This time, every second really does count.
FX released the first full-length trailer for “The Bear” Season 4 Tuesday morning, teasing a reunion between Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his erratic mother (Jamie Lee Curtis), more creative struggles between him and Syd (Ayo Edebiri) and a ticking clock they will have to beat if they want to keep their restaurant open. It looks to be another stressful season of “The Bear,” but also one that has the potential to be more hopeful than its divisive third.
The trailer begins with an important announcement from Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), who tells Carmy, Syd and the rest of the Bear team that the new clock in their kitchen is an indicator of their restaurant’s financial health. “That clock is telling you how much money we have left,” Platt’s Jimmy, Carmy’s key investor, announces. “When that shows 0, this restaurant needs to cease operations.” Jimmy’s clock, notably, offers viewers some clarity on the status of Carmy and Syd’s restaurant, after the “Bear” Season 3 finale ended with its future in question.
You can watch the full “Bear” Season 4 trailer yourself below.
In “The Bear” Season 3, Carmy chased his idea of perfection so relentlessly that he further alienated himself from his friends, loved ones and co-workers and opened his restaurant up to criticisms of inconsistency. When “The Bear” Season 4 begins, it looks like his mistakes last season are going to be at the forefront of the drama this time around. “I get it, you know, chaos and turmoil,” Edebiri’s Syd tells him. “But it’s a problem when you’re letting it fuel you and fuel the food.”
Carmy, for his part, seems receptive to the note, saying later in the trailer, “We could do this. We could take care of people. We could make it calm. We could make it delicious. We can make people happy.” His journey toward growth and healing will continue to be complicated, though, by his own lingering trauma and familial dysfunction, a fact that is reinforced by a teased reunion between White’s Carmy and Curtis’ Donna in “The Bear” Season 4 trailer.
The FX series does not, in other words, look like it is going to shy away from the messy, interpersonal drama and professional stress that has long defined it when it returns. “It’s hard, and it’s brutal. And that’s what makes it special,” Carmy says at one point in the new trailer. He is almost certainly talking about cooking and the restaurant business during the moment in question. But the same is and has always also been true of “The Bear.”
“The Bear” Season 4 premieres June 25 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
