The Bear is known for its passion, with a fiery kitchen and characters. Season 3 faced criticism last year for its change in pace, focusing on craft and characters instead of the question of The Bear’s survival (though perhaps controversially, I still enjoyed it). Season 4 has managed to strike a much better balance between the artistry of the show and the pressure-cooker kitchen, yet it still falls short compared to earlier seasons. With a massive ensemble and supersaturated number of storylines, the season felt disordered, still clinging to the comedy genre’s half hour format despite the fact the show is clearly now a drama, and much like our chefs, races against time to tell its stories.

The motif of ‘Every Second Counts’ returns in Christopher Storer’s fourth season, with The Bear’s staff battling to make their restaurant commercially viable before it all falls apart. Stress is a convention of the series, and I expected the literal clock they install in the kitchen to push each character to the edge, fighting for their future. Instead, however, the restaurant’s money troubles came across more as a plot device than actual issue. The season’s stakes are generally present in a broad sense across the season, but ignored in individual episodes, not even simmering in the subtext of our side plots. Typical to the series, we have certain episodes that deep-dive into characters, alongside the return of a tumultuous family-centric event like fan favourite episode ‘Ten Fishes’. Viewed individually, episodes are incredible, the actual quality of scenes and performances as good as ever. Structured within an overall season, however, they lose momentum. There was no one satisfying domino affect across the episodes, storylines left open for a fifth season rather than focusing on itself. The events of Episode 10 ‘Goodbye’ could have come much earlier in the season, for instance, and perhaps Episode 3 ‘Scallops’ much later. It was also incredibly dissatisfying that Ebraheim’s pursuit of  further developing the sandwich side-hustle The Beef, introduced in an early episode, was ignored. The subplot was immediately apparent as a viable solution to the season’s prime stressor of the business’ finances, but was drawn out and ultimately left unaddressed just for the sake of keeping the characters in survival mode. As a viewer I knew more than them, for unjustified reasons, and this ultimately proved irritating.

The series’ food continued to prove beautiful and there was a wonderful aesthetic in the dishes. Their rich abstractions and textures made for arthouse frames in the big-budget drama. It’s not just the food that’s beautiful, but the entire world of the story. The Bear is remarkably chic, impeccably clean, and every detail is intricately considered. There are beautiful moments of ellipsis and calm through the episodes that allow you to appreciate the art of the setting itself. Season 4 depicts its restaurant as it previously showed the city of Chicago: vibrant, beautiful and teeming with expression. Yet, although food was everywhere—our chefs often shopping, chopping, dishing and dining—the challenges of the kitchen were reduced to almost exclusively interpersonal. Character’s adoration for their craft was one of my favourite aspects of the earlier seasons with their notebooks, tastings, trials and errors. Instead, this season the food was consistently perfect. We were given satisfying growth in our characters, particularly our Beef-reared chefs Sydney (Ayo Edibiri), Marcus (Lionel Boyce) and Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), but only the last seemed to face any sort of struggle in the kitchen that they could actually overcome. Marcus was saved by the prodigal Luca (Will Poulter), whilst Sydney crafted her scallop with relative ease compared to the menu developments of Season 2. Season 4 seemed to fall out of love with experimentation and failure, my previously favourite parts of the show.

As our ensemble developed it sometimes felt that, for the first time in the series, the audience was entirely detached from our characters. We lost the visceral experiences of their lives—panic attacks, failures, introspections—in favour of fiery conflict between characters. We simply watched them without seeing things from their perspective, aside from perhaps Sydney. Though this change was, to me, detrimental to the series’ storytelling and emotional depth the show’s ensemble remained incredible to watch. The cast are full of love and rich chemistry, rallying behind each other and fighting with each other with incredible, dynamic performances. Ayo Edebiri (Sydney) has long been battling with Jeremy Allen White (Carmy) over who is the ultimate star of this series, and with Season 4 Edebiri inarguably seizes the crown. She will surely take the 78^th Emmy’s by storm, delivering a complex character who is simultaneously funny and prone to dramatic, moving breakdowns. The supporting cast is vast, yet somehow all incredibly talented. Abby Elliot (Sugar), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Richie) and Liza Colón-Zayas (Tina) all deliver once again, whilst Edwin Lee Gibson (Ebraheim) and Cory Hendrix (Sweeps) were finally given their moments to shine. This cast is truly a force to be reckoned with.

Season 4 of The Bear had many elements I loved. The characters, the visuals, the intricate and well-thought details. There are so many good parts, I can’t call it a bad season of television. But it simply does not live up to what it has achieved before. The synergy of the season falls apart quickly after its brilliant opening episodes—it struggles, as the restaurant itself does, with ‘dissonance.’ I was happy to hear the series was renewed for a fifth season, with an opportunity for closure and reconciliation with this beautiful world, but I do not think it needs anything further than that.