"Worms" is the fourth episode of the fourth season of the American comedy-drama television series The Bear. It is the 32nd overall episode of the series and was written by Ayo Edebiri & Lionel Boyce and directed by Janicza Bravo. It was released on Hulu on June 25, 2025, along with the rest of the season.
Critics deemed "Worms" one of the stand-out episodes of the season, an instant "hall of fame" installment of the series, and a triumph for co-writer and star Ayo Edebiri, with a story and setting that both showcased her comedy skills and illuminated the often-obscured emotional depths of Sydney Adamu.
Plot
Adam Shapiro (Adam Shapiro) brings Sydney to visit his new restaurant under construction, promising her autonomy and an increased investment in the staff's learning. Sydney then visits her cousin Chantel (Danielle Deadwyler) to get her hair done. When Chantel leaves for errands, Sydney bonds with Chantel's 11-year-old daughter T.J. (Arion King), taking her shopping for groceries, cooking her a meal, and talking through her ongoing conflict with friends. Sydney uses the metaphor of sleepovers to discuss her indecision between staying at the Bear and moving to Shapiro's restaurant. Afterwards, Sydney calls Shapiro to discuss going over paperwork for their partnership.
Background and context
Ayo Edebiri and Lionel Boyce, regular castmembers since the pilot, co-wrote the episode. Edebiri is the only main castmember to appear in "Worms."[1] Edebiri, Boyce, and director Bravo are Black, and "Worms" is the "most Black-coded" episode of The Bear to date.[2] Per Edebiri, "It's not doing something just to do it, or like, Now we have to have a Black episode...These people are Black, so let's make it as true and real and grounded as everything else is in the show."[3] Edebiri and Boyce also sought insights for the script from fellow castmember Corey Hendrix, the Chicago native who plays Sweeps, inquiring about the possible vibe and setting of Sydney Adamu's cousin's Chantel's house and nearby hair salon on the South Side of Chicago, including potential neighborhood settings: "...Bronzeville? Or do you think it's more Englewood or Chatham? We're talking about the looming gentrification, so we want it to be close to a shop that's nice and shiny—maybe that's East Garfield."[4] In writing the teleplay, Edebiri also directly quoted something that Hendrix said to her during the filming of season one, turning it into a line for Chantel: "That's in the north, right? You know their beefs be different. Put some cheese on it!"[4] Boyce's aunt is a beautician and he told Rolling Stone, "She's owned beauty shops since I was a kid. So I think that's just a person you understand is a pillar in the community. Barbershops, beauty salons, they're third spaces. You see different people you know at different points of your life in there. The power of a haircut makes you feel invincible. You go in feeling on the fritz, and then you come out, you’re like, 'Yeah, I can do anything. I can tackle this world.'"[5] The "Barbershop" episode of Atlanta, another FX Networks series, also influenced the creation and style of the episode.[4] Sydney's hair is central to the episode and not by mistake, according to Edebiri: "I thought about how her hair is always the same, and how that's connected to her as a character. That's not a coincidence."[3]
As itemized by BuzzFeed staffer Karlton Jahmal, the episode's representation Is of Black American culture includes Chantel code-switching on the phone, Chantel's "fit check," "the blinking and unset stove clock stuck on 12:00" (which is de rigueur appliance-clock protocol in some Black households), T.J.'s "feeling of being left out when going to a better school" (when parental aspirations for their kids conflict with the kids' existing neighborhood relationships), Chantel's quipping, "Don't worry about that, go and make me a bowl," and a critique of "North side" White-people beef sandwiches being too dry, with Chantel's suggested solution being "Dip it, keep it wet," and put some cheese on it.[2]
The story begins Syd with undoing her box braids on a Sunday off from work, a project that is step one in an hours-long process, and she then uses "I have a hair appointment" as an excuse to put off Adam Shapiro, a social cue he cannot interpret correctly because of his lack of familiarity with Black hair; per BuzzFeed's Jahmal, "I have a hair appointment" is "...a warning that most people in the Black community know means, 'I'm busy for the rest of the day, try me another time.'"[2] The aforementioned unset digital clock in Chantel's kitchen may also be a nod to the time-bending gravity of Black hair appointment. Boyce told Rolling Stone: "We all know how long it is. I remember being a kid, like six years old, and I don't go to school that day because my mom got to get her hair braided. You get there at seven in the morning, and you're there all day at this person's house you don't know. You playing their son's Super Nintendo and like, 'What games they got?' Time and space don't exist. So if you've ever gone through the experience, you just know it takes a minute."[5] There's also an explicit contrast being made between the home kitchen and the restaurant kitchen at the Bear, notes Emily Heil of The Washington Post: "The oven's clock function seems to not be working, offering a stark contrast to the relentlessly ticking clocks in the restaurant kitchen, where the mantra 'every second counts' drives the chefs to be methodical and single-minded. Here, there is space and time to talk, to connect."[6]
