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whenmemorydies · 7 days ago

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This is a fantastic idea @ambeauty!!! Do eeeeet!

Me getting seated for this meta from you:

Now with love come strange currencies...

And here is my appeal

I have a theory that since it's been confirmed that Mikey would have R.E.M. around the studio somewhere, Carmy would listen to "Strange Currencies" while he was crushing on Claire in high school.

The main song of season 2 plays during Claire and Carmy's reunion, leading viewers to believe that this song is dedicated to Claire. While it was originally intended to be about her, that connection has changed. Now, as Carmy catches up with Claire, the song no longer carries any emotional ties to her.

because he met Sydney.

Who is the person he is always trying to figure out as @freedelusionshere shared.

There are no questions or deep explorations of Claire's feelings; we, as viewers, do not know her. However, with Carmy, we're trying to understand Sydney better.

Can we discuss what "now with love, comes strange currencies" means? It suggests that a peculiar exchange occurs when this singer expresses his deep desire to share his feelings with his crush.

Carmy began to act unusual with Sydney when he allowed Claire back into his life, but he behaves completely normally around Claire. He has no issue showing up late to the restaurant to work on the walls, even after telling Sydney that he couldn't come in that day. While he keeps his distance from her, he spends all night making drawings of their menu, even while Claire was there during his panic attack.

He's strange, as Richie and Tiffany agreed. Carmy, known to get angry, expresses his love in peculiar but considerate ways.

The last time we heard the song, Carmy's behavior was extremely strange.

He stares like he doesn't know he made the plate he dedicated to Sydney, like the song; it reflects his desires to know Sydney.

Sydney encounters Carmy's peculiar behavior, where he seems to want to express a lot but ends up saying nothing. The scene that follows the song could easily be linked to a dedication for Claire, but I think it actually reflects Carmy’s ongoing struggle to confront his feelings for Sydney that makes him go to the walk in and call Claire. Wanting to close the door on things.

Lastly, the strongest proof that Carmy is trying so hard to connect with the lyrics and make the song about Claire is evident during the panic attack scene. The song plays in reverse and doesn't progress until he thinks about Sydney. It is only when he hears her voice and feels his breath calming down that we are left with the words, "You will be mine."

I thought about this obsessively again thanks to @freedelusionshere .

#thoughtful never steers us wrong #sydcarmy meta #sydcarmy #now with love comes strange currencies #the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #the bear meta

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whenmemorydies · 8 days ago

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Now with love come strange currencies...

And here is my appeal

I have a theory that since it's been confirmed that Mikey would have R.E.M. around the studio somewhere, Carmy would listen to "Strange Currencies" while he was crushing on Claire in high school.

because he met Sydney.

Who is the person he is always trying to figure out as @freedelusionshere shared.

There are no questions or deep explorations of Claire's feelings; we, as viewers, do not know her. However, with Carmy, we're trying to understand Sydney better.

Can we discuss what "now with love, comes strange currencies" means? It suggests that a peculiar exchange occurs when this singer expresses his deep desire to share his feelings with his crush.

He's strange, as Richie and Tiffany agreed. Carmy, known to get angry, expresses his love in peculiar but considerate ways.

The last time we heard the song, Carmy's behavior was extremely strange.

He stares like he doesn't know he made the plate he dedicated to Sydney, like the song; it reflects his desires to know Sydney.

I thought about this obsessively again thanks to @freedelusionshere .

#sydcarmy #now with love comes strange currencies #the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #carmy x sydney #the bear meta

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whenmemorydies · 8 days ago

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@gingergofastboatsmojito is your post about my recent post about Sydney not taking up Shapiro’s offer? Because I’ve just gone through the links you’ve shared and it looks like we come to a similar conclusion but from different evidence bases…which isn’t surprising given that we’re all watching the same show and there’s lots of content in it to interpret. This is similar to us both coming to the same conclusion about parallels between Sydney and Chef Terry - I think you note this in the Luca not Shapiro meta you link to above.

