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| "Brigade" | |
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| The Bear episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 3 |
| Directed by | Joanna Calo |
| Written by | Christopher Storer |
| Original air date | June 23, 2022 |
| Running time | 33 minutes |
| Guest appearances | |
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"Brigade" is the third episode of the first season of the American comedy-drama television series The Bear . It is the third overall episode of the series and was written by series creator Christopher Storer and directed by Joanna Calo. It was released on Hulu on June 23, 2022, along with the rest of the season.
The series follows Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto, an award-winning New York City chef de cuisine, who returns to his hometown of Chicago to run his late brother Michael's failing Italian beef sandwich shop.
Carmy attends an Al-Anon meeting in an attempt to better understand his brother's struggles with addiction. At the restaurant, he introduces a brigade de cuisine-style kitchen and relies on the ill-prepared and increasingly frustrated Sydney to manage it. After initial failures, the staff begins to connect to their new roles—particularly Marcus, the passionate baker. Sydney confronts Carmy about being missing most of the day after not listening to her reservations about the new hierarchy. Carmy agrees that they need to collaborate and listen to each other if the business is going to succeed.
The title of the episode refers to the kitchen brigade system, developed by the 19th-century Frenchman Auguste Escoffier, who documented and codified many traditional kitchen practices, including what are now called the French mother sauces, and applied the "structure and duties of a military brigade into the kitchen, assigning over 20 specific cook positions throughout the kitchen." [1] War vet Ebra connected the dots between a military brigade and the restaurant form when he commented, "I was in a brigade once. Many people died." [2]
Sydney tells Sweeps and other staffers clean out the "lowboys," which is what restaurant workers call low refrigerators that fit underneath countertops. [3]
Molly Ringwald guest starred as a speaker in Carmy's Al-Anon group who reflected on addict-adjacent toxic relationships. [4]
The songs featured in the episode are "In Too Deep" by Genesis and "Oh My Heart" by R.E.M. [5]
BuzzFeed recognized Ringwald's brief appearance as "too good to overlook." [6]
Carmy's dictate to Sydney sets the pair further apart from the rest of the crew and contributes to building anxiety that underlies season one: "When Carmy appoints Sydney as sous-chef and instructs her to implement a French-brigade hierarchy they’re both familiar with, the existing squad of employees struggle to adjust to the new environment. Tensions run high as the original staff must start taking orders from a young girl they've known for a week." [7] Another BuzzFeed writer named Sydney and Carmy's conversation behind the restaurant as one of the key moments in the development of Syd and Carmy's relationship over the first three seasons of the show. [8]
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