbearing, unstable mother (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the process. Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), once the loose cannon of the family, continues to find his center, bonding with his family and former colleagues even as he and Carm remain at a distance. Pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) processes the loss of his mother, business partner Sydney (Edebiri) makes moves on her own by renting an apartment and exploring another job opportunity, and we even learn more about lesser-known Bear staffers like cook Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas, spotlighted in an episode directed by Edebiri) and sommelier Sweeps (Corey Hendrix).

Carmy, meanwhile, is a bit of an emotional black hole this season. As he fails to shake off the abuse he suffered in culinary school and the dysfunction he was raised in, he spends most of his screen time yelling at his talented and capable crew or staring into the void. Through snapshots of the inside of his mind, we get the sense that after alienating his ex-girlfriend Claire (Molly Gordon) for the sake of the restaurant, he's now pinning all of his self-worth on its success. For Carmy, that success seems to have little to do with happy customers or a well-oiled team and everything to do with earning accolades in the press.

This leads us to the sour note the season ends on: The restaurant's Chicago Tribune review. Earlier in the season, a food critic visited The Bear unbeknownst to its staff, meaning that the perpetually bickering team wasn't able to put their best foot (and food) forward for the professional evaluator. One questionable review may not have been a huge deal had Carmen's family friend Cicero (Oliver Platt) not explained that he'd be pulling funding on the restaurant if the review didn't turn out positive. This might seem like a harsh ultimatum, but we also saw Carm drain the restaurant's accounts throughout the season by demanding an ever-rotating menu of super fresh, super pricey ingredients. Hard-headed Carmy refused to compromise, and his single-minded vision for the restaurant ended up putting it in the red.

The review first earns a mention midway through the season, but it doesn't actually post until the final moments of the season finale. Carmy gets a Google alert for it as he's taking a breather from the Ever party, a "funeral" celebrating the closure of the restaurant he once worked at under Chef Terry (Olivia Colman) before the show began. The audience is shown key words from the review in quick succession, and they seem to spell out mixed emotions. "Confusing," "excellent," "dissonance," "innovative," "brilliant," "sloppy," "inconsistent," "delicious," "simple," "complex," "stale," and "disappointing" are among the words that flash quickly by.

Earlier in the season, viewers were shown snippets of headlines about The Bear that seemed to have been imagined entirely by Carmy. They vacillated wildly between positive and negative, seemingly underscoring his own uncertainty about whether or not the restaurant was a flop. This time around, it's unclear whether or not some of the words are once again part of the negative self-talk in Carm's head (one is, after all, "subtract," the specific cutting criticism his abusive mentor lobbed at him years ago), but if there was any doubt about whether or not the review skewed negative, the other notifications glimpsed on Carmen's phone put an end to that. He has four missed calls from Cicero, and three from money guy Computer. It looks like The Bear just lost its funding.

Of course, the restaurant had another problem that Carmen failed to notice long before one critic's mixed-to-negative review hit the papers. Sydney, Carm's prodigy, sous chef, and business partner, spent the entire season unhappily ignored by him as he sunk further and further into his own drama. The cracks in the pair's relationship were handled thoughtfully — one scene highlights the irony of Carmy being photographed for several profiles while the Black woman behind his success goes unmentioned — but they're still the season's greatest weakness. The show's first two seasons built up the working relationship between this pair delicately and with great care, and season 3 dissolved it pretty much instantly for no good reason. Sydney spends the back half of the season contemplating a move to another up-and-coming restaurant, where she's been offered a sweet new gig with tons of benefits and true creative control.

Season 3 spends too much time hanging Sydney out to dry, but by season's end, it makes it clear that Carmy is unequivocally in the wrong here, and that his bad habits are a direct consequence of his own failure to break the abusive restaurant culture cycle. Conversations with a variety of chefs at the Ever closing party reveal a world of possibility to both Syd and Carm, one in which bullying is not the default, nor is it constructive. Syd seems inspired by the talks, though Carmy sinks further and further into his chair, increasingly aware of all the ways he's become just like his abuser, David Fields (Joel McHale).

Carmy stands up to David in this episode, telling him off while admitting that he's still fixated on him despite the fact that David's mistreatment gave him ulcers, panic attacks, and nightmares. Fields maintains that his extreme tactics made Carmy the man he is today, and it's unclear what, if anything, the younger chef takes from the exchange. It's also unclear whether or not Sydney will leave The Bear: She hits it off with the young, fun, less-dysfunctional chefs at the party, but when she sees an old review of The Beef taped to her fridge, it sends her spiraling into a panic attack.

Is Syd suddenly struck by the knowledge that she loves the place too much to let it go, or pained to realize she'll definitely be saying goodbye? Is she simply upset at the thought of what the place used to be before Carmy ruined it with his stubborn, myopic management style? No matter what's going on in her head, by episode's end, Syd still hasn't told Carmy she's leaving, nor has she officially gotten on board with her buddy Adam's (Adam Shapiro) new enterprise.

