The Bear Season 5 Review: The Once-Great Show Ends With A Final Chaotic Shift

"The Bear" is ready to serve up one final meal. But is anyone still hungry for more? Christopher Storer's award-winning series has had a strange journey through five seasons, launching in 2022 and gaining quick acclaim and attention due to fast-paced storytelling, stress-inducing scenarios, and an incredibly winning cast led by an intense Jeremy Allen White and his great hair. Season 1 of "The Bear" was excellent, and Season 2 was even better. But what goes up must come down, and the show seemed to stumble with its highly-anticipated third season.

Season 3 opened with an unconventional episode that unfolded via a thirty-minute montage, and while some folks (like me!) found this a rather bold approach, others were almost immediately turned off. Things only got rougher from there. While I seem to be one of the few people who thought the Season 3 premiere episode was strong, the season as a whole lost me as it unfolded. I was particularly annoyed at the season finale, which foolishly focused on a host of real-life chef guest stars playing themselves rather than the main characters we cared about, and then ended on a huge cliffhanger — something the series had never done before.

After Season 3, it seemed like whatever special ingredients "The Bear" used for extra flavor had grown stale. To be sure, Season 4 was an improvement, with moments that felt like the show's creators directly trying to apologize for mistakes they made in Season 3. But at that point, the damage was done. Now, "The Bear" is ending with Season 5, and even as a fan of the show, I have to say that's for the best. I've had my fill and there's no room for leftovers.

"The Bear" Season 4 ended with a bombshell: Beleaguered chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) revealed to fellow chef and confidant Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and longtime friend and sometimes foil Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) that he was quitting. Cooking, the service Carmy devoted a huge part of his life to, no longer makes him happy, and he wants to walk away and leave it all behind — even though he's spent multiple seasons attempting to turn his restaurant, The Bear, into a success. Carmy now wants to hand control of The Bear over to Sydney and Richie and go off and do something else; something that hopefully won't cause him to have a nervous breakdown every few days.

Season 5 picks up in the immediate aftermath of this decision. In fact, the entire season (or at least the 7 of the 8 episodes that were made available for press) unfolds over the course of one long day as The Bear staff struggles through an impending dinner rush and a torrential rain storm (dumping "a month's worth of rain in one day!" onto Chicago, as we hear a TV weatherman declare in the opening moments of the premiere). Everything that can go wrong will go wrong: flooding, ceiling collapse, and extreme financial problems (Oliver Platt's Jimmy, the chief investor in The Bear, has quite literally run out of money to keep the joint open, and now he's scrambling to close a big deal before all is lost).

One of the joys of "The Bear" has been watching the characters grow and evolve from season to season. Yes, working at the restaurant is extremely stressful, but the staff discovered that there was joy to be had in the fact that they had become a sort of found family akin to the "Fast and Furious" saga.

These characters all came to love each other, and we, in turn, came to love them. Moss-Bachrach's Richie has had a particularly wonderful arc, going from a washed-up loser to a guy with real purpose and drive. If there's one thing this final season does well, it's hammer that point home again and again. The staff are all on the verge of losing The Bear, and while the job drives them all crazy, the thought of not working side by side anymore is heartbreaking.

Meanwhile, Carmy may still be reporting for work, but he's essentially handed all leadership duties to Sydney. Sydney, for her part, seems uncertain how to proceed, and tension begins to arise as Carmy awkwardly navigates what could be his last day in a kitchen while Sydney grapples with what the future holds. While there's a sweet, touching undercurrent running through these final episodes (a lovely moment where Sydney essentially tells Liza Colón-Zayas's Tina that she'll stick with her no matter what happens made me choke up a little bit; these characters used to not get along at all, and now they're close, and that closeness feels genuine and organic), "The Bear" Season 5 is also in full chaos mode.

While frantic pacing and shouted dialogue have long been a staple of the show, something feels off here. The loud verbal sparring comes across as forced and unnatural in a way it never has before. One annoying tic these episodes keep employing over and over is to have a scene start with one character barking some order to another character, at which point the other character incredulously repeats what was just said, followed immediately by the initial character repeating what they said yet again, only more forcefully. This happens multiple times and it grows increasingly tiresome when you notice it.

I'm also frustrated that the final episode wasn't provided, because I can only assume it gives the series the final dramatic push it desperately needs. The seven episodes I've seen are fast-paced and watchable, but there's a sameness here that keeps Season 5 from feeling like a real finale. Yes, the characters have to scramble to pull off the impossible — but we've seen that time and time again on the show. This has to all be leading somewhere, right? I sure hope so.

Frustrations aside, "The Bear" Season 5 is bristling with live-wire energy and kinetic filmmaking — get ready for lots of close-ups of nervous eyes — and the cast remains electric, even if they're stuck shouting over each other far too often. Creator Christopher Storer and company also wisely move away from laying on a series of distracting cameos, an issue that began to seriously hamper the show starting in Season 2. This is the endgame, and it's best to focus on the main characters instead of having, say, John Cena pop up out of nowhere.

Seasons 1 and 2 of "The Bear" had me tightly in their grasp, and while I eventually cooled on the show a bit, I remain impressed with the world and characters Storer and company created here. I'm glad the series is ending simply because I can't imagine dragging this story out any further, but I will miss the frazzled staff of the once-Original Beef of Chicagoland. Or perhaps I'll miss the excitement those first two seasons cooked up within me. But as Carmy seems to have realized, there comes a time when you just have to move on and see what comes next.

/Film Rating: 6 out of 10

"The Bear" Season 5 premieres June 25 at 9:00p ET / 6:00p PT on FX and Hulu.