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chefkids · 11 months ago

Note

I love your meta!!! It’s amazing that you’re still able to identify and connect new things that the rest of us overlooked. Do you have any predictions for next season? Not just with SydCarmy but also any thoughts about where the show may take us

Thank you!

I think a big focus of next season is going to be on their lives intertwining and their families coming together. Season 3 ended with Richie, Nat, Carmy, and Sydney all coming together to open the restaurant and including her in their core group like family. And like Ayo and everyone in the show has said, this is all about chosen family and real family. But I also think a lot of bad shit is going to happen, especially at the very start of the season.

After Carmy practically begging to meet Sydney's dad, I do think Emmanuel and Carmy will finally meet. I do not think he is going to like Carmy at the start. He is very sceptical of their whole arrangement, he knows Sydney quit for a minute and might have heard Sydney talk shit about him. And if he ever finds out what went down on opening night, I don't think he'll be too happy with Carmy. But I do think they will eventually bond and get to know each other, I think including that Sydney's dad was sober from alcohol is going to be a big conversation for them.

I think they were alluding for Natalie having some sort of complication maybe preeclampsia with her shoulder pain. I think she's going to give birth sooner rather than later. Natalie giving birth is going to bring Donna back and is what is going to get Carmy and his mother to finally see each other again after seemingly years apart.

I also think Donna and Sydney will meet. I think Natalie and Sydney are both going to try to get Carmy to at least try to give his mother a chance because they are both much more optimistic and forgiving people than him. I think it's going to cause a lot of tension between all of them because Carmy doesn't want Sydney seeing that side of his family.

Sydney's share/ownership of the restaurant comes back into question. I also think Carmy getting more credit/recognition than her in reviews or press will bother her. I think she will basically say that this place is not really hers. Someone tries to poach Sydney, Carmy freaks out. Sydney starts to consider if it is worth staying if another good opportunity comes along.

Marcus' mom is dead and gone. RIP to that lady. I think grief and how they all deal with it differently will be a big theme. Carmy ignored his grief for a long time and tried to use work to fix things. Sydney and her dad still keep her mom's memory alive but she still struggles with letting others know about her grief. I think Marcus will be letting others help him and be there for him and Sydney will be there for him. I think this will bring back things Carmy about his own grief and how he's still dealing with it.

Luca returns to fill in for him for a bit and emotional support for Marcus. Which I think will also bring us to see Competitive Carmy in full force as goes into Michelin Mode, for Syd's sake. No amusement or enjoyment. I also think this will kinda turn the crew against Carmy as they'll prefer Sydney, they kind of already do. Especially considering she was more involved in training them and in the build than he was. Plus she's just nicer than him.

Sydney will overwork herself and burn out, she won't trust Carmy on his own and will inevitably put a lot of pressure on herself. She's not going to want to quit or stop but Carmy and her Dad will be pressuring her to slow down because she's making herself sick. I think a large focus of Season 3 will be on their energy. In Season 1 it was all about the pressure of money, Season 2 about time pressure, and now they need to find the energy to keep going because they need to make back money in a set time frame. The focus on energy and their internal dynamics between them, rather than external issues like things in restaurant being broken.

Jealous Carmy. When he realizes Marcus likes Syd more than a friend, he's going to view everyone as competition and a threat, even though he's still to scared to do anything about it. I think Sydney will grow closer to Marcus and Richie and maybe even Luca or new guy Connor, not in any romantic way, but it is going to bother Carmy a lot that she never spends any time with him and that they know her outside of work but he doesn't.

Menu overhaul is inevitable, aside from Marcus dishes, most of the menu is not that remarkable and they really need to pull out new interesting ideas if they want a star. I'm sure we will see a lot more of Syd and Carmy actually testing recipes together. Carmy is just not as creative as Sydney when it comes to food, he struggled with the chaos menu. Mostly as Carmy's way to force proximity with Syd when she doesn't want to be around him.

I'm also still rooting for the return of the short rib risotto and the missing acid chaos ingredient. They have to bring it back.

Tina and/or Richie straight up comment on Sydcarmy. I think Tina knows and suspects a lot more than she lets on. She is very observant and protective over Sydney. She's overheard and seen a lot of what has been going down between them. She's going to put Carmy in his place and scare him a little on Sydney's behalf.

Richie on a similar note is going to put 2 and 2 together on what Carmy is feeling and basically tell him to stay away from Sydney because he doesn't want a Claire 2.0 to happen to her and he probably feels like Carmy does not even deserve Sydney in any way and he would just fuck things up for everyone at the restaurant.

Natalie finally says something to him and that's what finally gets him to do something and stop bottling everything in. She never commented on his relationship to anyone except Sydney, and that was more so to get her in the loop and protect her, because she knew Carmy was leading her on while seeing Claire and not telling her. She's going to subtly or not so subtly ask him wtf he is doing. I also think Jimmy fully thought Sydney was his girlfriend.

Fire Suppression System will tested for real with an actual fire. I have a lil theory that Sydney is going to be the one to accidentally start a fire next season. The fire suppression test was all a metaphor for Syd and Carmy suppressing their feelings and the spark/fire that they have. At the end of season 1 Carmy started a grease fire after Sydney quit, because he couldn't suppress his sadness and feelings for her. In season 2 they passed the fire suppression and Carmy decided to declare Claire his girlfriend. They managed to contain their feelings, but eventually they still came out with Carmy and his panic attack. But now I'm sure Sydney is going to be the one trying to suppress feelings because of how everything went down, and I think it will just blow up in her face literally and metaphorically. They spent so much time explaining the fire suppression system and the electrical wiring and the amperage of it all, that I think it's going to come into play again.

Carmy uses Sydney for emotional support without her realizing. When he texted her because he needed her comfort and forgiveness before opening Mikey's note, she didn't know that was what was happening. When he had panic attack and thought of her to calm down he used her for comfort, but she doesn't know all that. I think he's going to tell her or show her that she is his comfort person. I also think we will also see Sydney eventually reach for him for support and comfort as well.

Sydney's catering days and UPS flashback. Please I am begging. We need more of her lore. I think next season will be a lot of seeing her as more independent and being the boss, we only just started to see her at her peak performance in the last episode. I think we'll see more of her evolution, and also her flighty nature. She went from restaurant to restaurant. I think the idea of her leaving The Bear will hang around all season, but she won't leave.

Claire apology then goodbye within the same episode. Sorry to that girl. I think Carmy was already planning to breakup with her after he had the panic attack and the talk with Uncle Jimmy, which is why he freaked out when after he saw her at dinner. I don't think there would be much place for her unless they throw her into some hospital scenes with maybe Nat or Sydney being sick. I think her work here is done. I think she might make other appearances with the Faks. They are close family friends. Maybe she's friends with the elusive Francie Fak that everyone is dying to know what happened between her and Nat.

I think Richie will try to work elsewhere for a bit. He wants to prove that he doesn't need Carmy and that he can succeed without him. I think he'll come back when Sydney asks him to. The situation with him and Tiff feels very 50/50 to me. On the one hand I think it could be him learning to move on from his ex, on the other hand I think Chris and Joanna are all about second chances and I could see Tiff seeing Richie change and wanting to give things another chance.

I also think there's opportunity to see another city like we did with Copenhagen. I'm still rooting for Carmy to take Syd to Noma before it shuts down. I could also see a New York flashback episode with Carmy working at Eleven Madison and Sydney going on her NYC food tour and their whole invisible string coming together.

Not in this season, but The Bear Cookbook will happen. Trust.

And The Psychedelic Musical Episode. A girl can dream. But I do think we'll get another karaoke scene, maybe with the whole crew going out after a shift and just letting loose for once.

#the bear #the bear meta #sydcarmy #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #chefs kiss #the bear fx

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yannaryartside · 2 months ago

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I think you are pretty on the spot here.

I think Stprer said s3 represented being trapped in the freeze response, which is one of the subconscious methods of reacting to danger. Fight and flight are the other two. Most of our reactions to danger are created in early childhood. If you run away from conflict, you probably associate conflict with danger, and you are inclined to the flight response.

So Carmy is trapped in the freeze response, and that has caused the regression.

It is interesting how ending his relationship with Claire was not only the event for Carmy entering the freeze response but also his memories of her, which seem to keep him stuck. The show played it like all romantic, like "Oh, he needs her", but at the same time, it was interesting how the more he thought of her, the worse his mental state became. The closest he was to call her this season, he literally had to lock himself in the freezer again.