For the record, I'm not trying to compete with anyone on this platform regarding takes or meta. I've said this before when that whole chefkids debacle happened earlier this year: this isn't my day job and I write meta to practice my creative and analytical writing and to discuss a show I really enjoy, in community. I'm genuinely excited to read the different interpretations that folks have on here as long as they're respectful about it. I try to always give credit when I've read something that's informed my work. In this case, I genuinely hadn't read the meta you've linked to, prior to writing my post.

Anyway if this post isn't about my work, ignore the above.

I'm glad you guys finally caught up on the fact that Syd is not going anywhere as I have been saying since FUCKING JUNE!

ABOUT TIME!

Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs 💋

#the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #the bear meta #sydcarmy

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whenmemorydies · 9 days ago

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Sydney won't take Shapiro up on his offer

We all know that Sydney has the technical skill, the people smarts and the good business sense to find work outside of The Bear if she so chose. By the end of season 3, she's being pursued by one chef in particular (Adam Shapiro of Ever) to join him as he opens his own restaurant.

While she could leave The Bear - serving Carmy right for his treatment of Syd this past season - I don't think she's going to be jumping ship to Shapiro anytime soon. This is based on the conversation that Syd had with Shapiro in 3x07 Legacy. That convo had some call backs and call forwards that speak to a misalignment of values when it comes to running a restaurant together. Lets get into it.

Joy, collaboration and control

First, Shapiro tells Sydney that he wants to run his new restaurant but he doesn't want to cook all the time:

This contrasts to Carmy and Syd's discussion in 2x09:

Carmy: You still love to cook, right?

Sydney: Yeah.

Carmy: Yeah?

Which is followed by their cheeky chat about omelettes with boursin, chives and ridged potato chips (oooh fuck).

So we know Sydney loves to cook.

Carmy does too, even though we know he may not think its fun. Recall his convo with Richie in 2x01 Beef:

Carmy: This shit's not fun for me. (I swear he's saying this and not what the subtitles are saying lol)

Richie: Yeah, but you love it.

Carmy: That doesn't make it fun.

Still, there's the joy - the fun - we know that Carmy and Sydney have when they menu plan and cook together:

We also know from season 3 that both Carmy and Sydney are head down in the kitchen at The Bear. They're both overseeing the cooks, plating and running expo.

Contrast this with Shapiro who wants to run things but doesn’t want to cook every day. I’d go so far as to say he may not love cooking enough to want to keep doing it. Ultimately, Shapiro wants the control that comes with restaurant ownership but doesn’t want to take part in the creation - in the collaborative process - required to build his restaurant’s vibe (recall him telling Sydney it could be whatever she wants it to be in 3x07 Legacy):

Like @freedelusionshere has said repeatedly: Sydney craves collaboration. She did it all on her own with Sheridan Road. She's does not want to be running things on her own again at The Bear. She's reticent about relying on Carmy because as an only child and someone who ran her own business, she's used to being self-sufficient. Post 2x02-season-2 Carmy who bailed on the restaurant to numb himself with Claire and season 3 Carmy who's gone full Michelin-mode, icing her out of so much of the planning is probably giving Sydney even less reason to let herself be vulnerable enough with Carmy to fully rely on him. She indicates to Marcus in 3x05 Children that the idea of relying on someone is scary for her.

Given what we're shown in episodes 3x02 through to 3x04 prior to the above admission from Sydney, its almost certain that the "someone" she is talking about is Carmy.

Still, Sydney knows what she and Carmy can do together based on their frankness with one another in season 1 and their collaboration in season 2. She knows what Carmy promised her in 2x09 Omelette: that he wouldn't let her fail and in 3x01 Tomorrow: that he would never leave her to do it all by herself again. (OK we know he's gone in the entirely wrong direction on this in season 3 by fully taking the reigns himself…but the man is able to course-correct (remember how he made things right with both Marcus and Sydney in 1x08 Braciole?) and I hope he does this early on in season 4).

