Critical reviews
Sepinwall found the installment "moving" and "another remarkable chapter in a season that had several of those." [5] Writing elsewhere about "Worms" and "Bears," he added, "we see at the end of the season that Carmy trusts and cares for [Sydney] like he does his own sister. Like Tiffany, she's a Bear forever if she wants to be." [11]
New York Times opinion columnist David French devoted an entire column to the lessons of the episode, concluding, "[The family's] terrible tension and pain can make The Bear difficult to watch...[but] At a time of extraordinary fury, we all live in a degree of pain. We all live with regrets. But hope can come from unexpected places—and perhaps a show that features scallops, pastries and Chicago beef can also teach us that only repentance can heal our broken hearts." [12] The season concludes with what has been characterized as a "with a sacrifice of love made for the benefit of the restaurant, and the meaning of...risks taken [by Carmy and Syd] lingers...for fans." [13]
Noel Murray, another The New York Times writer, said that "Goodbye" has "a raw, unsettled feel, with only one truly warm moment: when Sydney convinces Carmy to make Richie a partner too. The sustained intensity in just one location is impressive, especially when Carmy and Richie finally talk through their misapprehensions of what each other's lives have been like. But the aftertaste is strangely sour." [14] Murray laid some of this at the feet of Bear's perennially poor communication skills: "Carmy has a bad habit of trying to speed-run through big conversations, saying he just wants to talk for 'a second,' then getting frustrated when people misunderstand what he is trying to say. One of his most repeated phrases, always in a shout, is, 'That's not what this is!'" [14]
Vulture characterized the episode as "painfully intimate," with Allen's usually withholding Carmy exposing "his tender insides to two of the most important people in his life, opening the door for them to do the same. It's audacious to close out a season of television like this, but the gambit pays dividends." [6] Much of the episode is consumed with "dramatic and traumatic" verbal duels between Carmy and Syd, and then between Carmy and Richie, but in the end the arguments are much-needed catharsis, a necessary step in unfucking the relationships that make the restaurant work, which "can only help push [the Bear] even more into the positive column." [15]
Elle magazine commented, "Having to parse through which of Carmy’s statements are true, and which are his stumbling approximations of the truth, is what makes him both a fascinating character and a frustrating one. It's also what makes 'Goodbye' both touching and convoluted." [16]
Much like Elle's commentary, an Eater columnist focused on the script's obfuscation of Carmy's motives: "The show certainly wants us to believe that some time spent away from a kitchen, weaving baskets or working in a grocery store, is exactly what he needs to find happiness. What is less clear, though, is how he comes to this conclusion. Is it a genuine realization that restaurant work is killing him, or just another example of avoidant, self-sabotaging Carmy running away from the problems that he has created? Who can say?" [17] Still, wrote Eater, "After four seasons, it's clear that a new kind of blended family has formed here, not through blood but through trauma-bonding and stress and hard work. And despite all the screaming and fighting and accidental stabbings, there's a whole lot of love, too." [17]
The Ringer columnist Ben Lindbergh wrote of the season-four finale, "It took much too long for these three—two, in particular—to talk things out. But when the knockdown, drag-out confessional came, they crushed the ever-living shit out of that motherfucker, to borrow an original Richie motivational quote. Carm tells Richie that he's much more than a cousin, and at Sydney's prodding, he makes Richie a partner on paper, as well as in spirit." Lindbergh described the dialogue and emotion of "Goodbye" as "the conversational equivalent of a thunderstorm that brings a merciful, if furious, end to a heat wave." [18]
ScreenRant deemed it one of the best episodes of The Bear ever produced. [19]