Speaking of Shapiro, his appearance gets to the heart of one of the weirdest facets of the show: its near-complete saturation with famous faces. Shapiro isn't actually a pro chef (he does have a soft pretzel company, though), but I had to Google to check, because "The Bear" season 3 is absolutely swarming with actual restaurateurs. At some points, the show veers into near-documentary territory, as when one opening sequence shows the blue collar citizens of Chicago waving at the camera while they get started with a day's work, or when Carmen studies under real, acclaimed chefs in flashback sequences. The same holds true for the Ever closing-party conversation, which turns into a roundtable of sorts featuring an assortment of seemingly real chefs.

So which of these people are actors and which are members of the culinary scene? According to Eater, the season features or references a whopping 16 real-life chefs, restaurateurs, and famous foodies total. The roundtable scene at Ever alone has cameos from nine different culinary experts, many of them Chicago-based. Judging by the chefs shown in Carmy's flashbacks, it's clear that the hot-headed up-and-comer worked at gastronomic greats including René Redzepi's Noma, Daniel Boulud's Daniel, and Thomas Keller's French Laundry (all three chefs appear). Of course, some of the chefs we see outside The Bear's doors are actors: "Midsommar" star Will Poulter returns this season as Luca, while "The Crown" alum Olivia Colman plays Ever's Chef Terry. The trio of Ever employees Richie reunites with this season are also played by actors, not cooks.

Still, that cameo count is high as hell. If you see someone you've never seen in the show before talking lovingly about what it means to make food this season, it's likely they're a real-life chef. Other new non-chef celebrity cameos in season 3 include John Cena (playing a Fak brother), Josh Hartnett (playing Richie's daughter's future stepdad), and "Dexter" actor David Zayas (who's actress Liza Colón-Zayas' real-life husband), while plenty of other A-listers from past seasons also return.

Take a breather while you can: "The Bear" will continue, and its next season is reportedly already in the works. Back in March, Deadline reported that the show was renewed for a fourth season that was set to shoot back-to-back with its third. Shooting consecutively isn't a total rarity for TV shows, especially those with majorly popular casts with other obligations like this one. Yet just this week, The Playlist reported that the continuous shoot didn't exactly go as planned, with sources telling the outlet that scripts for season 4 weren't ready in time.

At a press conference ahead of season 3, The Playlist asked the cast about the consecutive shoot rumors, to which Allen White said the show "did something like that" and Edebiri added, "Yeah, a little version of it, sort of. But not exactly." While we can speculate about what that might mean (did certain actors shoot back-to-back, but others didn't? Was it just restaurant prep B-roll? Is there going to be a one-off special?), we won't know until season 4 is closer to complete, and the outlet reports that the next season still has more footage to shoot in early 2025.

According to Forbes, local Chicago outlets previously noted that some filming took place after season 3 had wrapped. While FX never actually confirmed Deadline's report about a fourth season, the season 3 finale tellingly ends with the phrase "To be continued." How long the show will last is anyone's guess, although it burns so bright and hot and chaotic that I can't imagine it'll stick around for too many more seasons.

Heading into season 4, fans are left with several intriguing questions. Will The Bear be kaput now that Cicero seems to be about to pull funding, or is there a chance one of Carmy's seemingly endless line of famous chef friends could pull some strings and secure more money? Would he ever simply get it together and decide to stop wasting ingredients for the sake of his livelihood? And, importantly, will Sydney be around to see that, or will she hit the road since Carmen keeps forgetting to cherish her?

Frankly, Sydney deserves better than Carm, a character who started off as a sympathetic screw-up but has become an unforgivable party pooper and member of the fictional bad bosses hall of fame. If she can't let The Bear go, I for one hope she stages a coup, righting the ship with the help of the more than capable staff that's been underestimated all season. More likely, though, she'll start a restaurant with her pal Adam, and if the TV gods can let us have one good thing, she'll start a fling with Luca while she's at it.

Where will that leave Carmy? All his talk of legacy and running out of time this season — not to mention his constant caressing of his own burn scar — made me fear he'd attempt suicide (his late brother took his own life before the show began), but he seems less headed towards oblivion and more stuck in an angry, passively self-destructive rut. While a perfectly happy protagonist doesn't always make good TV, an eternally mopey one doesn't either: Hopefully Carm finds some balance next season, for all our sakes. Meanwhile, it seems likely that we'll see a wedding between Richie's ex and her new beau, while Sugar will probably try to juggle parenting and helping to keep the family business afloat.

The rest of the team's future depends on what happens to the restaurant they all worked so hard to build, but fans will have to wait until season 4 to find out whether or not The Bear has any fight left in it.