Carmen Anthony Berzatto, typically called Carmy, Carm, Bear, Chef, or Jeff, is a fictional character on the FX Network television series The Bear. Created by Christopher Storer and played by Jeremy Allen White since the show's premiere in 2022, Carmy is a nationally acclaimed chef who returns home to Chicago to run his family's failing Italian beef sandwich restaurant after the death of his older brother. White has received multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards for his portrayal of the sometimes-troubled cook, who attempts to salvage the family business while simultaneously reconstructing long-neglected family relationships with his sister and their "cousin," all with help from a talented young chef who joins the restaurant crew in the pilot episode. Carmy is plagued by the conflicting demands of his trauma and his talent, all while trying to launch a business that will save his sister Sugar from losing her house to the tax man and keep his "found family" off of the proverbial unemployment line. The show, originally a hero's journey structured around the travails of stranger-comes-to-town Carmy, eventually reveals itself as an ensemble piece about "the need for love to drive the act of cooking, but also [the various ways] love makes itself known through such an act."[1]
Carmy is a talented young chef who inherits a low-class sandwich shop in the River North neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from his recently deceased, drug-dependent brother Michael "Mikey" Berzatto (Jon Bernthal) and sets to work turning it into a respectable place of business.[2] Carmy has been described as a prototypical prodigal son,[3] with not a little "conquering hero" in him as well, such that "Carmy is greeted with ambivalence by the friends and family he left behind for the...pretensions of haute cuisine."[4] As such, Allen has stated that Carmy initially comes home without "much of an identity outside of his profession."[5]
Carmy is known as one of the great chefs of his age: "ambitious and creative, and...so gifted that nearly everyone who's ever eaten his food thinks it's among the best they've ever had"[6]—such that "people are willing to forgive his flaws just to be in his presence, to absorb his knowledge."[2] Trained at the French Laundry in California's Napa Valley, Noma in Copenhagen, Restaurant Daniel in New York, and by the fictional Michelin-starred Andrea Terry (Olivia Colman) at a fictionalized version of Chicago's own Ever, Carmy Berzatto is a past winner of Food & Wine's Best New Chef in very early adulthood, and a James Beard Award for his work at a restaurant in California.[7][8] He did a stint at Eleven Madison Park in New York City.[9][10] He has served as the chef de cuisine at the best restaurants in the country.[8] He retained three stars at Michelin-awarded restaurants but has never been awarded a star in his own right. A satiric metacommentary review of the Bear restaurant in Chicago magazine nonetheless predicted that Carmy "is in the express lane, headed straight for his first Michelin star."[11] He is a "resourceful businessman," albeit somewhat challenged by what appears to be dyscalculia; basic arithmetic, if not simple counting, eludes him entirely.[12][13][14] A less-publicized aspect of his creativity is his skill as a visual artist; Carmy fills a series of food journals "with beautiful drawings of ingredients he's worked with and meals he's imagined."[1]
According to a Chicagoan writing in The New York Times Magazine, Carmy's decision to step out of the New York City fast lane to "dole out unglamorous sandwiches from a broken-nosed kind of shop" rewrites his career trajectory: "Carmy went back to Chicago because he had to. He stays because he wants to...the point is to do a great thing, for its own sake, alongside people you care about, without much concern for image or status. The Bear seems to see this as a very Chicago thing."[10]
Character development
In addition to cooking and running the business, Carmy navigates relationships with his sister Natalie Berzatto Katinsky, whom he calls Sugar (Abby Elliott), his dead brother's best friend Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), new-hire sous chef Sydney "Syd" Adamu (Ayo Edebiri), and the existing staff of the Beef, described as a "ragtag team of initially recalcitrant veteran cooks."[15][16] Carmy and his surviving sibling, older sister Sugar, are quite close and have a warm, loving relationship.[17] "Shug," as he calls her, looks out for his emotional well-being and eventually gets involved in running the family restaurant, a business she had loathed when it was under Michael's management.[18] According to White, Carmy often "feels incapable of reaching back, or being like, accepting" of Sugar's love, whereas Elliott has suggested that Sugar's expressiveness sometimes comes from a place of desperation, "like, 'Please don’t leave me here with our family.'"[19]