Claire is the freezer and the regression. Many other blogs mentioned this association with ice and Claire. They met in the cold section in a supermarket. The blue tints in the memories.

Has anybody also wondered if some of Claire and Carmy's "memories" could have been the product of his imagination? I remember someone pointed out that Claire being present at Donna's car accident was odd because Carmy said he told her that story last season, so why would he tell her that if she was there? Did he not remember she was there?

Anyhow, fantastic meta. Looking forward to your future posts.

Carmy: Regression

This might be the craziest/stupidest take for s3 of The Bear but whatever. I had talked about how s3 was about isolation and guilt before. What if it was also about regression (at least for Carmy’s character)?

Sydney is (re)meeting a award-winning chef of fine dining. Sydney thought about leaving the bear (officially) but still came back in s1/thought about leaving the bear which lead to the panic attack in s3.

Carmy and Richie are back to fighting like in s1 with Marcus and Sydney between them.

I need more time to think about this but I think the whole purpose was about life going full circle and s4 is (hopefully) about fully breaking the cycle.

I’m basically implying this season was a giant defense mechanism. Don’t take my word for it! I’m just getting back into writing metas after a hiatus.

Carmy was always used to the routine and being stressed in fine dining. He still talked about how that experience was “everything” even when he discussed having stomach problems. He also says that he lost track of time then mikey passed away.

In s3, I’m fairly certain Carmy says that he’s tired or sick of it. That could mean that he’s been trying to get back into that state/routine and it’s not working this time.

“an attempt to achieve something important.” Like getting a star for a restaurant perhaps? “a sense of security, reciprocated love, and trust.” hmm…

I have also discussed how Carmy and Claire are basically reminiscing on their “high school” days in their relationship. Couldn’t that fit for the “feeling of childhood innocence” that’s stated in the article?

I feel like I’m not making any sense but also think i’m beginning to crack the code at the same time so I’ll just leave this here for now.

Authors Note: I wrote this yesterday on Twitter before the promo that just recently came out. This is not a complete meta but I thought I’d put it here so I could see if anyone agrees or disagrees with these thoughts! I’m glad to be sort of back after a fairly long hiatus! @thoughtfulchaos773 made a video with Carl Jung coincidentally enough. I might be closer to the truth than I thought lol.

#very good use of the definitions #amazing meta #on the spot #sydcarmy #the bear #sydney adamu #the bear fx #carmy berzatto #the bear meta #carmen berzatto #carmy x sydney #carmy the bear #sydney x carmy

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sydcarmyfan · 7 months ago

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Thank you to everyone in the SydCarmy fandom

Before all the episodes are released tomorrow and everything goes wild on socials, I want to thank all of you. Thank you for those who wrote the fanfics. Thank you for those who wrote and shared their bear meta. Thank you for all the amazing GIFs. Thank you for the SydCarmy fanart. Thank you for this space.

Please remember to stay hydrated, and keep a napkin handy when you are watching s3. We may not get what we desire at the end of the season, but we haven’t come this far to come this far! In the words of The Bear, Keep Going Lizards!

#‘Twas the night before s3 episodes are released #sydcarmy

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gingergofastboatsmojito · 2 months ago

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"After stuckness comes unstuckness"

Reasons why we won

Been working on this meta for 3 days now, but it's worth it.

This confirms what I have been saying in my #Gingerpovs all along. Remember to follow that tag if you want to have a more comprehensive and historical perspective about my meta (and Sydcarmy predictions that have checked out so far), here's what I curated so far in preparation for S4, or as I always called it: The Sydcarmy ENDGAME season.

But first: Let's not forget that Landgraf is a Disney employee and so is Storer.

Here we go, please watch:

Source: Ringer Movies

“You’re at the point now where if you want more than one season of pickup, we can do it. And it may help you because you have actors that are movie stars now; they’re going to want to go do other things, and you can figure out when you’re going to make the shows and when to release them.” And they said, “No, we can’t work that way. We only want one season.” So we picked up one.

What Landgraf is not saying is that this convo he's referring to happened right after S2's amazing numbers started coming in, back in 2023.

Before the Grand Slam happened in Q1 2024:

So this "change of heart" that Storer had when he called Landgraf back once he already got to work on S3 to accept the 4th season that had previously been offered and turned down, took place right after DISNEY FX offered him an obscenely higher amount of money to reconsider, right AFTER THE GRAND SLAM. So Storer had material for a 4th season but ONLY IF he made S3 the LEGERDEMAIN season it ended up being, meaning if he saved for later THE MEAT THE SYDCARMY ENDGAME. And even then Storer said: "I can split the material I have in 2 seasons but only if I have total creative freedom for S3 and can make of it what I please", which BTW was never off the table, but he specifically agreed under that condition because he wanted to deliver a season that he knew was gonna be heavy on the 'stuckness' and mental health breakdown and how the road to recovery from trauma is not linear and it affects everyone else around, like in his real life, aka: an unpopular season.

So instead of delivering a final 3rd season that was 50%/50% (50% blue period / 50% rosé and ending on a happy note), he went for the 3rd season we all watched (100% blue) and a 4th and final season where all that "Stuckness" is gonna get unstuck, as Landgraf is SPOILING (The rosé period where they are gonna win the Star, which I think will be the scenario where Sydcarmy will blossom, because by the time they rotate to the SPRING MENU, the star will be announced, seeing as the spring menus are typically the Masterpieces of all Michelin starred restaurants, so they will most likely win it with it)

But the scripts for S4's last lap (THE SERIES FINALE) are still in the WR as we speak, the reason being that by the time that "double season pickup" was agreed upon (when Storer was offered more money) and that's why he changed his mind, HE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH MATERIAL FOR A 4TH SEASON, HE HAD TO YET COME UP WITH IT:

He may have had a 4th season in mind like I have at least 4 more FF I wanna write and have already been thinking about, some of which I have already plotted, sure! But no, I don't have them yet. So that was a white lie or a literary license Landgraf took when telling this story, TIMING MATTERS.

How will Storer go about that "unstuckness"?

Like this:

Please note that Screenrant used to be a C person stand when Storer was still trying to make that character happen. Now they don't seem to remember her name :)

It all points to Syd, as I always anticipated:

Moreover, it all points to Sydcarmy:

Check the Bonus Track please:

And there is more that Screenrant article is spoiling with complete and total greenlight of Disney and Storer themselves because if you think that Bear S4 INFOMERTIAL was published on the same day as the 2025 Disney promo, S4 teaser and just a couple of weeks after Landgraf said, and I quote:

"THOSE THAT HAVE STAYED WITH IT, THEY'RE GOING TO BE REALLY WELL REWARDED."

think again.

He is in other words saying, all those things you have been bitching about, aka: LACK OF SYDCARMY, LESS CALO, STUCKNESS, and more stuff I went over here, WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF and it's NOT GONNA BE ANOTHER "UNPOPULAR" SEASON. JUST BE PATIENT.

So, that means that we, truthers, may end up having to thank Donna for being THE plot device who brings Syd & Carmy together. Let's not fall into the red herring's trap Storer set for us in that teaser. She's not a DANGER as we all first thought, this new Donna, is a bridge that will connect her son, once he buries the hatchet with her and Syd together. If we think about it, one of the main reasons why Carmy and Syd are not together yet is his trauma, and Donna and his troubled relationship with her are the root cause of it, so once Carmy heals that trauma, having a healthy and loving relationship with a woman, any woman, will be attainable. AKA: BYE C / HI HELLO SYD (which would finally make the edition of the scene below make total sense).

Scratch the "could" because we already know she stayed and signed the agreement as I have been announcing since FOREVER and not just because I'm a truther but because it makes sense plot-wise in terms of Carmy's redemption arc.

Bonus track: UNDER THE TABLE SYDCARMY PODCAST 20TH EP For more details about S4 and more predictions and theories, etc, please listen to our podcast on Mixcloud.

Shoutout to @unladyboss for the YT vid.

Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs 💋

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yannaryartside · 7 months ago

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Shapiro’s angle

I don't think this guy is bad news, or a bad guy per se.

I think he is just an opportunist. And I think he is doing this mostly for himself.

I may be wrong, but for me, the most on-the-nose foreshadowing about Shapiro was Luca telling him:

"Are you getting your sticky fingers on everything again?"

This was right before he asked to talk to Sydney (about the partnership) at Ever's funeral. It was definitely a sign.

Now, it could be a warning about his bad intentions; sticky fingers could be related to wanting to trap someone and never let them go. Maybe Syd should have Pete revise that new partnership agreement.