Above: Carmy reassuring Sydney in 2x09 Omelette that he won't let her fail and that she's not alone this time. Below: Carmy's vow to never leave Sydney to live a life apart from him run the restaurant alone again in 3x01 Tomorrow.

But Shapiro is not offering her any of that. He's letting her take the reigns - and consequently, the fall if anything goes wrong with his new venture - and I'm pretty sure that reality: that the buck for an entire restaurant with a full suite of staff is going to stop with Syd, is even more terrifying and misaligned for Sydney than what is happening at The Bear.

What Sydney doesn't know (but may suspect from Shapiro's offer to give her full control of the restaurant with precious little reason to - how did this man even get her phone number to begin with?) is that Shapiro may have a history of throwing other people under the bus to take the fall for his mistakes. Recall that the first time we are introduced to Shapiro in 2x07 Forks, he is yelling at the crew at Ever about a smudged plate:

After time-costing the effect of the smudge (47 seconds!), Shapiro insists that whoever caused the smudge own up to it. When no one does, he yells across the table at Richie's guardian angel, Garrett:

Shapiro: Fuck you, Garrett!

Garrett: Yes, chef. Fuck me.

Later in 3x10 Forever. we learn that its actually Shapiro who's known for smudging plates (initially from a guest at the dinner who makes a crack about smudges after Shapiro introduces the first dish of the night, and then from Luca in Ever's kitchen):

What's notable is that Sydney is present for both of the above smudge gibes. So while she may not know that Shapiro has a habit of blaming his staff for what are likely his own mistakes (RIP Garrett), she is made aware in 3x10 that the dude is sloppy and notoriously so.

Does it matter if Shapiro is a mess in the kitchen? Honestly, I wouldn't give a shit (lol) BUT I'm not the one pursuing a career in the restaurant industry. Sydney is in this business because she loves cooking AND because she wants to be inspired. This is the same woman who sought Carmy out at his family's old sandwich shop after trying one of his meals. She wants to be the best and she knows that in order to do that, she needs to learn and work under the best. Or the most excellent. Same diff.

Does Shapiro meet the standard that Sydney has for a mentor or collaborator? I don't think so.

Inheritances

Cutting back to 3x07 Legacy: earlier in their convo, Shapiro tells Sydney that he wants to start clean and he doesn't want to inherit anything (presumably from his current job with Chef Terry at Ever):

This is meant to be Shapiro addressing Sydney's concerns from 3x04 Violet when he catches her as she's leaving the train station:

Sydney: It's been a long month [at The Bear].

Chef Adam: Ah. That bad?

Sydney: No, just-- Restaurants.

Chef Adam: Yeah. Right? Why do we do this to ourselves?

Sydney: 'Cause we're crazy.

Chef Adam: Yeah. What was this month's crazy?

Sydney: Um. The kind that's inherited.

Chef Adam: *Nods emphatically* Understood.

The trouble is, as Carmy clearly lays out for us later in 3x07 Legacy, restaurants are built on inheritances. They're ancestral, like a family tree:

Carmy: Like, um, something would start somewhere, and then, uh, people would take that thing and then they would take it somewhere else. So, all these parts of an original restaurant, they would end up at a new restaurant and that kind of thing. That would happen over and over again. And then all these parts of all these restaurants, they would sort of-- You know, they would find each other. And then new people would take those parts and they would put 'em into their restaurant. And the whole thing, it would, um-- It would start to happen all over again.

Marcus: So, like a family tree or something?

Carmy: [looks to Syd who has her back to him, closing her locker] Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

In the context of family, we inherit things from our ancestors whether we want to or not. These things can be genetic (like skin colour, hair texture or the shape of an eye), psychic (intergenerational trauma, you old dog), economic (inherited wealth? I don’t know her), religious or cultural (like a well-loved dish passed down in families).