Richie and Carmy call each other cousin even though they are not biologically related.[20] Richie was a long-time manager of the Beef alongside Mikey.[20] He ran the place with "F-bomb-dropping, gun-toting swagger."[21] Richie initially resented that the restaurant had been bequeathed to the long-absent Carmy instead of to him. The staff of the Beef were all but raw recruits when Carmy arrived at the restaurant, but in direct contravention of the often-toxic chefs who trained them, Carmy and his partner Chef Sydney both recognize and cultivate "strength in the crew that [they] have, rather than focusing on their weaknesses."[22] Richie leads the vanguard of the kitchen's opposition to Carmy's succession to his brother's greasy-spoon throne; he declares that Carmy's years of nearly militaristic discipline and grueling labor have made him "pretentious, delusional, and a fucking sissy."[23] By season two, as Carmy invests heavily in staff development, the ways he nurtures, challenges, and impedes the various members of his "found family" are a major element of his character arc.[24] Despite his character flaws, the terminally self-loathing Carmy is ultimately animated by love for his family, and thus, he (with partners Sydney, Richard, and Natalie) is largely successful in his attempts to create a hospitable environment at the Bear: "The people within its walls did not necessarily choose to come together, nor do they necessarily leave their baggage at the door. But they are never alone, and together they create an atmosphere of precision, pleasure, and unity that is difficult to replicate elsewhere or under different circumstances."[14] Carmy reaps more than a few benefits of this himself, as "people heal in community and through the relationships they've built."[12]
Despite his "fundamental decency," Carmy's insecurity and intermittent temper tantrums result in isolation for him and distress for his family and coworkers.[2] Some of Carmy's travails can be traced his dysfunctional upbringing as the neglected youngest child of an alcoholic mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), leaving him prone to workaholism, panic attacks, and dissociation.[12][25] It is a truism, after all, that "children of alcoholics, whether they drink or not, tend to behave like alcoholics."[21] (Carmy appears to drink little or no alcohol, and unlike Mikey, he and Nat appear to have dodged, so far, any substance-abuse problems.) The first name of the father of the Berzatto kids is unknown; he abandoned the family "probably sometime in the 1990s."[26]Uncle Jimmy "Cicero" Kalinowski (Oliver Platt), who was "Pop" Berzatto's best friend, last talked to the dad "about 20 years ago" (from 2022).[27] Per Jimmy, Pop drank, did drugs, gambled, and "just insisted on doing stupid fuckin' shit all the time."[27] He had "a new career every 10 minutes," including becoming a restaurateur, apparently inspired by the success of Ed Debevic's, which resulted in his investment in the Original Beef of Chicagoland.[27]Eater Chicago has suggested that the Original Beef has "been around since 1980," under Pop's management before it became Mikey's problem.[9] Upon returning to Chicago Carmy reconnected with Richie and Jimmy, but Carmy remained "no contact" (a form of voluntary family estrangement) with his mother until near the end of season four, when he visited her house for the first time in many years.[4] When he first moves home, other, more distant relatives and friends of the family charge him with being a "fuckin' loser" for working in a restaurant, and conflate him with Mikey. ("I thought you'd killed yourself." "No, sir, that was my brother.")[28]
Plagued with perfectionism, and unresolved grief over the suicide of his idolized, charismatic, tormented, mentally ill, drug-addicted older brother,[29] Carmy compartmentalizes his feelings in favor of the grinding labor of the kitchen and periodically sabotages his own happiness in order to minimize his potential exposure to any emotion.[30] Some observers have asserted that Carmy exhibits symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).[31][32] He had a pronounced stutter in childhood; verbal disfluency re-emerges in the adult Carmy when he is exposed to people or situations that remind him of the neglect and abuse of his youth.[33] Naming and articulating his feelings, and speaking up for himself in the face of emotional manipulation, remain enduring challenges for Carmy; he "stutters and staggers" through interpersonal relationships, falling back on "I'm trying" when he fails to reveal himself or connect with his nearest and dearest.