Mostly, I have a hard time thinking Andrea Terry would have a CDC that was actually toxic or damaging; his true colors would have shown at some point, and she would have known. Maybe that's me being optimistic. Maybe he would show his actual colors when he doesn't have to answer to anybody. Luca hasn't seemed to get awful vibes from him, either.

FINGERPRINTS OF LEGACY

But I associate the sticky fingers comment more with Shapiro wanting to get a "fingerprint" on Sydney. The way a fingerprint may alter the presentation of a fine ceramic plate. Is about marking it as yours, it was in your hands.

Shapiro may think that he has gotten as good as he can get on his own merit, he said he would have stayed with Andrea forever if she hadn't closed Ever, which is a remark on his lack of ambition as a cdc. I think he may be a chef who (also, as he said) is tired of the all-day cooking job, but he still wants to get some glory under his name without all the work. Proteges are a good way to do that.

The only thing about Sydney he knows that could indicate her potential (besides her cooking, which he only tested once) is that she works for Carmen. Carmen has been awarded the best in the world, and the fact that he sees something in Sydney may be enough for Shapiro to bet on her (and a huge bet, considering how much freedom he promised her). Now, what kind of mentor would he be? I would like to think he will try to be Andrea and see where it gets him.

He may have seen the bear's kitchen's obvious lack of functionality and seen it as an opportunity to steal Carmy's best asset from him while she is still unknown by the industry. She could become more expensive to get in the future if she gets a name under Carmen. Shapiro has better chances to get her now. He may even say in the future that he was the only one capable of forming her like a chef while Carmy didn't.

So yeah, he is making a bet on an unknown asset with the hope that it will pay off later since Carmys is not looking. We don't know much about his character besides the fact that at Ever, everyone was cool with him.

I DON'T WANT SYDNEY TO FAIL OR GET SCREWED

Besides how much I care for her—I know it sounds obvious—I don't think it would be a good narrative for the show either way.

Because she has survived Carmy, that has been horrible, but in terms of women in the workplace, at least she doesn't have to worry about being exploited (or other horrible things that we know could happen in these spaces) because Carmy cares about her well-being, the same as the rest of the family.

So, if she hypothetically goes with Shapiro because her voice is being drowned under Carmy's madness, and then Shapiro screws her over, and Carmy has to rescue her.

I am sorry, fuck that.

Because what is the lesson on that? Women should stick around toxic behavior, being grateful that at least they are not taken advantage of? Better the devil you know than the one you don't? Sydney is very capable, and you will punish her for believing in herself?

image by @gingergofastboatsmojito

#I know is more common for women to get screwed over #but i have also heard good mentorships happening in kitchens #some amazing cdc-ec duos #regardless of gender #i would be good to see it #idk #shapiro if i catch you #the bear #sydney adamu #sydcarmy #the bear fx #the bear meta #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #carmy the bear #carmy x sydney #sydney x carmy

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doubleappled · 1 year ago

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Yessss I love these thoughts.

I am rewatching Fishes too, slowly and with subtitles to try not to get so caught up in the flood of emotion, and this part about Claire really stands out when you read the dialogue:

The manic rapid-fire pace �� there’s almost never a moment when there aren’t multiple lines of multiple people talking over each other on the screen

The way Richie and Mikey feed off each other and the desperation in it

The positioning of the scene so that Carmy’s back is literally against the wall

How even Stevie — coded as “gay,” “citified,” “different” — gets a little caught up in their bro-y bullshit and participates in the dogpile (until Donna throws the spoon at him… foreshadowing?)

Also the way Storer and co aren’t afraid to make Richie a really gross bully in this scene, moments before they’re showing us the softest and most desperate version of him in the scenes with Tiff and Cicero. Carmy REALLY calls him out for objectifying Claire — “homie, you’re having a child” — even in the midst of the onslaught.

I also love the way that scene lays the subtle groundwork for Carmy to want to build something different with Syd — a kitchen where ECs aren’t cruel, and also where women aren’t objectified because it’s just not part of the culture. Carmy isn’t afraid to call out Richie’s behavior when he’s being a sexist dick toward Syd in the kitchen either, even at the very beginning when he’s banging his head against the brick wall of the Beef’s existing culture.

In conclusion, this episode and this show are so good let’s talk about them forever

Just thoughts...

I'm on a claire/syd journey again. It's because the scene where Mikey and Richie try to hook up Claire with Carmy captivates me; Claire had to be written on purpose as the manic pixie dream girl, as a way for Carmy to explore damaging masculine traits by objectifying Claire like his brother, Richie, and Fak.

As the story progresses, Carmy empathizes and relates to Pete and Steven. Watching scene 2x06, Carmy calms down and attempts to listen when Richie and Mikey bring Steven in and explain that they saw Claire.

Besides Claire's looks showing up in the dialogue, Carmy is also known to call out behavior where women are objectified.

Why make objectification a part of the story? Does it analyze masculinity? Does it show us the only way men can connect and find solace is by objectifying women?

We're analyzing Carmy finding himself. It's an adult coming-of-age story as Carmy finds independence and decides what he wants. Family can mean well, but it comes to a point where Carmy has to mean well for himself. He has to move on from Mikey and make his own decisions.

This is where Syd comes in; it's mentioned here that Sydney was Carmy's choice/ There's a heavy dose of emotional attraction to match the physical between them. He hears her needs and wants, and he's trying to learn about her, for Sydney's character objectification is absent.

Carmy is on a journey of self-discovery of what masculinity means to him.

I don't have an ending, really just thoughts...

#sydcarmy #the bear #the bear meta #she’s all that and a fucking basket of biscuits is amazing tho #and Carmy IS a mopey little fuck but in the best possible way #I love him and this show beyond reason #thank you for starting this off thoughtfulchaos!!

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doubleappled · 1 year ago

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Just posted part 3 of the Endgame series, whew!

We’ve got Syd’s NYC meal, we’ve got Nat’s baby, we’ve got food and eating and restaurants — and, at last, these two earn their E rating.

And once again, writing this has been faster and more fun and more compelling than anything I’ve ever done before, thanks in part to the AMAZING sydcarmy meta writers here. All of you astonish me with your insight and curiosity every day.

#the bear #sydcarmy #the bear fic #sydcarmy fic #chefs kiss #the bear is a love story

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persephonelovesbooks · 1 year ago

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"About the Blogger" meme

It's been ages since I've done one of these. Thanks a lot, Curry! @currymanganese for the shout-out!! here we go 🤠

Star Signs: Cancer Sun, Aquarius moon, Libra rising

Favourite Holiday : Christmas is my no .1 fav. There are so many great memories associated with the Holiday season. The lights, the presents,and of course, the FOOD!! Onam is a close second with its vibrancy and the spirit of togetherness !

Last meal: PB&J

Current favourite musician: I'm a Hoe for Hozier. Always playing him on loop. Also recently I've been obsessed with Mitski also. She's divine!!!! Other Favs include Florence Welsh, Paris Paloma, Pink Floyd, Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys, Phoebe Bridgers, Radiohead and also been listening to songs by REM( thanks to The Bear)

Last music listened to : Chemtrails over the country club by Lana. Her voice! 😫♥️

Last movie watched : May December . Brilliant!!! Natalie Portman knocked it out of the park!

Last TV watched : Derry Girls . Excellent writing and performance. Watching also Abbott Elementary cuz I heard Ayo is in it! That too is a laugh fest.

Last book finished : Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Clarke is a gifted wordsmith.

Last book abandoned : oh lawwdd there's so many. I've been an ardent practitioner of tsundoku lately.

Currently reading: A lot of The Bear fanfics, hell yeah!! Absolutely a fan of Curry's fic Why Can't We Be Friends . Yo when's the next update tho!!

Last thing researched for art/writing : The Scream by Edvard Munch to take a class on it.

Fav online fandom memory: oh gosh, I've been here on Tumblr since 2012 or so and I've been pretty seriously involved in fandom stuff. I guess my fav memory would be the bonding we all had ,the really interesting convos, the delectable meta and ultimately the joy of sharing a common interest and making a bunch of amazing friends ❤️

My case with fandoms is that I've got seasonal obsessions. Right now it's Sydcarmy from The Bear. I wasn't part of any fandoms for a long time because of academics , job hunting and everything. So SydCarmy feels pretty special. It just brought me straight back to my old glory days. I'm constantly blown away by the fire ass meta and the analyses here . Cannot wait for S3.