Some of these things are obviously strengths, even gifts of a kind. Others are challenges that we need to meet. None of them can be ignored. To do so - to start "clean" without trying to work through and integrate our inheritances, good and bad - is done at our own peril. In season 3, this is what Carmy has been doing: he gives little time to the good lessons he's learned from mentors and collaborators like Thomas Keller, Andrea Terry, Daniel Boulud, Mikey and Natalie Berzatto, Michelle Berzatto, Pete, Richie Jerimovic, Gary Sweeps, Ebraheim, Manny, Angel, Marcus Brooks, Tina Marrero and Sydney Adamu, and latches onto the toxic behaviours and practices of David Fields and his mother, Donna Berzatto. To his credit, Richie rightly pulls Carmy up on this in 3x03 Doors (You're not fully integrated!).

When Shapiro says he wants to start clean and doesn't want to inherit anything, he posits a future where no lessons are learned and where no joy or pride is passed down. This is a future without memory. And to quote A.S. Sivanandan (and my tumblr username-sake):

When memory dies, a people die.

Or to put it another way: living a life without memory, without history, is no life at all. Its living in a decontextualised void or vacuum. And neither voids or vacuums hold the requisite components for supporting life.

Shapiro's wish for no inheritances also reminds me of this promo still for The Bear which @thoughtfulchaos773 posted about recently:

This is a shot of Carmy in the kitchen in Empire. The writing on the wall next to him reads:

Its only after we've lost everything we're free to do anything.

This quote was likely written by Chef David Fields who made a living out of terrorising his staff, getting them to subtract everything from their lives until their world revolved around his kitchen. Recall him telling Carmen in 3x10 Forever:

Chef David: So you got rid of all the bullshit, and you concentrated, and you got focused, and you got great. You got excellent.

The "bullshit" here being Carmen's entire existence outside of work. Fields allowed no inheritances from any of the staff in his space. The result? A team likely suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and god knows what else.

Sydney is not about voids or vacuums. She is not about living a life without context. She has shown us time and time again that she listens to history and does her best to integrate it. My favourite example of this is her building an entire fucking kitchen in The Beef's parking lot when the restaurant loses power and gas.

Despite her own trauma from the world of catering, she remembered the lessons she learned there (particularly around innovation and resourcefulness) and she saved the day - and The Beef - from ruin.

Now while Carmy is struggling to integrate in season 3, he has never shied away from inheritances in his work. The most salient example of this is the sandwich window at The Bear which still serves up the Italian beef sandwiches that his family is known for. Something tells me that if it had been Shapiro in Carmy's shoes, he would have nixed that idea completely.

The devil is a snake

And finally, unrelated to any life lessons inferred from the show is the allegorical warning about Adam that we are given in 3x01 Tomorrow.

Recall this scene in the third season premiere where Carmy, Luca and Shapiro are shucking peas at Ever.

Its clear Carmy is working at a speed that Luca and Shapiro find it hard to match. Shapiro is seen looking over at Carmy's tub of peas and whispering fuck in surprise/jealousy:

The camera then dips to Shapiro's tub of peas, which we can see is running low compared to Carmy's.

There are also what appear to be three apple slices on Shapiro's cutting board. They only appear at his work station. Carmy and Luca do not have anything other than peas in front of them.

We know that almost everything we see and hear on screen in The Bear is intentional and I reckon these apple slices are no different. So what could they mean?

The Bear utilises a lot of Biblical imagery and narrative and I think these apple slices continue in that vein. In the Old Testament of the Bible, there is the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Eve is seduced into eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil by a serpent. In Western retellings of the story, the forbidden fruit is often described as an apple. As a result of this deception by the snake, Adam and Eve are booted from Eden.

Back at The Bear, we have three slices of apple on Chef Shapiro's cutting board. I think these represent three attempts by Shapiro to tempt Sydney to join his new restaurant (i.e. get her to eat the forbidden fruit that will result in her getting booted from The Bear and the life she's built there)

In season 3, Shapiro puts his offer to Sydney twice: once in 3x07 Legacy and again in 3x10 Forever:

I suspect that Shapiro is going to try one last time to get Sydney on side in season 4, but she'll turn him down. Eve might have trusted a snake but Sydney's got better instincts lol.

