Everything You Need to Remember From ‘The Bear’ Season 4 Before the Final Season

‘The Bear’ has never been a show that makes things easy, and its fourth season was no exception. Arriving on Hulu in June 2025 with all ten episodes at once, the season delivered one of the most emotionally deliberate chapters the show has produced, building slowly toward a finale that fundamentally reshapes the restaurant’s future. On Rotten Tomatoes, 85 percent of critics gave season four a positive review, with the consensus noting that after simmering for too long, the season finally turns the heat back up with a renewed sense of urgency.

With the fifth and final season now streaming, the stakes have never been higher for this kitchen family. Season five picks up the morning after Sydney, Richie, and Natalie learn that Carmy has quit the food industry, leaving the restaurant to them. With no money, the threat of a sale, and a torrential storm in their way, the new partners must band together to achieve one last service, hoping they will finally earn a Michelin star. Before diving into that closing chapter, here is a breakdown of everything that mattered in season four.

Carmy’s Decision to Walk Away From the Kitchen

The central event of season four is Carmy’s quiet but seismic reckoning with who he is outside of cooking. Carmy suspects he became a chef so he did not have to do other things. He vowed to get the restaurant out of debt before savoring some soul-searching and crafting a new recipe for success. In many ways, the season felt like a long goodbye for the chef.

After receiving an offer from the former chef de cuisine of Ever, Adam Shapiro, to work at his new restaurant, Sydney spent the majority of the season mulling over what to do. What she did not know was that Carmy was conducting his own private deliberation. Carmy had a teary-eyed phone call with Sugar, who recalled the day she drove him to O’Hare to begin his culinary journey in New York. While he had been lucky enough to find something he loves, she told him it was completely okay if he did not love it anymore, a sentiment that foreshadowed his major decision in the finale.

At the end of Episode 9, Pete calls Sydney to go over the updated terms of the partnership agreement she had procrastinated signing all season. She had finally turned down Shapiro’s job offer and decided to stick things out at The Bear, so she was feeling more ready to legally commit. But Pete threw her a curveball: Carmy had removed himself from the document. The confrontation that followed, set on the restaurant’s back patio, brought Carmy, Sydney, and Richie together for one of the season’s most charged scenes.

Richie’s Arc and the Revelation About Mikey

Carmy delivered what amounted to his most important apology of the season to Richie. For a long time, Richie believed Carmy resented him for not being able to save Mikey. In reality, Carmy was jealous that Richie had gotten to spend more time with Mikey and the Berzatto family. Sydney and Richie finally understood that Carmy’s intentions were genuine; he needed to leave the kitchen to find himself.

Richie’s season-long arc quietly tracked his shift from bristling outsider to the emotional center of the whole enterprise. At Tiff’s wedding, Richie told Uncle Jimmy that where he once thought of himself as an isolated rock in the Zen garden of the Berzattos’ lives, he had come to believe that maybe he was the sand holding the whole group together.

Richie seemed to forgive Carmy and said the restaurant would be okay after he moved on. Sydney then turned to Carmy and said she needed the contract updated again: she wanted Richie elevated to partner. Carmy agreed, and Richie was shocked at first but eventually accepted. It was a quiet passing of the torch, earned across four seasons of friction.

The Wedding Episode and Sydney’s Choice

The wedding episode reunited nearly the entire cast at the nuptials of Tiff, Richie’s ex-wife. Despite technically no longer being a Berzatto, she is as close to family as Tiff has, and so it became another Berzatto gathering by default. The episode featured notable cameos, including Brie Larson as the often-mentioned Francie Fak, a former friend and current enemy of Sugar.

The A.V. Club gave the episode an A-minus grade, with critic Jenna Scherer calling it a classic entry into the wedding-episode canon and noting that it represented a pivotal moment for the show’s three main characters: Carmy exorcising his demons, Sydney’s priorities coming into focus, and Richie realizing he is not as alone as he thinks.

Attending the wedding allowed Sydney to get to know the Berzatto family a bit more. Over the course of the day, she began to realize the value of this messy but passionate community and what she would be leaving behind to start over. Flipping her decision, she declined Shapiro’s offer, and he brusquely told her she was making a huge mistake. Whether those words turn out to be prophecy is now part of what season five must answer.

What Happened in the Prequel Episode ‘Gary’

Two months before the season five premiere, ‘The Bear’ released a standalone prequel episode titled “Gary,” following Richie and Mikey on a chaotic road trip to Gary, Indiana, for a delivery job from Uncle Jimmy. Beneath the debauchery, the episode highlighted Mikey’s deteriorating mental state years before he takes his own life. In its final moments, Richie reflects on their road trip in the present day before he is suddenly hit at an intersection, leaving his fate uncertain heading into the final season.

Jeremy Allen White later revealed that creator Christopher Storer originally planned to end the story with season four, but later decided to make a fifth and final season. That detail reframes everything about how this closing chapter was constructed, suggesting Storer found one more essential truth worth telling before saying goodbye.

On Rotten Tomatoes, 97 percent of critics gave season five a positive review, with the consensus reading that ‘The Bear’ closes out its final season with the character-driven finesse it started with, ensuring its story and fans are served the finest of televisual meals without diminished returns. The kitchen is open one last time, and after everything season four put these characters through, it is worth asking: do you think Richie, Sydney, and the rest of the crew deserve a Michelin star, or has ‘The Bear’ always been about something more than the food on the plate?