Woohoooo, this was fun ✨️🥳

I'm tagging everyone who wants to do this

Thanks for reading, lovelies 💖

#tag game #get to know the Blogger #cool game #@currymanganese #tagging all my mutuals

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gingergofastboatsmojito · 23 days ago

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This is the price Carmy had to pay to become the man he has to be for Syd

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That is why this song was the soundtrack of such a "breaking point" kinda scene.

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Lyrics

I've been missing you for so many days I keep wanting you, Lord, in so many ways I can't get you off of my mind But true love is so hard to find

I want yet another day Ooh, I need another day Darling, let me have another more day And I can be anything that you want me to be, now

The sweet things you used to do to me Sometimes, Lord, you used to say them to me I can't forget those lovely days But this is the price I'm about to pay

Ooh, I want another day You can let me have just one more day Ooh, I need one more day And I will do anything that you want me to do, now

I will do anything that you want me to do, now Say anything that you want me to say Buy you anything you want me to buy And I can cherish you till the day I die

If you let me have another day Please let me have one more day Ooh, I want just one more day, Lord And it could be anything that you want it to be

Ooh no, ooh Just one more day now You can let me have just another day, now Please I want to stay and the day after and the day after And I want all the days I want all the days I want you here I want you here by my side And I don't want you to leave me And I can love you long for the rest of my life I cry and cry and cry and cry and cry, oh my Lord

Please, let me have just one more day, oh my Just another day, just another day I want all the days Let me have, let me have all my days, my days I need 'em, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta I gotta have just all the days, I need 'em

I don't reckon those lyrics gotta be meta-explained, they are pretty self-explanatory. Especially this part:

"But true love is so hard to find

I want yet another day Ooh, I need another day Darling, let me have another more day And I can be anything that you want me to be, now"

That song choice only makes sense in this context of foreshadowing that Carmy was "almost there" and after that scene, he's finally ready.

The song in this context was actually about Carmy needing to pass this final confrontational test and react like the NEW CARMY would not like his old dysfunctional self would have. He passed it with flying colors.

S4 is gonna be amazing, he has pretty much no more excuses and Syd also got to her breaking point that night, so she doesn't have excuses either.

Yes, it's gonna be messy, but it's also gonna be quick, Sydcarmy is ready to be served.

We just need HANDS! at this point (Storer's and Calo's).

Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs 💋

#the bear #sydcarmy #sydcarmy meta #the bear meta #carmy meta #sydney adamu #carmy berzatto #the bear fx #carmy x sydney #carmen berzatto #carmy is the one #the bear season 4 gingerpredictions #the bear hulu #syd x carmen #the song was about CARMY needing to pass that final confrontation test and react like the NEW CARMY would #Youtube #Sydcarmy endgame #gingerpovs

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yannaryartside · 1 year ago

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Ok I had to reblog this because man...you put such care and attention into this and I keep reading it and stopping and taking it all in, is amazing.

On Season 1, Episode 7 Part Three : Risottogate

OK look,

Go and get yourself an ecto cooler or something, cus this is long, OK? This is long.

You comfortable?

Alright, let’s go.

don't forget the Xanax!

Elevated Beef (stock)

There’s a connection drawn between Sydney and veal stock in the Bear. She spills it all over herself during Brigade. Claire interrupts Carmy purchasing veal stock for menu testing her bone broth idea at the end of 2:2. It’s an interesting ingredient to align her with: a staple of French cuisine, something you’ll find in a professional high end kitchen but not necessarily at home, a distinctive, practical component which provides a subtle, solid umami base for a range of dishes.

The first time this connection is drawn is during one of my favourite interactions: the ‘plum haribo’ story in Brigade. Marcus has decorated his work station (I love him), and despite the fact that Carmy says he’s having flashbacks (eeeeeeek), I think he is happy to see this coming together of his two worlds.

They start talking about this fancy plum dish, and a gelee component (which will reappear in Honeydew!) that had to have a very specific texture. Carmy has been talking about the dedication needed to make this dish work with pride, presenting the texture of the gelee as a huge challenge, something it took someone a year to figure out. Sydney cracks it in less than a minute. Veal fat. She knows what’s needed, and she knows why: it congeals when it’s cold. Boom!

Carmy’s response to this always amuses me. He is not…dismayed exactly. Not quite. After all, it’s a reminder of her brilliance, and also that that world is not so far away. That being said, she cuts across a punchline here; and what was a mystery to the best chefs in the world for a year is immediately obvious to her, to the extent that it’s not even really a flex on her part: she states it quite diffidently. Marcus’s gleeful ‘Mission Accomplished’ is very different from Carmy’s, which is a bit more ‘…oh.’.

On rewatches where I feel charitable, Carmy then implements the brigade cus he's been reminded that he has someone close by from that world, he has an ally that speaks his language, who is talented. On days when I feel less charitable, I combine this with him later talking her through the differences between stock/jus/demi-glace in front of Tina like an asshole, and see him handing the brigade over at that specific moment, in the specific way that he does as passive aggressive. Most days I’m with the former! Still…we’re back in the grey areas of Syd and Carmy’s dynamic. Where all the good shit is!

He's so glad she figured that out so quickly, absolutely not feeling a type of way about it, nope, not at all

I wanted to start with this story cus it opens up three things for me:

a) just a frisson, a hint, a delicious drop (!) of competition between Syd and Carmy

b) the question, beloved by fanfic writers everywhere, of what the dynamic between these two might have been if they had met in a different context.

c) a third, messier thing, about Carmy going away, tooling up, coming back and it needing to be worth something, that going way. As far as he knows at this point, It didn’t achieve what it was meant to achieve, it didn’t get Mikey’s attention. Maybe he didn’t need to leave Chicago to do it. Sydney's talent tickles that tension, as does Marcus's (trios, trios!). So what was it for? What were the past few years of his life for, if a bunch of this stuff was in Chicago all along?

Who was Carmy away from Chicago? Who is he without his family? We’ve only seen one flashback so far, very much from inside Carmy’s head. The way he tells it is very different from what we see. At Al Anon, he describes himself like this:

‘when somebody new came into the restaurant to stage, I’d look at them like they were competition, like I’m gonna smoke this motherfucker’.

But you're tall and sexy, so don't worry about it babes

Gosh. Yes Chef!

I don’t think Carmy holds anything like this level of aggression towards any of the original staff of the Beef: it would be absurd: they don’t have his training or experience. For the most part we see doing the work of pulling a team together, which explicitly involves putting that kind of competitiveness to the side.

I don’t think he has this energy for Sydney.

Not quite.

I do think it’s an important thing for us to learn about his character. I do think that we are told it at the beginning of Episode 8, after Sydney has quit, because there are ugly feelings around the risotto dish. I do think that those feelings drive a lot of how Review goes down, and that Carmy knows this.

This ferocious comparison and competition, used as a driving force, is a part of who Carmy is, and a part of the kitchens that he has come from. In another context, Sydney would have just been competition. And he’d have been trying to smoke her.

Let’s follow a humble bowl of risotto through THREE EPISODES, and about 5000 words, good GOD.

Tracing the Journey of the Risotto: Unanticipated

I tried to find appetising pics of her cooking the risotto but mostly it doesn't look very aesthetic, so here is Syd in my fave of her scarves.

A Risotto, playing on ‘tongue in cheek’ is first tentatively pitched in Sheridan, as an idea for a new menu that they have ‘spoken about’. Carmy is… noncommittal. He’s not into it, but he doesn’t say that, he just doesn’t really engage. I think there are a bunch of valid reasons to not be into it, tbh. I’ve ordered risotto to go. It’s always kind of gluey and disappointing. Sydney isn’t given a clear no, so she decides to cook it: it becomes something she has to convince him on.

He doesn’t get to try it in this episode as there are drugs to sell and about a million different fires to fight. We know that she dreams about this dish though. In this episode she talks about how thinking about her mistakes with Sheridan Road keep her up at night, but the last images of the episode are of her dreaming: beef… raspberries… cola… fire: there it is. Cola braised short rib. We’re back in the realm of deeply personal creative expression that I spoke about in part two. That anxious energy around failing with Sheridan Road? Is going somewhere else, is being transformed. This is important, and has the potential to be profoundly healing. This dish has meaning for her.

The dish returns in Ceres. Syd is an unstoppable force with the dish, and having said she wants to be listened to, is not listening to several requests from Carmy for more time. Stressful! He deals with it well, at first. He is calm, and polite and asks her to hold on. Which is not a no. But then -

‘I know everybody you used to work for, I called them before hiring you’

oooooh weeee.