[12] Behaviors exhibited throughout the series and personal characteristics he mentions in a seven-minute monologue at an Al-Anon meeting in season one (including difficulties paying attention, difficulties in school, and difficulties making friends) suggest to some viewers that Carmy should be categorized as a neurodivergent person.[34][32] He exacerbates his existing social struggles with a habit of viewing professional colleagues as competitors and threats to be defeated.[24] His work in "extremely high pressure" kitchens under "cruel bosses" likely contributed to a belief that "a single mistake will result in humiliation, punishment, and being judged as unable to meet the demands of the job."[35] Under stress, he reverts to exhibiting the angry, intolerant behaviors that were modeled for him in childhood and at his worst jobs, to his regret and shame. For its part, the show demonstrates clearly that the mad genius is entirely dispensable if other members of the crew have been fully trained and amply empowered.[36] Much of Carmy's counterproductive season-three pursuit of a brittle sort of perfection seemingly stems from a mistaken belief that "if he can cook well enough, if he can be the best, then he can give the people he cares about what they need. And if he destroys himself in the process, then that only proves how much he loves them. Then, at least, he wouldn't feel like he failed them."[1]
Mr. Beef in Chicago partially inspired the fictional Original Beef of Chicagoland restaurant depicted on The Bear
Los Angeles Times television critic Robert Lloyd described Carmy as an "ailing but admirable" young man who is built around a "core of sadness" but "happily free of the negative characteristics we have come to associate with fictional (and some notorious nonfictional) chefs: arrogance, unkindness, substance abuse, sexual predation...He is secure in what he knows and honest with his employees, who do not always appreciate it."[37] Carmy aspires to be kind, calm, and equitable, but does not reliably achieve this, periodically descending to "maniac" "menace" "psychopath" behavior that cannot readily be curbed, even by those closest to him.[14] For instance, early on he consistently defended overqualified Sydney from sexual harassment by Richie (although he simultaneously declined to intervene when the rest of the staff hazed and sabotaged her). When Carmy later turned on Sydney in a moment of crisis, he shortly thereafter texted an apology, admitting that "my behavior was not okay."[23] A consistent and deeply sincere apologizer, by season four, his transgressions against those closest to him have become too consistent for his apologies to hold much weight; Richie yelled in recrimination that "your sorries mean shit."[2]
Relationships
Carmy and his de facto foster brother, Richie, are prone to "emotional suppression and self-destruction...shouting matches and belittl[ing] one another," habits of toxic masculinity and patriarchy learned at home and at work.[38] These behaviors hobble them individually and the functioning of the business generally, but they simultaneously encourage and enable the careers of their female business partners: their shared sibling and the Bear's business manager, Nat, as well as young chef Syd, who worships Carmy's food and initially adores him by extension, and who is ultimately perceived to be as talented as Carmy himself.[38]
The "brilliant" Sydney has been described as Carmy's "most valued colleague."[2][21] Syd, "an ambitious black girl who trained at the Culinary Institute of America,"[3] has elsewhere been described by the show's producers as Carm's "work wife."[39] Carmy had a brief romantic relationship in season two with emergency room physician Claire Dunlap (Molly Gordon); the two first met as teenagers and still have overlapping social circles.[40] TIME.com described Claire as a "more obvious" candidate for an onscreen romance with Carmen.[41] One critic, arguing that fan opposition to a "Carmy and Sydney" pairing may have its roots in misogynoir, or unconscious biases about what relationship roles are "appropriate" for Black women, commented that "Sydney and Carmy's very slow burn is underlined by Carmy and Claire's very fast burn."[42] A counterargument acknowledged the romantic prospects of the pairing and asserted that "SydCarmy is a product of social media, an arena where floating bigoted takes prompts engagement. A wound-up 'shipping contingent guarantees a vocal opposition will materialize" but that the real argument against romantic consummation is not racialized or gendered but an out-of-hand rejection of the "indolent model in romantic comedies that posits love can fix anything," all while "some viewers also search for signs of developments we want to see, producing the ever-widening rift between those who want Carmy and Syd to stay platonic and the SydCarmy masses yearning for the two to kiss already."[43]