Now whether she will stay at The Bear is another story and one entirely dependent on Carmy getting his shit together in season 4. But the way I see it, Sydney certainly won't be leaving her found family in order to join Shapiro. I mean who has time for disloyalty, smudges and snakes when you have people to feed and make happy?

#the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #sydcarmy #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #the bear meta #chef adam shapiro

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whenmemorydies · 10 days ago

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This is super interesting especially cos you like you say, fire and the threat of it have been recurring themes in the show . Fire is often used to "clean the slate" (in fact there's some plant species that can only germinate through bushfire - their seed pods don't open otherwise!). I can totally see that quote alluding to fresh starts given all you've point out!

I actually had a different take on the quote on the Empire kitchen wall in that pic when I first saw it. Its a slight variation on dialogue from David Fincher's "Fight Club":

I wrote a bit about my interpretation of it in a prev meta about the fine dining industry. I'll paste that bit here:

That ethos, written on the wall and haunting the kitchen at Empire is emblematic of how Chef David operates. It reads like a fucked Psalm, giving a poetic shimmer to Field's abuse. Chef David tears down his staff, verbally degrading them to the point that he has the gall to whisper "you should be dead" to them. (OK. Can we...for a minute...imagine being a manager and that being your management style? Telling your best performing staff that they should be dead? Excuse me, mon cheri? A literal devil).

Chef David literally strips his staff of their dignity and their connections to the outside world. He makes them lose their sense of self and claims its all to make them better chefs. He tells Carmen in 3x10 Forever:

Chef David: So you got rid of all the bullshit, and you concentrated, and you got focused, and you got great. You got excellent.

The parallels between Carmy's experience at Empire - and even in the Berzatto household - and the critique of performative violent masculinity that Fight Club was trying to get across are worth pointing out. In Fight Club, white men beat each other up to try and assert control over a perceived loss of power. At Empire, Chef Fields consistently berates and degrades Carmy, clearly threatened by his CDC's talent. Similarly we have Richie complaining about having to take orders from "toddler" Carmy, saying "I was a baby too once, Syd. Nobody gave a fuck" in 1x02 (which could have been the origin story of any one of the men who joined Brad Pitt/Edward Norton to carry out "Project Mayhem" lmao. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the dudes on Reddit fawning over Richie circa seasons 1-2 also watch Fight Club as if it was some sort of aspirational manifesto and not the satire that Fincher intended it to be).

It's only after we lost everything we're free to do anything.. @outmakingmoonshine pointed this out and it aligns with my theory.

During the Inside Out 2 red carpet interview, Ayo sarcastically mentioned that The Bear catches fire and that Sydney and Carmy are getting married.

What if she was deadpan while telling the truth? The show has a lot of foreshadowing since season 1, with Carmy not paying attention to his burned hand or the restaurant that is close to catching fire or has a history with fire.

I'm not sure if Carmy would be the cause of the fire, but maybe it's the universe’s way of having Mikey lend a helping hand from the other side. Claire mentioned that Mikey was cool in a way that suggests he could have set something on fire. He's been close to burning down the restaurant before. There’s also the foreshadowing with the fire suppression test and Fak finding a way to pass it. Speaking of Fak, there’s the code for when a reviewer visits the restaurant: Code Red. Unfortunately, they missed that code this season, but they won’t miss it next season. Code Red actually refers to a hospital fire. What if Claire is there? It’s possible that the entire Berzatto family, including Tiffany and Claire, will witness the fire.

When it comes to weddings and marriage, it’s often treated as a joking matter. Matty Matheson mentions a wedding involving Ayo. Perhaps a future episode could feature a classic picture montage of Sydney and Carmy getting married? Imagine if this happens in Season 4, where Tiffany and Frank don’t end up getting married. In a classic TV show romance fashion, Sydney and Carmy could tie the knot.

It's more plausible to attribute the fire to trauma. Sometimes, after experiencing trauma, you just have to start over. Carmy and Sydney could build a brand new legacy together, where the land symbolizes the foundation of the Berzatos that Carmy will rebuild on.

#the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #sydcarmy #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #the bear meta

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