There is nothing wrong with him seeking out references. His reasons are logical, and he’s transparent about them. Personally? I think it’s sensible to let employees know you’re seeking out references to avoid paranoia, but it’s not a legal requirement. People do it informally via whisper networks all the time, both purposefully and by accident. Gotta say though, the phrasing and the timing of this ‘reveal’ made me wince.

There are a million different theories of feedback, of how to give and receive it well. One argues that feedback must be asked for, accurate and measurable. If it’s not measurable, then you are nitpicking. If it’s not accurate, you’re hating. If it’s not asked for, or at least delivered in an environment where it’s anticipated, it is unlikely to be received well. Carmy, unfortunately, delivers a whopper of unanticipated feedback here: ‘me and all your old bosses (I know EVERYONE YOU USED TO WORK WITH)have been talking about you and they all agree on this flaw’.

YIKES

Would I let Syd stab me for a bowl of this? Maaaaybe. Maybe.

My reading is that he wanted to ask for her patience, and to say that his decision to pace out the changes is coming from experience, but he’s being backed into a corner, so he summons up the spectre of her old bosses for back up. Syd had opened up last episode, and is still very vulnerable about Sheridan, so he unintentionally wounds her here. We can read this in her response. He says her employers said she was smart, talented, green and impatient, she hears ‘me and everyone you’ve worked for think your business failed because you were green and impatient, that’s why you’re here, and why this dish can’t go on the menu’. This dish is getting entangled in so many other things about where they’ve come from.

He does take the time to reframe it: outlines his practical concerns, and starts to articulate that he wants to maintain calm before they make more changes -

And then Sugar is banging on the door, demonstrating his point.

At this point, Carmy is trying to build a parachute. They don’t have one when Jimmy comes to visit in Hands, but they do have one that becomes Richie’s bail by Braciole. Reserve building takes steady, dull consistency, but this isn’t communicated, and they don’t agree on a timeframe for the menu development, or even to come back to this conversation. This is small stuff, I know I sound nitpicky! But in my experience managing people, tension builds in the unknowns, in the places where there aren’t specifics, especially when you have a team member like Sydney who is ambitious and dynamic.

Sydney is firmly in the realm of the job that Carmy specified here. He is dialling business, she is doing everything else. If you’re a nerd and you zoom in on her CV, she has done menu development before. She is green, but not that green. She is impatient, but she also doesn’t have the same complicated relationship with change at the Beef that pretty much everyone else but Marcus does. The risotto is the first unofficial test of the impact of strain on their (messy ass) working dynamic, to Review’s much more official gauntlet.

Why would they write a proper CV and film it if they didn't want me to spend 5 minutes hitting pause repeatedly until I'd read it?

*squints* designed daily specials with complete creative control! At Alinea! A THREE STAR MICHELIN RESTAURANT! At the time they wrote this, it had held and retained those stars for twelve years! She is not new to this!

Tracing the Journey of the Risotto Two: Unmeasurable

They try again with the risotto later. She is a little more patient, initially. She makes the effort and he thanks her for it. He tries it, which she really wanted (surely that will convince him!), and she has modified her request, from to-gos, to trying it as a special. Her equivalent of baby steps. She listened. She’s trying. Lovely Angel and my main man Ebra come by, taste and support Carmy’s ‘tremendous’.

But here Carmy gives feedback that isn’t measurable. It’s not perfect, but he doesn’t say why, even though he knows, and it’s an easy fix! He’s nitpicking, because he doesn’t, for a bunch of practical reasons, want to put risotto on the menu, but doesn’t want to shoot her down. He asks her if she understands after she has explicitly said that she doesn’t (cus he’s not being up front), and then doesn‘t explain himself. He’s not really asking if she understands, he’s telling her to stop. It’s not really the dish that’s not ready, not really, it’s him, he’s not ready to make a new raft of changes, to think through the gap between the Michelin star excellence he has come from, and the budgetary, practical restrains of where he’s at.

I think this is really fair. Or at least understandable. Carmy just wants to catch a breath, and he has to have oversight on so many different things at once, adding something else to that must feel terrifying. But the way he communicates this shuts down and restricts: he switches the dynamic from one where they listen to each other (which requires that they both explain themselves) to one where he tells and she does. It doesn’t really give her anywhere to go, so her frustration is inevitable and also understandable. Measurable feedback! Clarity. If you don’t want risotto on the menu Carmy, rip the band-aid, and say it, and say why. Get her to work on something that is going to fit with the menu in a different way, in the way that you want, and be clear about the way in which you want to shape it!

He knows he’s not been great here. Carmy apologises for ‘being shitty’ later in the episode (as others have noted, it’s a shit apology) and he also starts his apology with ‘needs acid’ in 1:8. He knows that a lot of Review is to do with this dish.

When Carmy apologises about being shitty later in Ceres, she doesn’t mention that she put the dish out earlier. It’s framed as a little moment of.. if not revenge, then a little something for herself. I think she knows it’s not OK, not really, or she’d have mentioned it, and her face says a lot when she says it’s cool. I’m not a chef, I only ever worked FOH, but my instinct is that its dodgy and it fills me with unease. A grey area. A pop of tension.

Tracing the Journey of the Risotto Three: Hating

Whenever I think about the strikes, I think about the broader ensemble in this show.

The next time the risotto turns up, it’s being mentioned in a review. A lot happens here, so I’m gonna bullet point out all the references, then analyse some of them afterwards. I’m also gonna jump a whole bunch, cus I want to stay tightly focused on the risotto itself, and the dynamic between Syd and Carmy as relates to it:

Ebra reads the review out!

Syd has a lovely, gentle smile for Ebra as he reads it, her whole body relaxes as she taps at the tablet. This validation clearly means a lot to her. Ebra’s dynamic with both Sydney and Marcus is consistently a joy to behold. When he tells her in Dogs that she’s given Marcus a lot of confidence, she glows, and I think it’s something she really needed to hear. He’s subtle about it, but he never makes her life difficult when she implements the brigade. There’s something about the oldest member of the team, reading the review out, a little haltingly cus English isn’t his first language, that doubles down on the love that can be present in the Beef, making it all the more jarring when –

Carmy cuts across this and starts talking about the day’s opening with a ‘stop reading that shit’

Fam ‘that shit’ just described your food as elevated and elegant! In the foodie heaven that is Chicago! In your restaurant which is kind of failing! It’s your team’s first review since you’ve been there! So straight away you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, because what has got his knickers in a twist?

Carmy is justified in being pissed off about Syd’s actions here. What he is not justified in, is not finding a way to celebrate the review itself with his team, who deserve to have this moment. It’s a milestone for them to get some external validation, and the restaurant, quite frankly, needs it. A five star review! Tina squeals with delight when she hears it. Before a new program and a busy shift is the perfect moment to read this out, and go into the work feeling good. A united, gassed up team? Would have killed those to gos.

Sydney is also responsible for this messiness though. In going rogue the episode before, something which could have been about the team becomes about her in a way that is sticky, and it becomes harder to celebrate. It was not her intention, but this is the outcome.

Ebra ignores Carmy

(cus he’s redundant and white JK JK don’t cancel me)

There is a double edged shout out to the team

‘the staff moves are next level’: this is such brilliant, important feedback from a team that has had to weather so much change! Also calls back to Richie: ‘Uh oh, Sydney making moves!’ in the car in Hands.

‘The sandwiches are so delicious as ever, but the standout dish that... that, that encapsulates all, this was the risotto with braised beef. The rice was luscious with a surprising ribbon of brine running through the sauce. The chef obviously knew what she was doing’

THAT REVIEWER IS A SNITCH

Did Syd know that reviewer was a reviewer? I dunno man. Maybe! She’s Chicago born and bred, knows the food scene well. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that she’d recognise him. Maybe she just wanted some good immediate feedback, while she was feeling shitty! Maybe all she wanted was him to send a message back to the kitchen that’s like tell Syd the risotto was great: the impact of his Review but on a much smaller, less disruptive scale.

I think it’s genuine coincidence, which unfortunately looks… not like that. The thing is: the reviewer being a reviewer isn’t what the issue is. The issue is giving food not signed off by her boss to a customer. She'd have never gotten away with that at the places where she was before. Putting the dish out is going rogue, regardless of who she gives it to. It’s not a team move. If Carmy called in her old bosses for back up, she calls in his potential new customers. Eek. EEK.