Media scholars have commented that Carmy's relationship with his diverse crew is likely central to the character's healing journey and redemption arc: "If, in future seasons of the show, Carmy succeeds in the new venture, there is a risk of uncritically replicating the myth of the self-made man if these rewards are not justly shared with the women and people of color who make up most of the staff of the Bear."[44] Syd's presence has also been described as perhaps filling "the void his brother Michael left, but in a much healthier way."[45] Carmy and Sydney have a deeply familiar, vulnerable, and often emotionally fraught partnership.[46] Among other things, Syd "asserts a brand of female partnering we rarely get to see in popular culture. When Carmy flubs, Sydney challenges him. When she has better ideas, she speaks up. She recognizes his immaturity, selfishness and even his demons, and rarely lets him off the hook. She knows what he's capable of and holds him to a commensurate standard."[47] Critics have referred to an "undeniable" chemistry between the two leads,[48][45][49] describing "stolen glances...mutual intolerance for the other's bullshit...creative compatibility...unspoken [or] very sweetly signed communication," and suggested "that these two fearful avoidants [being] as comfortable as they are with each other is no coincidence."[50] The show is also laden with barely-sublimated sensuality (the pair frequently hover over "sizzling meat and simmering sauces"),[51] and visual sexual innuendoes, such as when the two chefs are "screwing" under a dining-room table in season two.[45]Passion is a given, but if carnal desire exists on either side of the couple's friendship its demands are firmly suppressed in favor of other sentiments, such that the coworkers manifest "a kind of intimacy not often explored in TV...a man seeking redemption, gently counseling his colleague through her self-doubt...without touching her or gesturing toward it, begs for an erotic reading."[43] Whatever Carmy's true feelings for Sydney, they remain verbally and physically unexpressed through season four.[52][53]
In childhood, the three Berzatto siblings were known by nicknames suffixed with –bear: by birth order, they were Mikeybear, Sugarbear, and Babybear.[54][55] In adulthood Carm is still called Bear by his sister, others who knew him in his youth, and the restaurant's beloved, gentle, quiet pastry chef, Marcus Brooks (Lionel Boyce), in whom Carmy discovers another kindred spirit and culinary equal.[56][54][57] Chef Terry and Ebra both tend to call him by the more-formal Carmen, rather than Carmy. One of the cooks at the Beef, Tina Marrero (Liza Colón-Zayas), begins calling Carmy "Jeff" as a corruption of the more respectful title chef; Jeff and extensions such as Jeffrey eventually come to be used as endearments, when Tina transfers her abiding affection for the late Mikey to his younger brother Carmy.[58][59] Ferociously devoted to Marcus, Tina, and Syd in particular, Carmy tortures himself with regret over supposedly having "failed them," and "his inability to call Claire and say 'I'm sorry,' or have another heart-to-heart under a table with Sydney makes for an agonizing watch at times, but through his angst, the sheer thought of losing a beloved restaurant reminds him how much he loves the work and why he does what he does."[60]
In addition to Sugar, Marcus, Syd, Tina, and Richie on every third Thursday, Carmy has been supported by his compassionate and profane cousin Michelle Berzatto (Sarah Paulson),[61] who is good to Carmy and who encouraged him to escape the chaos of the family home in Chicago and continue to pursue his career as a chef.[62] Michelle and her husband Stevie (John Mulaney) let Carmy crash on their couch while he worked in New York.[26] Andrea Terry, a sophisticated businesswoman who treats Carmy warmly and generously, and a culinarily skilled and socially sharp colleague known as Chef Luca (Will Poulter), both from Ever, remain influential in Carmy's life as well.[26][61] Luca, who fits in immediately and effortlessly with the staff of the Bear, "is cut from the same cloth as Carmy and is motivated by perfection and legacy more than money and taking the easy route to success."[63] Similarly, while their social relationship is strictly restrained until after her retirement, Chef Terry seems to have served as sort of surrogate mother figure who reparented Carmy by modeling the belief that "cooking for people...is 'time well spent'," whereas Donna saw cooking meals for her family as "only as time not recognized."[1]
