The Bear The Season 1 finale explained how the restaurant has a chance to survive while teasing a new future for The Original Beef under Carmy’s leadership. The story follows Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, a talented young chef who takes over her late brother’s diner with its success in question, leading to The Bear end of season 1. The Bear follows Carmy’s attempt to make The Original Beef better than a dirty but family-friendly establishment in the Chicago neighborhood.
Although Carmy’s “cousin” Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) wants to keep The Original Beef as it has always been, Carmy’s ambitions are aided by new hire Sydney (Ayo Edebiri). The unlikely trio rarely agreewhile discussing changes to the menu and work styles. Carmy also emphasizes the financial difficulties that Mikey’s decisions have placed on The Original Beef, leading them to experiment with takeout orders. All this builds The Bear season 1 finale, which offers hope but uncertainty.
What does Mikey’s letter to Carmy say?
The note offers words of encouragement and a secret recipe
One of the mysteries that linger before The Bear The end of season 1 is what’s in Mikey’s letter to Carmy. At the beginning of the season, Richie finds a letter addressed to Carmy on the floor behind the cabinets. Although he initially wants to give Carmy the letter, his anger gets the best of him when he returns Mikey’s letter. The Bear The Season 1 finale shows Richie bringing the letter to Carmy’s attention when the young chef is at a low point. Carmy is shocked and spends a moment alone before deciding to open it.
Those two short sentences were enough to make Carmy cry.
Mikey’s presence in The Bear is only seen in flashbacks, which makes him powerful when Carmy reads his words now that he’s gone. The front of the letter said: “I love you, man. Let it rip.” Those two short sentences were enough to make Carmy cry, as he admired his brother but resented him because Mikey never let him work at The Original Beef.
The letter reminded Carmy that Mikey loved him, while the inclusion of his catchphrase “Let it rip“let him know that he believed he would take control. The back of Mikey’s letter included the mysterious Family Meal Spaghetti recipe that Carmy couldn’t solve before.
Bear’s Money in Tomato Cans Explained
KBL Electric was a ruse
After reading Mikey’s letter before The Bear Finishing season 1 and taking the family recipe, Carmy decides that spaghetti is on the menu for family dinner. He follows Mikey’s recipe, even using 28-ounce cans of tomato paste which he says tastes better. These smaller cans of sauce included a special surprise for Carmy. He surprisingly finds a wad of money buried inside the sauce. He immediately calls Richie into the kitchen and asks everyone at The Original Beef to help open cans to get even more money.
Money in tomato cans in The Bear The end of season 1 answers one of the biggest questions Carmy has had since taking over the restaurant. He found records of Mikey making large payments to KBL Electric, but no one knew who that company was. The amount of money corresponded to what Mikey borrowed from Cicero/Uncle Jimmy. He was saving money all the time. A quick shot The Bear The Season 1 finale shows that “KBL” is at the bottom of the tomato cans, meaning Mikey was putting the money in them for safekeeping.
Why Carmy Finally Shuts Down The Original Beef
Closing the restaurant was the right decision for the family
The Bear The Season 1 finale includes a major decision from Carmy as he finally decides it’s time to close Chicago favorite The Original Beef. Carmy’s character arc throughout the first season sees him struggling to be in this environment and trying to right the wrongs made by Mikey. With the bank and IRS potentially coming to her sister’s house since she is a co-signer of the restaurant, she is putting heavy pressure on him to close The Original Beef.
Carmy finally feels the time is right to close the restaurant.
After reading Mikey’s letter and finding the money that will help alleviate some of her financial stress, Carmy finally feels the time is right to close the restaurant. This decision is aided by the knowledge that he has the support of his other chefs and plenty of ideas to create a new restaurant of his own – even if it means closing down another recognizable part of the city of Chicago.
Why Sydney Returns at the End of Bear Season 1
Carmy finally accepts Sydney as her partner
The Bear the ending also deals heavily with What will Sydney’s future be like after she leaves? The Original Beef when Carmy yells at her about how terrible the takeout orders are. There was a possibility that the ambitious and impatient young chef could get a job elsewhere, while the closure of the bar near The Original Beef and the excellent reviews Sydney’s original recipe received opened the door for her to potentially open a rival restaurant. .
Instead, however, The Bear season 1 ends with Sydney returning to the restaurant and remaining one of the main characters of The Bear. Despite the rift that appears to exist between them, Carmy’s apology via text message and receptiveness to Sydney’s ideas when she returns to collect her final check show that he is ready to accept a partner in this journey to improve the restaurant.