Sydney desperately tries to get Ebra to shush, to no avail

(extremely funny work from Ayo, but also he’s pissed, and she either already knows it, or already antipates it – it’s hard to get a read on how long they’ve been in and when they learnt about the review)

‘river of brine, huh?’

Carmy, you little snark!!! This is very much his wheelhouse of expressing displeasure, he loves a little jab to the emotional solar plexus. My reading of his line is that what the reviewer tried and what Carmy tried are different, because if it had a ribbon of brine in it, I think that means that there was enough acid. Syd has two dishes, and she’s specific about Carmy trying one and not the other, so my reading here is that Carmy’s POV is not only did a dish go out of my kitchen without my sign off, but it was different from the dish I was given to try. Wince. Wince, wince, wince.

Sydney and Carmy have a fucking excruciating conversation.

Just the worst.

Carmy is not happy, but feels unable to voice this in a way that seems reasonable: he’s busy and stressed about to-gos, he hasn’t moved past the unreasonable feelings of resentment and annoyance to the clarity which enables you to articulate how you feel and why, and because Syd’s gamble paid off! It’s a net positive for the restaurant so it feels counterintuitive to reprimand her, but there is a conversation they need to have. He really does not want to have this conflict, because it’s complicated, and is, like most big blow outs over something small, about so much more than a plate of risotto. He breezes over the conversation, but you can’t start with that ribbon of brine opener and then tell me shit’s not weird.

Compare this to Brigade, when Sydney is asked what’s up, and she is brave enough and vulnerable enough to be like – here are the things that weren’t OK, here are my expectations, here are my boundaries.

On the other side of the conversation, Sydney knows that she has slipped across a slightly odd boundary, but doesn’t acknowledge this. It’s good he liked it! All’s well that ends well. Right? RIGHT? But if he hadn’t? Very different conversation. It doesn’t matter who he is! He could have been anyone - someone that left a weird Instagram comment later, or someone who didn’t finish the meal and complained. Whatever the case may be, giving it to him unofficially was not an act of partnership, or listening, even if the initial communication was shitty.

She knows she’s overstepped, but she doesn’t apologise and doesn’t acknowledge the specifics of what she’s done wrong, because she does not want to have the conflict that could come out of this either. She seeks affirmations that they are OK rather than trying to actually find out how Carmy feels and why, because at this point she doesn’t really want to hear it. She is seeking this conversation out 20 minutes before open! It’s not the time for a thorny, complex discussion.

Compare this to Brigade. Carmy knows Sydney is pissed, and makes the effort to speak to her, in private, armed with the peace offering of Ebra’s Suqaar. He is very careful in that conversation to ask open questions (‘what’s going on with you? Say more?’) that enable her to respond honestly. He persists despite her having her walls up around the fact that she’s pissed. Sydney does not do this. The power dynamic makes it hard, but still. If she wants the connection needed to power reconciliation, that bravery needs to be in play.

are you sure we can't just power through this with sexual tension?

Sweeps congratulates her and tells her she’ll have to tell her dad

Hope Mr Adamu got a newspaper clipping!

Carmy says the sandwiches are totally different and the reviewer is a fucking hack. Syd looks sad.

This moment is why I opened this essay talking about veal stock. We are back in a moment with a gap between what has been said, and what has been heard. The reviewer said the sandwiches were delicious as ever. That’s not a criticism at all! These are not words that justify being called a hack! Carmy is pissed because the reviewer says they are delicious and they always have been, that Carmy has not improved on the staple that was there before him.

And that shit hurts his ego!

His whole thing was going off to learn ‘how to be better than mom and dad’s piece of shit’. We know he’s changed a bunch of things about the sandwiches. In Hands, Sydney mentions that they’ve switched to market produce, which I’m sure is not unrelated to Richie’s ‘You’ve been here for two weeks and we’ve had money problems for two weeks’ in System. In Carmy’s time there, the bread’s changed, the method for cooking the beef has changed, the way they braise onions has changed.

To that customer? Delicious as ever.It’s not a dismissal, or an insult. It is a reminder that Carmy didn’t have to leave, and go through all he went through, that there was delicious food and skills to be learned and refined without it. We know Michael was a talented chef. Even now, with all of where he’s been, Carmy cannot surpass him or his memory.

The person that does surpass that? Is Sydney. With food his palate did not deem good enough! Sydney who has not had to leave Chicago and her family. Sydney who has found a way to be creatively free, even at The Beef, in ways that Carmy has not really been able to, because his primary concern has to be money. There is understandable resentment here. But there is competition to the way Carmy cooks, something to prove, someone to smoke. There are reasonable feelings here, but some of them are really ugly, too.

Tina describes Syd as Jeff’s friend

This is a strange little line – because we know that Tina respects Syd as a chef at this point, and she doubles down on it later when she asks Syd to teach Louis skills, like she herself has been taught. So why’s it there? My feeling is that it’s there to remind the audience of what Syd and Carmy’s relationship is usually like. I wouldn’t call it friendship, I think they operate in a weird place that defies labels, but they have this synergy which drives the business. Tina evoking that in this moment draws attention to the fact that they are not in that space right now.

He's just got a very sweet face, it's hard for me to believe he's in trouble at school

Richie has a loud, performative conversation with Carmy about many things, but for the purpose of this section, he states that they don’t do risotto, asks if they’re going to, and Carmy definitively states that ‘no, they’re not going to do that’ he also repeats Syd’s phrasing that it was ‘an accident’

She stabbed the wrong ass if you ask me!

Nah, but for real, this is nasty work. I’m gonna come back to it in the next (penultimate!) bit of writing about the Beef, the Bear, Richie & Michael, Syd & Carmy. For now, I will simply say that Carmy is doing up major pass agg here, and it’s nasty to watch. He’s really, really unhappy with her, and he’s struggling to hold it in, so it’s coming out in unhelpful and unpleasant ways that feel like humiliations in front of the whole team, and punishment.

There are really valid reasons for Carmy to be annoyed and to not want to talk about it right now. The problem is that If you don’t create a pressure valve you take responsibility for, you will end up a) exploding instead (lol) and/or b) releasing that frustration in unhelpful and harmful ways.

They move towards this with their ASL sorry in Season Two. But here, Carmy says and implies a bunch of things to Richie that he needed to say explicitly to Syd two episodes ago, and two minutes ago: that he has no intention of putting risotto on the menu, and that he thinks her saying it was an accident was bullshit. He wants Syd to know it’s not OK without the hard, painful work of having to engage in conflict with her. It’s shitty.

Sweet Louis asks what a ribbon of brine is

He seems like a good boy, bring him back!

A BUNCH OF STUFF THAT I WILL WRITE ABOUT NEXT TIME HAPPENS

Richie, Syd and Carmy, it’s delicious (a nightmare).

Syd attempts a second conversation with Carmy – having vented some frustration at Richie, and seeing how her workload is piling up and becoming untenable, she is much more open here. Carmy is not.

She’s blunt – we’re not on the same page. Carmy lies and deflects – we’re good, let’s get through the shift. He has his hands on his hips, with as much of his body turned away from her as possible, during this conversation, and walks off half way through it. Even if everything had gone right, this shift would have been a nightmare for Syd.

Everything is awesome!

The penultimate mention of the risotto is here. There is very little I can say that has not been brilliantly said by eatandsleepwell here - https://www.tumblr.com/hourglassfish/726487509540962304/eatandsleepwell-melonatures-this-one-second?source=share so I’m gonna link it.

That’s the last we hear of risotto for now, other than a quick reference to Syd as an arrogant and condescending ribbon of brine from Richie later. It doesn’t turn up on the tasting menu at the Bear, where it defo feels like a riff on risotto could have replaced one of their pasta dishes. That switch from rice to pasta feels pointed.

Spaghetti

Let’s treat The Beef as a character. If Sydney’s ingredient motif is veal stock, then The Beef’s is that family spaghetti.

Cheap and simple. Fucking delicious. Makes no sense and shouldn’t work, but was somehow the best seller on the menu. Distinctively Italian. Stuffed full of drug money(!). Always, always presented at the table with love, like a gift. You can elevate it if you want, but the fact of the matter is that even at its very best, it’s only gonna hit so hard cus it reminds you of simpler times, like the ratatouille (that is not a ratatouille!) from the movie Ratatouille.

