‘The Bear’ Season 3 was haunted by trauma

In the latest season of The Bear, cousin Richie insults chef Carmy with a memorable dig during one of their rapid-fire kitchen fights, calling him a “baby replicant who’s not self-actualized.”

The line, which appears to be a Blade Runner reference, gets a laugh. It also sums up not just Carmy’s trajectory over the show’s three seasons, but also the frustrating nature of its latest outing. Season 3 leaves its terrific actors and their superbly flawed characters flailing in a tedious study of professional trauma.

In order for Season 4 of The Bear to succeed, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) has to evolve beyond his stunted identity as a tortured chef. His desperation to achieve culinary genius — while ignoring his many psychic wounds — is poisoning everyone else around him, including Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach); his second-in-command, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri); and chef Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas).

In his own way, Carmy could even experience post-traumatic growth, putting him in the company of countless people who’ve endured hell but over time made something meaningful of their journey.

This could be The Bear‘s plan, but this loyal viewer would be grateful if Season 4 relied far less on heavy-handed repetition, and I’m not alone in that criticism.

The Bear‘s ambitious stylistic treatment of workplace hazing and its psychological toll, for example, doesn’t enlighten. The plot frequently stalls with flashbacks to Carmy’s experience in a kitchen where an abusive chef berates and belittles him. These and other scenes from his past play in loops, blurring past and present. He’s otherwise personally frozen with fear, unable to apologize to his former girlfriend for cruelly abandoning their relationship.

The redundant flashbacks drag the viewer into a thematic cul-de-sac from which there is no escape. Not even the charming weirdo Fak brothers (Matty Matheson and Ricky Staffieri) or Jon Cena’s delightful cameo as a floor-buffing pro can save the most plodding episodes. (Don’t say Mashable entertainment reporter Belen Edwards didn’t warn you in her expectation-lowering review.)

Carmy does little more than painstakingly assemble dishes only to throw them in the garbage. Viewers could be forgiven for wanting to do the same with the series after this season’s 10 episodes.

Feeling trapped may indeed be the point. As Smriti Joshi, chief psychologist at the mental health platform Wysa and a fan of The Bear, pointed out to me in an email, Season 3 begins right after Carmy is freed from the walk-in refrigerator where he spent the final moments of Season 2 temporarily imprisoned by a broken door.

Everything that went wrong during his meltdown there — accidentally rejecting his girlfriend, alienating his family and staff, unwillingly disappearing on the most important night of his life — has plunged Carmy right back into his past trauma.

Joshi, who felt the season’s repetitiveness was warranted given Carmy’s mental state, told me that his standstill can’t realistically come to a quick end. Instead, his icebox reflections result in him feeling even more “haunted” than he did before. In Season 3, being haunted is played for laughs by the Fak brothers, but the idea is clearly more than just comic relief. Intrusive thoughts like the ones Carmy experiences again and again are like ghosts, too.

“Trauma doesn’t have a neat resolution, and Carmy’s character reflects the messy, often stagnant nature of living with unprocessed pain,” Joshi said.

As someone who covers the depiction of mental health in popular culture, I have admired The Bear‘s handling of the subject. I applauded the first season’s sensitive treatment of suicide loss. Watching the second season, I was struck by how certain storylines subtly pressed chaotic characters into a state of mindfulness.

Trauma doesn’t have a neat resolution, and Carmy’s character reflects the messy, often stagnant nature of living with unprocessed pain.

I think the effort to take viewers deep inside Carmy’s mind was brave, but the season didn’t need to pivot so obsessively around his memories for those of us watching to understand that he’s stuck in damaging ways, or that he’s plagued by intrusive thoughts.

You needn’t look farther than the summer blockbuster Inside Out 2 to see a wholly original and moving depiction of emotional and physiological paralysis. The movie’s culminating scene, in which a teen girl experiences a panic attack observed both from the outside and from within her own mind, doesn’t take more than a few minutes to make its point.

Of course, an animated feature is not a 30-minute television “comedy,” but every form of entertainment can draw power from trusting its audience.

I am personally rooting for The Bear‘s next season to claw its way out of the claustrophobic world it has constructed for its characters. Though permanently trapping Carmy in arrested development may be truer to reality, The Bear‘s biggest champions watch because they believe that something beautiful can be salvaged from the mess of every character’s life.

Hollywood seems to understand the brilliance of The Bear‘s past seasons, too. On July 17, the show earned a record 23 Emmy nominations for a comedy.

Because of the eligibility calendar, those accolades recognize Season 2, which aired profound episodes of television. These include “Forks,” in which Richie arguably becomes self-actualized, and “Fishes,” a masterful if tense portrayal of family dysfunction guest starring Jamie Lee Curtis as Carmy’s mother, who misuses alcohol in ways that devastate her children.

Barring a couple standout episodes in Season 3, including the return of Curtis in “Ice Chips,” I would be surprised if The Bear garners the same awards-season praise next year.

The show is at a crossroads. Liberating it from the oppressive tendencies of Season 3 could look like cutting a path toward post-traumatic growth for Carmy. Joshi said she’d love to see him reframe negative thoughts so that they’re more positive and compassionate, and to make the space to process his trauma.

Frank conversations with his mother, Richie, and his sister, Sugar (Abby Elliott), about their difficulties with self-compassion could help too, along with individual grief therapy to fully grapple with the death of his brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal).

“Although it might not make for explosive TV, if Carmy experienced post-traumatic growth, viewers would gain valuable insight into the genuinely difficult work it takes to overcome intertwined grief and trauma,” Joshi said.

This may sound too prescriptive, or like a recipe for turning The Bear into a predictable show about the virtues of therapy. But I hope its creators and writers ultimately transform Carmy, slowly but surely, into a fully integrated human being, as Richie might say.

The blueprint for that surfaced this season if you squinted hard enough. Every time Carmy or another character discussed their legacy, in the kitchen or in life, you could see Carmy registering and then suppressing a flicker of recognition that interpersonal conflict could be what he leaves behind, even to those he loves.

But at some point, The Bear has to stop dancing around the menacing titular beast that makes an occasional appearance in Carmy’s nightmares.

“In order to grow, Carmy must face the bear in the cage and let him out,” Joshi said.

All three seasons of The Bear are streaming on Hulu.