Biography
Nat, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), and Mikey Berzatto (Jon Bernthal) were primarily raised by their alcoholic, mentally ill mother, Donna (Jaime Lee Curtis). [1] The first name of the father of the Berzatto kids is unknown; he abandoned the family "probably sometime in the 1990s." [2] Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), who was his best friend, last talked to Mr. Berzatto "about 20 years ago" (from 2022). [3] According to Elliott, Sugar's role as the only girl pushed her to take a caretaker role in regard to her demented mother, often to Nat's own detriment: "[Carmy and Mikey are] just going to put their heads down and ignore Donna, but Natalie can't do that." [4] "Moody, overbearing" Donna seem to pick on daughter Natalie especially, intermittently dishing out ferocious verbal abuse. [5] Compared to their more volatile mother and older brother, Nat and Carm share a inclination to mediate rather than instigate, at least within the family dynamic. [6] Natalie's nickname Sugar is a loving endearment when deployed by her brothers and uncles but the original source was a childhood mistake that her mother twisted into a decades-long mocking recrimination. [1] [7] Nonetheless, "Sug" (pronounced "Shug"), as her devoted little brother Carmy often calls her, is fundamentally calm, empathetic, and "sweet-natured," and thus her nickname is apt. [7] [8] Nonetheless, on a show that has been called a "symphony of swearing," Sugar keeps her language profane on pace with her more sour and bitter brothers. [9] Mikey's suicide launched the events of the series and left surviving family members traumatized and carrying a "sense of guilt." [10] Both surviving siblings, Natalie and Carmen, have a strained relationship with their mother but "guarded" though she is, Nat ultimately called her mother to her bedside when she went into labor with her baby while her husband was still on a flight home from a business trip. [1] [7] According to Elliott, Sugar's persistent outreach to the avoidant Carmy sometimes reveals her own anxiety about the Berzattos "...like, 'Please don't leave me here with our family...'" [11]
Nat is married to Pete Katinsky (Chris Witaske), a "good-natured," positive, optimistic corporate lawyer. [1] [12] Pete tends to most commonly call his wife Nat. [13] The couple have a healthy, positive relationship although according to Witaske, Pete loves Natalie so much that he sometimes cries over her and her family's pain. [14] Witaske said in 2023 that the Berzattos, including Mikey when he was alive, Carmy, Richie, and Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) "clearly view him as an outsider, or someone who wasn't grown in the same soil of generational trauma that they were. I assume that Pete probably grew up in the suburbs and is a business guy, and so it's easy for them to paint him as this loser." [14] Pete is a college graduate (with an advanced degree), unlike both of Natalie's brothers and "cousin" Richie Jerimovich. [14] Pete is bullied by Nat's family when he first joins the clan. [14] By the end of the season one episode "Sheridan," Carmy confesses a change of heart: "I do kinda like Pete now." [15] Still, Carm keeps his brother-in-law listed in his phone under his original disrespectful designation of "Sugar's boyfriend (Pete?)". [12] Nat and Pete's first child together is a daughter named Sophie Katinsky. [16] [7] Nat reveals her pregnancy early in season two, and gives birth the season three episode "Ice Chips," and then takes maternity leave before returning to work at the restaurant in the season four episode "Replicants." [17] Nat and Pete are "blissful" after the arrival of Sophie, and embraces a major life change for Carmen regardless of the potential consequences for the restaurant. [17]
Nat and Carmy are very close; according to Elliott, "She's really good at her job [at the restaurant]. But I think she got into it because she loves Carmy so much and just wanted to take care of him." [18] This abiding affection is repeatedly shown to be long-standing, for instance, a years-ago flashback in season three depicts Natalie "functioning as a support system for Carmy...She sees him off to his new life as a chef in New York and offers him a little bit of cash to get started." [19] Nonetheless, focusing on Carmy is at least mildly avoidant because it allows Natalie to play "fixer" and partially sidestep her own trauma. [13] In addition to encouraging her brother to attend Al-Anon meetings to help him process the trauma of their childhood and their brother's suicide, Nat steers the "logistical and financial" side of the Beef-to-Bear launch. [5] Sugar has a "Type A, detail-oriented personality" that serves as a useful counterweight to her chef brother's chaotic creative genius and inability to do basic math. [19]
Nat also develops a warm relationship with Carmy's "work wife" and creative muse, Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri), [20] who cooks the pregnant and exhausted Sugar an omelette on the day they're set to "soft open" the Bear. [21] As Syd cooks the omelette, which is filled with Boursin tube cheese and topped with crumbled sour-cream-and-onion potato chips, [22] "No dialogue interrupts the scene. There is no soundtrack. Just the ambient sound of Adamu's cracking and whisking and whisper frying, an act of meditation, an act of love. The viewer is meant to hear it as well as witness it." [21] Natalie views Sydney as a leader, while maintaining serious doubts about her brother's capacity to be present at either the restaurant or in their family life. [13] Natalie also adores Marcus Brooks (Lionel Boyce), who served Mikey as a bread baker and who, with mentoring from Carmy, Sydney, and Luca the Bear (Will Poulter), has become an acclaimed pastry chef at the Bear. [23] Sugar threatened to murder financial consultant and her "uncle" "Computer" (Brian Koppelman) for suggesting that the restaurant could economize by cutting the dessert menu and Marcus' job. [23]
Natalie also maintains ambivalent friendships with a number of the Fak siblings who grew up in her neighborhood, including "quick-talking merrymakers" Neil (Matty Matheson) and Ted (Ricky Staffieri), and their foxy, sophisticated sister Francine "Francie" Fak (Brie Larson). [1] Francie Fak and Nat once had a romantic relationship; it ended badly. [1] The Faks and Richie refer to her, in passing, as "Mom" because Nat is a figure of comparative maturity and authority. [5] Nat seemingly reaches the limits of her patience with the Faks when it comes to her infant daughter; "the two main morons sniff around baby Sophie like a couple of sweaty moron hyenas" but they are forbidden from holding the baby. [24] Meanwhile, talented British chef Luca (Will Poulter)—whom Nat met an hour ago—is promptly granted full baby-cuddling rights. [25]
The Berzattos are Italian American by heritage. Unlike older brother Mikey, Sugar has "no stereotypically Italian-American features." The Berzattos have a Roman Catholic religious background. [28] The family celebrates the Feast of the Seven Fishes; Natalie and her brothers sometimes make a ritual appeal to Our Mother of Victory, an embodiment of the Virgin Mary. [28] [29]
