Richie lives in the backlots of restaurants. The dirty spaces littered with crunched-up beer cans and cigarette butts. The place where chefs rest their tired bones, caught between the kitchen and the rest of the world. Whether he’s in his apartment or sitting down for a meal at the Berzatto’s, a part of him is still outside a restaurant’s backdoor, flicking cigarettes into the ground. He’s been caught in between spaces his whole life—searching for a way to reconcile with the turmoil within him. “The Bear” grants us a glimpse into his turmoil and reveals his softer side in the process.
If you aren’t aware of the cultural phenomenon that is “The Bear” you either live under a rock or have no friends who have worked in food service. Released on Hulu on June 23, 2022, the series follows talented young chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto as he comes back to Chicago from the elite world of fine dining to run his family’s failing sandwich shop after his brother’s suicide. Each episode explores the broken personal lives of the workers attempting to survive another day of restaurant life.
Season two was released a year later on June 22, 2023, after widespread acclaim. The structure of the show shifted slightly, expanding to more episodes which allowed the writer’s room to devote entire episodes to following just one character as they grapple with inner challenges veiled as kitchen ones. Episode seven “Forks” follows Carmy’s cousin and co-worker Richie as he navigates something close to an internship at a high-end restaurant.
“The Bear” is a show grounded in its details. Confined to shorter episodes and seasons than traditional prestige shows, its writers couldn’t afford drawn-out deep dives into each character. The result is efficient storytelling structured around the key little moments in a character’s day, briefly opening a part of their souls to the audience.
Richard “Richie” Jerimovich’s collection of moments stands out as particularly moving. Played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Richie could easily have taken the back seat as a comedic side character. Over the course of the previous season and a half, we’ve become familiar with his frequent, hilarious outbursts. He’s a loose cannon, but in the quieter moments, he transforms into someone else. During a key scene in season one, Richie retapes a photo of Wrigley Baseball Field to the wall. It’s a simple act in isolation but a gesture that shows us the deep love he has for the family he’s found in the kitchen.
We don’t get a comprehensive breakdown of who Richie is but we can sense how he feels. Without a family of his own, Carmy’s family and the workers in the kitchen have come to adopt him as one of their own. The details of why he’s divorced or why he can’t speak to his biological family are never expounded on, but they don’t need to be. Because we can sense his loss, we long for connection along with him—his feelings are universal.
We all have a Richie in our lives. The guy whose name is synonymous with [insert profanity of choice] because of how often he runs his mouth. The hothead who’ll yell at you for calling him hothead [insert some more choice words]. The kind of man who on his cigarette breaks has a sadness in his eyes that reveals a longing to be accepted that’s been stifled for years behind snide remarks and two packs a day. This is Richie’s fragmented reality, defined by a cyclical pattern of hiding behind his shouts and pushing away the people whose love he desperately wants.
This is the state we find Richie in at the beginning of “Forks”—a broken man in need of humility and trust but unable to see a way forward. He’s caught between the safety of staying in his own cycle of loud cynicism and risking accepting change. We’ve seen him as a dad, alienated from his ex-wife and struggling to show his 8-year-old daughter that he, in fact, loves her even if he doesn’t want to listen to Taylor Swift all the time. Over the course of “Forks,” we see Richie discover a new language and find solace in the kitchen.
Taking all of Richie’s mess into account, “Forks” offers a simple way forward for him, one he can find in the piles of forks he’s constantly required to clean during his short stay at a classy restaurant. Originating from Carmy’s vast connection with elite restaurants, Richie finds himself far away from the loose, reckless kitchens he’s grown used to. It’s like chef boot camp where he must return to the very basics of what it means to be a chef in order to grow.
In true Richie fashion, he initially views this new environment as a hostile one and scoffs at the seemingly menial task of cleaning forks. The episode operates like a series of vignettes that show Richie gradually reaching an epiphany—“Never too late to start over.” By the end, he’s able to find purpose in the kitchen, whether that’s peeling mushrooms or cleaning forks. These baby steps send ripples through him, and he’s able to envision a new beginning. Life is more than his cycle of yelling and hiding from his pain. He’s finally ready to take the risk.
“Forks” concludes with Richie speeding through downtown Chicago belting out the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” A fitting ending for a dad who loves his kid and has found a way to keep moving forward. We all know how the story ends for most guys like Richie; they end up alone and jaded, flicking cigarettes to the ground until their lungs give out. “The Bear” is unafraid to show the ugliness within us; in this sense, it correctly portrays the human experience. Despite this, it also asks the viewer to step outside their own restaurant door to look for the flowers blooming between the cracks in the concrete.
“The Bear” is available for streaming on Hulu.