Carmy rejects that meal at the top of the series. It ‘doesn’t make sense on the menu’, so he doesn’t care that people loved it. So far, so EMP. When he starts to cook it in episode one, it feels like a relenting to Richie’s bullying, and him throwing WHAT WE NOW KNOW WAS PROBABLY A FEW THOUSAND DOLLARS in the bin at the end of the episode feels like this exhilarating rejection of mediocrity. They change the lines for System, but in the pilot, Carmy literally cannot make the spaghetti, that last lesson from Michael is a real missing puzzle piece.

In Braciole, when he gets the recipe, he goes to cook it, for family. It’s really nice, that scene, feels comparable to Sydney making omelette. It’s quiet, and Carmy seems content, if wistful. The pork instead of beef panic of earlier is put to the side for now. The previous day, Carmy has gone to Al-Anon and confessed, unburdened himself. Then followed two quiet days and a blue hued night of atonement: he reaffirmed his commitment to Richie, paying his bail and keeping watch all night, gave Tina the night off, apologised to Marcus and acknowledged that his behaviour towards Sydney wasn’t acceptable, as well as speaking to her about her dish, like an adult. Carmy has to do all of this before he finds the money, before he gets the validation that he’s really longing for from his brother.

JAW getting his Emmy, his Golden Globe, his SAG Award, his Bafta, his future Oscar Winning role.

If The Bear at its core is about grief, and the void that Michael’s death leaves, then one of the big journeys of Season One is the subsequent death of the Beef, ready for its rebirth as The Bear in the following season. Review is the short sharp stab to the gut, of Sydney leaving, and taking any hope that it can be reformed as is, with her work. I don’t think the nature of a puncture wound, and the shortness of that episode are unrelated.

Braciole is more of a death rattle: Jimmy’s debt keeping them trapped in shitty work they don’t want to do, situations that spiral out of control and descend into violence, their parachute turned to bail money. But Michael wanted more for his brother than that, and he has left him a foundation. He does not have to burn the place down, there need not be smoke and hellfire. There’s another avenue for rebirth, one where ‘set this place on fire’ does not have to mean an insurance scam, but instead can mean an ignition of all their ambition and dreams.

To get there there has to be an ego death first, a moment of hubris that gets our protagonists fresh, and clean, so they can move to the new. Sydney sees and experiences the worst of herself (more on this in the final part!). Richie gets stabbed (more on this in the next part).

Carmy? Carmy has to encountera crisis where not only could his training not save him but many of the lessons he learnt while he was away and his reasons for going in the first place actively made the situation worse, and those that had faith in him and his preferred system turned away from him, deeply hurt. His ego gets in the way of connection, and it shatters the partnership that he needs to make it all work. He is clinging to old ways of being that has not served him, but he needs to move forward into what is new. And he does.

Well.

He tries.

SMDH

WHEW

Another long one, sorry fam. I’m almost there though. Am I sorry? No, I’m grateful if you read it, and I hope you enjoyed it.

I hope I’m pulling this together coherently, that I’m showing a sort of throughline to the way I view Episode 7. I don’t think Sydney is perfect! I do think her walking out is narratively and politically (the show wants better for the workplaces its drawn from) necessary, and I hate, hate, hate the simplification of that decision to ‘he shouted at her so she bailed’. Please, you can’t think this show is well written and think her decision is as simple as that, it doesn’t make sense. That exit is crafted so that it is inevitable, there is a movie’s worth of build up to it.

We’re looking at Richie, Syd and Carmy next time, fam. I am trying so hard to cut it down cus it’s currently sat at 15,000 words, but I’m gonna try really hard to edit down, OK? I’m gonna try really hard.

I can’t respond but I value reblogs and comments so much!

This is part of a five part series! You can find the rest here:

Expect More: Syd and Carmy's relationship,

I know you'll be listening: Marcus, McDonald's and Freedom

Risottogate

Hiring New Fucking Broads: Syd, Richie and conflict;

"That's Not You" The Moment Syd Walks Out

#the bear #carmy berzatto #sydney adamu #the bear meta #the bear hulu #sydcarmy meta #sydcarmy #richie the bear #richie jerimovich #thee most fucking amazing thing I have read #such good meta #your brain is a marvel

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gingergofastboatsmojito · 8 months ago

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The Pacino Variant

Since I found out that JAW got inspiration from Al Pacino to play some of Carmy's layers I immediately started thinking about Frankie and Johnny's dynamic and how it was all so messy in their relationship before it got to the good part. Granted, JAW was not inspired by Johnny, but by a different role Al Pacino played, but still. It got me thinking about how this very Austenian love story, of course, very realistic and bittersweet had certain points in common with Sydcarmy and once I started I just couldn't stop drawing parallels between the sydcarmy dynamic and the frankjohnny one because F&J was a very atypical comedy, just like The Bear and that's why many viewers now don't even understand how The Bear is a comedy, which it is, of course: A noir one. Back then, something similar kinda happened with Frankie & Johnny, it flopped as a rom-com but it became a cult movie and was critically acclaimed.

Here's a clip:

youtube

Context: they met while working together at a diner.

The main characters were described as: "lonely little people struggling to find love."

Rolling Stone's review back then read the following:

"Somehow Mr. Marshall, Mr. McNally, and their superb leading actors are able to retain the intimacy of their material. They also retain the story's fundamental wariness about romance, even when everything about Ms. Pfeiffer and Mr. Pacino has the audience wondering why they don't simply fall into each other's arms."

See? Sounds very Sydcarmy to me, building intimacy while NOT dating, Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer) is all business-no love, a tough cookie, she's been burnt before so she doesn't let any new guy into her life

and Johnny has to do the hard work to convince her (which Carm is not doing bc he rather denies his own feelings and deflects onto Claire as both this amazing meta by @Chefkids and my own humble opinion point out). In Johnny's case, there's no Claire but there is a rather complicated past that also conditions his choices and Frankie doesn't make it any easier on him, etc.

So my point is that the whole Sydcarmy back and forth before it actually happens, which I already mentioned here I think is gonna be more of a cliffhanger kinda thing bc before we get to that part they need to be at each other's throats, Carmy's relationship with C has to crash and burn, The Bear needs to win a bunch of awards and hopefully get out of debt, which will be S3's main focus, along with Nat's baby that's gonna be a total game changer in terms of the Berzatto family's dynamic, etc... when all of those boxes are checked ✅✅✅ then we will venture into Sydcarmy territory on Storer's terms. And I can't help but wonder if that transition from friends to lovers is gonna be kinda like F&J's, I think it might, because it sounds Storer-friendly. I'm not talking about the endgame per se, just the transition.

Would love to know what you all think about this theory.

If you haven't seen the movie and now feel curious about it, here's a playlist, and those short clips pretty much sum it all up.

❤️‍🔥

#sydcarmy #the bear #the bear fx #carmy berzatto #the bear hulu #carmy x sydney #sydney adamu #syd x carmen #frankie & johnny #al pacino #jeremy allen white #JAW #michelle pfeiffer #carmen berzatto #carmy the bear #syd x carmy #gingerpovs #Youtube

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chefkids · 1 year ago

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Hello! I love your posts about sydcarmy and the bear in general! You had any indication for more blogs about these amazing series? (ps: as a meeta lover, your blog is chief kiss indeed)

thank you ❤️❤️❤️ I just keep up the bear meta tag

#the bear meta

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yannaryartside · 1 year ago

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I adore everything about this post, keep thinking about what she said to his dad. To think that Carmy started the season looking at a bunch of pictures, while Richie was asking him what was fun for him, implies that Carmy thinks that company = fun, or at least, that he has felt alone his whole life since it is clear he didn't have friends growing up. We don't know what Sydney has been going through, for who knows how long, and now, Carmy and Sydney have found each other, perfectly complementary, and willing, to be a companion for each other. I don't know how many seasons we are gonna have. They may drift apart completely before embracing a solid role in each others life.

REALLY SAD STUFF

In season 3 I really hope that they just let us know what is going on with Syd and Carmy

Because in the music choices, they show over and over that Syd feels alone

Whatever she's going through she feels alone

CARMY also is isolated and alone

So far these two coming together hasn't seemed to change the fact that they each feel alone

#op always coming with the receips #amazing post #sydney adamu #carmy berzatto #the bear #sydcarmy meta #sydcarmy

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yannaryartside · 6 months ago

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First of all that was some amazing research my god. So much good information in one post. Second, I kinda have a therory that Claire has lied about their interactions, but Carmy doesn’t trust his memory because he, as you say, is always disassociating.