How Bear’s Season 1 Finale Set Up Season 2
Money was not a solution to Carmy’s problems
The Bear The Season 1 finale explained that there would be a new direction for the restaurant, with Carmy closing The Original Beef and starting a new venture with a restaurant called “The Bear.” After feeling that Carmy had been operating with her head underwater all season, dealing with a seemingly impossible financial situation as well as one crisis after another, money seemed to be a lifeline for him. Attending The Bear In the first season, it didn’t seem like it would end on an optimistic note.
Money would not be the solution to all problems.
However, if things had gone well from there, Season 2 would have been a completely different show than what The Bear had been until now. From the moment The Bear As the second season began, it became clear that money would not be the solution to all of the series’ problems. Finding the money helped ease financial constraints for now, but using it immediately created new problems. Even with the restaurant closed for renovations, the show’s fast-paced anxiety presents one problem after another.
This leads to The Bear season two ended up being a bittersweet ending with triumphs and failures. The Bear The Season 1 finale was a necessary conclusion, as audiences have seen Carmy suffering and struggling all season. They wanted a victory for him to end the season. The show would have betrayed itself if it were to suggest that all these problems Carmy is dealing with were solved with hush money. Season 2 was able to use this as a starting point to show that he had a long way to go to be healthy.
How the bear’s creator, Christopher Storer, explains the ending
Christopher Storer revealed Uncle Jimmy’s plans for Mikey and Carmy
With so much going on, it’s helpful to have The Bear season 1 ending explained by the show’s creator himself. Christopher Storer discussed (through: IndieWire) several aspects of the final episode, such as how it completes Carmy’s journey from season one and how it leaves the door open for further exploration.
Storer explained that the money actually came from Uncle Jimmy’s loan and was supposed to be used by Mikey to open a restaurant with Carmy once he beat his addiction. This makes the discovery even more poignant, but Storer notes:
“There’s something beautiful about the idea that Carmy might have figured this out right away if he’d made the spaghetti in the pilot, but then maybe he would have burned out the same way Michael did..”
The True Meaning of The Bear’s Season 1 Finale
The episode is about the importance of new beginnings
On a thematic level, the end of The Bear The first season is about new beginnings and, as with the rest of the series, family legacy and coming to terms with the past. Carmy had been conflicted about inheriting The Beef following the death of her brother, Mikey, since the show’s first episode. It’s not until episode 8, “Braciole”, that he finally seems to accept what happened and decides to use his situation as a chance for a new beginning, not only for Mikey’s restaurant, but also for himself.
Changing the name from The Beef to The Bear is symbolic. This shows that Carmy is ready to move on from Mikey’s death and that he won’t dishonor his brother’s legacy by trying to establish something new where The Beef once was. The Beef clearly means a lot to Carmy, as it’s almost a physical representation of the place Mikey has had in her life – both the good and the bad.
Instead of trying to preserve and at the same time improve The Beef (along with his memories of Mikey), Carmy realizes that the healthiest thing to do is to look forward and build new memories that, as much as part of him probably wishes otherwise. , MIkey cannot be part of it. Hidden money also contributed to this in The Bear, as it is almost a metaphor for the fact that sometimes tragedies can also contain the foundations of how to move forward emotionally.
How Bear’s Season 1 Finale Was Received
The finale ended the intense first season and cemented the show’s success.
The first season of The Bear immediately cemented it as one of the best new shows on television. This acclaim was established long before the final episode aired, but the final moments of Season 1 took the series to another level in terms of popularity and excitement. Throughout the first season, the audience went through an intense journey with Carmy and the other characters, wonderfully communicating the stressful environment of a kitchen like this. However, the show knew it needed to allow the audience to breathe.
The Season 1 finale allows Carmy to finally face Mikey’s death in a way he hasn’t been able to before. It gives the audience that release that seems to be growing into this character that they’ve come to care about. Seeing him read Mikey’s message and cry is a strange relief, even though it’s mixed with so many emotions. This prepares the public to end the season with a moment of triumph that they did not expect.
The revelation of the hidden money could have been seen as a lazy last-minute save that came out of nowhere, but it fit into the exciting story of the season. Mikey leaving the money to Carmy is a bittersweet moment of realizing that he believed in his brother and wanted to help him do with The Beef what Mikey couldn’t do alone. It offers the characters and the audience a lifeline that ends the harrowing season with a much-needed sense of hope. As a result, The Bear season 2 was received with even more enthusiasm.