Other attributes
Allen's portrayal of Chef Berzatto has been described as "a realistic casting of that asshole" common to high-intensity kitchens, although "The Bear suggests that Carmy's going to be a different kind of leader, one who's learned from his own experience and wants to change the narrative instead of perpetuating it."[64] Carmy provoked an ode in Bon Appétit magazine to what is apparently a food-service industry stock character, "Sexually Competent Dirtbag Line Cook," about which it was written: "If you've ever waited in vain for a text back from a man with no bed frame in his apartment, you're already pretty familiar with this type. Imagine no-bed-frame man, but he only drinks from plastic quart containers and cooks a spaghetti carbonara that will make you write in your journal for the first time since high school. Has he showered today? No. Are you going to be the one to change him and make him want to settle down? Also no!"[65] Carm has been identified as the textbook model of a restaurant-kitchen resident lothario: "'This man does not have curtains in his apartment but he has a $1400 knife that is only for cutting fish.'"[66] Another analysis tagged him as a self-evidently attractive yet problematic fuck boy, discernible as such by his "tattoos, disheveled hair, and 20-a-day habit."[49][67] Carmy's dirtbag subcategory would be "heroic," as he solved "a riddle left by his brother. And in doing so, he saves the jobs of his employees and their futures."[68] Carmy's default plain white T-shirt suggests to some that the show styles him as a "James Dean of the kitchen pass."[69] Carmy's home and restaurant-office decor consists primarily of scores of cookbooks from multiple eras and regions of the world.[66] One New York critic described the subject matter of the series as "sandwiches and trauma and Jeremy Allen White's biceps."[70]
The Berzattos are Italian American by heritage; media critics have found that the show traffics in stereotypes of Italian Americans being primarily consumed with gangsterism, "food and sex," but that Carmy's "pervasive/invasive relationship with family emerges as the theme of the series."[3] As former Chicago resident Chris Witaske (who plays Carmy's brother-in-law Pete) put it in 2023, "I also think The Bear really captures how in Chicago you're all on top of each other all the time. It creates these really strong bonds of friendship and family. I always talk about how, in L.A., if you want to see your friends you have to make plans and then stick to the plans and then drive 30 minutes. In Chicago, you walk down the street and see half your friend group and then go into a bar and everybody else is there. It's a tighter-knit community."[71] One of Carmy's tattoos is Chicago area code 773.[9] Unlike his older brother Mikey, Carmy himself has "no stereotypically Italian American features—[he is] blond, blue-eyed, with a constant astonished expression on his face, his attractiveness deriving from boyish appearance, barely counterbalanced by numerous tattoos and tight muscles," attributes that suggest his placement within a "perpetual imbalance between the natural assimilation of 'other' cultures" and the pull toward signifiers of Italian-American identity.[72] The Berzattos have a Roman Catholic religious background.[73] The family celebrates the Feast of the Seven Fishes; Carmy and his siblings sometimes make a ritual appeal to Our Mother of Victory, an embodiment of the Virgin Mary.[73][74]
Carmy was a compulsive cigarette smoker for most of his adult life and into the first two seasons of the show. His cousin Stevie described Carmy as smelling, generally, like "pledge week at a Sicilian fraternity...sweat, death, lemons, garlic...oh, and the most cigarettes."[75] Carmy quit smoking in episode one of season three, "Tomorrow," seemingly newly disgusted by the sight of a stub-filled ashtray left in the restaurant overnight (but in actuality mostly disgusted with himself).[21] Carm begins working nicotine-replacement gum as intensely as he once burned tobacco.[76] He tells Chi-Chi (Christopher Zucchero) that he's doing it to save the five minutes it takes to smoke,[77] and he tells Sydney he still thinks about it, but "only every 10 seconds."[78] The gum regimen and Carmy's determination to clean up his act seemingly work to break the long-held habit, but he picks it up again in the season-four finale, "Goodbye," when novice Sydney, feeling "abandoned and enraged," inexplicably takes up smoking, apparently driven by a combination of spite and nostalgia.[79][80] Carmy resentfully joins her, lighting her up and later feeding her lit cigarettes while he continues to verbally deconstruct his relationship with Richie.[79][80]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