Claire told him in the car that she used to sit behind him in class and he didn’t remember it. Now, I had memory lapses in the past and idk if his disassociation started after fishes or even nyc, but it seem really strange to me that he didn’t remember that. I still remember some pretty random tings about some of my crushes but I am pretty sure I will remember sitting in front of my crush everyday, and the feelings associated with that.

Mikey Told Claire About The Bear?

This meta is reflecting on one of my theories on Mikey telling Claire about The Bear instead of Carmy. My meta on Claire’s character called, “Claire: Ominous or Naive?” is going to be a large foundation for this. It’s not necessary, but if you’ll like the full context please read in order:

Claire and Marcus: Pushing

Carmy And Claire: Frozen In Time

Claire: Ominous Or Naive?

Carmy & Claire: Guilt

↓ text / major spoilers for s3 below

I had a theory that Mikey was the one that told Claire about The Bear. As I said above, my previous meta will be the base for this. All of my previous thoughts from my other meta will be in italics except the dialogue.

Before we get into it, @espumado has a post on Carmy’s tattoos timeline. Feel free to check that out to see what I’m working with. If you think I’m being inaccurate in any way, please let me know! I want to get this all correct to solve this. I’d really appreciate it!

French Laundry - Approx. 8 years ago

Ever Restaurant - Approx. 7 years ago

Noma - Approx. 6 years ago

Christmas - Approx. 5 years ago

Daniel Restaurant - Approx. 4 years ago

Chef David NY - Approx. 1 year ago

Reunion By Grocery Store Fridges

claire: “why what are you doing?” carmy: “opening a restaurant.” claire: “you’re doing the thing.” carmy: “trying to, yeah.” claire: “still, i love the name.”

this is when we find out that claire knows the name of the restaurant. this was always strange dialogue to me because wasn’t carmy shy? why would he talk about something that personal? and with a crush, no less.

this is when i started messing with the idea that it wasn't carmy who told her. what if mikey told her?

here’s what @fresaton said in the reblogs:

He did it!! Mikey didn't know the name of the restaurant until Carmy started working and had lost contact with Claire. There's no way Claire knows and Mikey doesn't.

carmy: “how could you remember the name?” claire: “because you’re the bear, and i remember you.”

what if this is when carmy senses the lie or something off behind her words? what if he knew he wasn’t really being seen at all? maybe he senses that claire wasn’t really talking to him. (mikey? his high school presence?)

i can’t get over his reaction to that line either. you would expect it to be this happy expression but it wasn’t. carmy looked lost, almost dissociated.

When I first looked back on those scenes, I got extremely confused. The timeline had already felt off but this is nagging at my brain.

I had speculated that Mikey told Claire about The Bear and even the sketches of her with his cooking endeavors. But did it just get confirmed? This scene had to have happened before Christmas. When did Carmy tell her anything about The Bear?

I was doing research with @espumado’s post on Carmy’s tattoos timeline, and Christmas happened approximately five years ago. Then I looked at (3x06).

Tina was basically a stranger and he was already sharing parts of Carmy’s endeavors. Would it be farfetched he would say more to a family friend?

If I’m doing this correctly, then this had to have happened when he was at Noma which was approximately six years ago.

Then I realized something. Let’s go back to the Fishes episode. (Claire and Carmy’s relationship always seems to go back to fishes.)

The Mention: Fishes

I did a bit of deep dive on Reddit (the hellscape) and I saw a post talking about it a year ago. Before this season aired, people wanted to know the timeline as well. The post had updates after season three aired. People have speculated that Napa happened before the French Laundry and Ever.

In the scene between Mikey and Carmy in the season three finale, Mikey mentions Napa.

Mikey: “Just because you’ve been to fucking Napa, doesn’t make this a not fucked business, you know?” (3x10)

So, based on that, they had that discussion approximately eight to nine years ago. So, when would Carmy have the time to tell her?

Claire said she has six months left of residency in season two. From what I understand, residency is about three to seven years. But residency for emergency medicine is three to four years. (From what I looked up)

Mikey said she was in med school during Christmas. But she went to med school in New York.

claire: “i went to med school in new york so i never drove. so, i try to make up for it. the times i’m not working.” (2x05)

That means she was probably there very briefly before going back to New York.

Keep in mind, Claire told him that information like he didn’t know. (Who gave him the information about med school in the first place? Mikey.)

In (2x02),

Carmy: “No, I don’t think we even…We didn’t even tell anybody what the name was.” Claire: “You one hundred perfect told me the name.” Carmy: “How could you remember the name?”

The question that Carmy should have asked is how she even knew it in the first place?

Notice he said he doesn’t think THEY (Carmy and Mikey) told anyone?

he even said in the s1 finale, carmy realized he doesn’t really know anything about mikey. you could even argue that mikey isn’t that explicitly defined to carmy, similar to claire. he could have even projected a closeness to mikey to make himself feel less alone. he could be doing same projections with claire.

Carmy literally said in the s1 finale, he realized he didn’t even know anything about him. Why would Carmy be that confident in a person he admitted to not knowing? Was it disbelief?

Let’s go back to the Fishes episode.

mikey: “it’s done.” carmy: “who asked you to do that though? that’s what i’m saying.” mikey: “it’s a christmas gift. i fucking put in a good word. i told her about napa about copen, she ate that shit up.” carmy: “nobody asked you to do that.”

So, she didn’t know about Napa or Noma until Mikey told her. If Napa happened before-hand then The French Laundry and Ever definitely would have been the stuff Mikey talked about in between. She was also in New York in med school so the gap between Christmas and Daniel isn’t really a possibility. The only moment they have is literally Christmas night. They also happen to have a scene together.

Did it happen then? But Carmy acted like it’s something he would have told her years ago instead of five years ago. But when on the timeline does it make sense here? So, he potentially told her the same night that Mikey and Donna lose it? Then completely forgot about it?

She knows about The Bear but Carmy doesn’t even know where she’s going to med school?

They were never close. Mikey had to tell her about Napa and Noma (and whatever else in between) to help her catch up on what he was doing. Claire mentions in the car that they “hung out but never actually talked.”

claire: “we’ve hung out, like, so much but we’ve never actually talked.” carmy: “yeah, yeah i know what you mean.”

it’s strange to think that they’ve hung out a lot but never said anything to the other. especially when you with think on carmy, who was shy, talking about a dream he has with his brother? that’s a pretty personal thing to share with someone if they never talk. something strange is going on there, i just don’t know what it is quite yet.

it gets a little stranger with claire mentioning that she sat behind him in algebra class in freshman year. carmy doesn’t seem to remember that, like he’s completely disconnected/dissociated from her entirely. why is claire remembering all of these things but carmy isn’t? why is she doing all the pushing/driving?

what if she knew about the drawings too? is this another thing mikey mentioned to her? maybe she was trying to slowly ooze it out of him. only to end up disappointed that carmy doesn’t bother to mention it. basically erasing its potential importance to the relationship entirely.

He’s completely disconnected to her. They’ve hung out but don’t talk. They don’t talk but she knows about The Bear?

carmy: “i wish you talked to me more.” claire: “i tried. you’re really shy.”

In season three, we have nothing but constant dialogue from her. He barely talked in their scenes.

She tried but couldn’t get the result she wanted. Did she go to Mikey to get that information then? Did she try at Christmas and ultimately couldn’t since his mother literally drove a car into their house? We’re well aware of her lack of boundaries towards this relationship. So, after hearing his endeavors, she knew where to get the information she wants?

He wished she talked to him more? Or he wishes he cared enough to listen? She said she tried, but it seems like he wouldn’t really respond at all. Almost like some of the scenes they had in season three.

I have a theory that he’s still been disassociating during his scenes with Claire. It would explain how they constantly get interrupted by him or Sydney (when she’s with him physically). I haven’t gone further into this theory quite yet in a separate meta but I’ll leave it here.

Though, Carmy barely talks during his scenes, I’m supposed to believe that Carmy talked about something very personal with her?

Mikey could talk to Tina very easily about parts of Carmy’s endeavors. Mikey told Carmy about med school before Claire talked to him about it during Christmas (to which Claire mentions where that med school was located in the present.)

Was he possessed? By Logan Fernello? Kidding. Unless…?

Claire couldn’t have known before Mikey.

This is technically part one in my series of metas I’ve been writing.

Thank you so much to anyone who read this!

#the meta that keeps in giving #fucking amazing #op #claire bear #carmy berzatto #mikey berzatto #sydcarmy #sydcarmy meta #the bear fx #carmy x sydney #sydney x carmy #the bear meta #the bear s3 spoilers

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