Set at the “funeral service” and after party for Chicago fine dining institution Ever, “Forever” is a season finale with midseason finale energy. In keeping with much of The Bear Season 3’s storytelling, it starts in the past with Carmy’s first day at the French Laundry where chef Thomas Keller plays himself and teaches him how to prepare a roast chicken for the staff meal. Keller plays a nurturing figure in Carmy’s life giving him instructions laced with big picture advice about the restaurant industry and (Occasionally historically inaccurate.) anecdotes about the parts of the chicken. It’s the ideal relationship between mentor and mentee, but as we’ve seen, it’s not the kind of relationship that Carmy has with his staff, especially poor Sydney.

Much of “Forever” is a duel between theory and practice with a bunch of famous fine dining chefs delivering Christopher Storer-penned dialogue that sounds like a podcast being offset by Sydney and Carmy freaking out about The Bear and different relationships. (I’m a rube who frequents local taco stands so I didn’t recognize many of the cameos.) However, it’s jarring to go from something like “Ice Chips” that intensely focuses on the mother daughter relationship between Natalie and Donna to people that viewers don’t know showing up and spouting the themes of the show. Thankfully, it’s offset by another strong performance from Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney who tries to fit in with the big-time chefs at the dinner by sharing anecdotes like leaving the pre-order function on back in Season One. She feels imposter syndrome while also soaking in the knowledge as she basically gives Adam a “maybe” about working as chef de cuisine at his new restaurant and delays having a conversation with Carmy about her offer.

Speaking of Carmy, “Forever” is a huge episode for his character arc as he confronts his abusive chef David Fields (Joel McHale) at the dinner. David pretends to not know he is and isn’t affected by Carmy’s “fuck you’s” and overall anger. Instead he says that pushing Carmy hard at his restaurant turned him into the chef and leader he is today. Kudos to the costuming and hair and makeup department as Carmy looks disheveled while David has a fresh hair cut and well-tailored fit and glasses to show how above it all he is. But this episode cements the fact that Carmy has basically become David this season with Storer cutting between Carmy bossing Sydney around to David bossing him around. They aren’t partners, but are a dictatorship that is having a debilitating effect on Sydney’s mental health.

This effect is shown during one of the final scenes of “Forever”, a raucous after party set at Sydney’s apartment with “Laid” by James playing over the speakers, kegs being brought out, and Chef Andrea Terry putting her own spin on frozen pizzas and waffles. It’s cathartic for Andrea who can finally cut loose after decades of long hours at Ever, but it’s painful for Sydney, who looks at a newspaper clipping of a review for The Beef, and realizes how worse things have gotten since the stressful, yet relatively halcyon days of Season 1. Christopher Storer and Edebiri linger on Sydney outside her apartment as she has a panic attack concluding her season arc.

And speaking of season arcs, we never see the actual Tribune review for The Bear although Carmy gets a ping for it and sees multiple missed calls from Cicero and The Computer. There are flashes of adjectives from positive to middling and, of course, negative, but this could all be in his head. However, voicemails from those people are disconcerting, and The Bear ends on a downer note punctuated by “To be continued”. Basically, Christopher Storer and the writers are saying that this was only half of the arc, and the real success of the story depends on if they can stick the landing next season. (Season 4 is currently filming now.)

“Forever” is kind of a microcosm for The Bear Season 3 as a whole. The season’s strength is the standalone episodes that focus on a single character, small group of characters, or something like “Doors” that shows what a day of service at The Bear is right. Its weakness is having any kind of overarching plot as it kind of meanders around, the restaurant is vaguely struggling, and the finale spends most of its runtime with folks we haven’t seen until that episode. However, it does succeed at showing Carmy becoming utterly consumed with his work at the expense of his interpersonal relationships culminating in him walking the streets of Chicago while his colleagues celebrate at Sydney’s house. Season 3 is definitely the weakest season of The Bear so far lacking the urgency and forward momentum of the previous two seasons, but I can’t discount any season with an episode as strong as “Napkins”

Overall Verdict: 7.0
Season Overall Verdict: 7.6