Shapiro's interactions with Syd are littered with "friendly yet painful" microaggressions, where the clueless chef reveals himself as a try-hard lacking genuine familiarity with or dedication to the multiculturalism he seeks to manifest at his restaurant through Syd and her food.[2][7] Microaggressions are "behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group," and race-based microaggressions have been found to have a potentially "deleterious and cumulative psychological impact over time."[8] Pushing past Syd's "I have a hair appointment" deflection was one of several hints Sydney was ultimately going to be taken advantage by Shapiro, and commenter Keyaira Boone, publishing on HelloBeautiful.com, opined, "Sydney's Black girl magic and talent are the secret sauce at The Bear and Shapiro knows it; he was counting on her NOT to know it. Industries benefit from Black women feeling like they cannot say no."[7] The microaggressions begin early in the phone conversation:[7]
"Despite Sydney having an important hair appointment, Shapiro wouldn't take no for an answer. He instead crossed the line by asking how much time the hair appointment would be. He felt entitled to her time. He incorrectly assumed it would be two hours. She corrected him, and he was in shock about the length of time exceeding his expectations. Her appointment was in her cousin's living room, but it was still an appointment. He shared that shock, putting her in an awkward position. He refused to let it go. It was unfathomable to him that he might have to ask to see her in advance. Eager to end the conversation, Sydney moved her appointment. She accommodated him because he pressed her. He felt comfortable pressing her. That is a problem."[7]
Syd was watching Whoopi Goldberg's 1986 comedy Jumpin' Jack Flash while working on her hair in her apartment, and the scene ends with a clip from the movie, specifically the line "Do you wanna work here, or do you want to live?" which is both on-the-nose in the moment and applicable to the events of the season finale "Goodbye."[9] A Jumpin' Jack Flash poster is on the wall in Syd's room at her dad's house in the episode "Sheridan" in season one. According to Boyce, Edebiri is a fan of Goldberg's work: "Ayo loves Whoopi."[10] Heil of the Washington Post argued that movies carry water, thematically, for both main characters in season four: "Carmy feels stuck, like Bill Murray's character [in Groundhog Day], and the plot of Jumpin' Jack Flash is basically a very competent Black woman...trying to help a White man escape."[11]
Once Syd arrives at Adam's restaurant-to-be, Shapiro points out the East Coast rap song playing on the speakers, and he assumes this song would appeal to Syd. As per Hello Beautiful writer Boone, "There's nothing wrong with a white person acknowledging Black culture, but there is something wrong with them assuming someone's musical preferences because of the color of their skin. Mansplaininghip-hop history to earn brownie points is also not it."[7] Syd tacitly makes this point herself by switching the music to "Für Elise." Later in the conversation Shapiro flippantly comments that Syd might bring some "Afro-Caribbean influences" to the restaurant. Whether or not Syd has Afro-Caribbean heritage or any interest in cooking with Afro-Caribbean flavors and techniques has never been addressed on the show, but her culinary style appears to be "classical with a twist."[9] Syd's sarcastic response and her discomfort at this comment appear to be go unnoticed by Shapiro.[9] A critical view of Shapiro's Afro-Caribbean comment characterized it as a "desperate attempt to entice the well-rounded chef by appealing to her Blackness, and placing her in a culinary box. He makes assumptions instead of collaborating. It's uncomfortable."[7] Hello Beautiful's Boone found that Shapiro demonstrated a strictly "performative allyship," and that "Janicza Bravo directed the story with care, zooming in on the little moments that cause friction in the professional lives of Black women. The Italian family running The Bear may not be experts on intersectionality, but they are consistent. They expose everyone to the same 'energetically musty' environment. Shapiro pretended to value Sydney more than he did."[7] Vulture's Eakin landed in the same place on the Shapiro issue: "It's performative at best and patronizing at worst, and you have to think that working around someone like that...could suck the life out of someone like Syd. Shapiro seems like one of those guys who wants you to know how virtuous he is and so he puts all his good deeds on display, whether through his Instagram account or through that big open window into the kitchen...even watching Syd humor him is bumming me out big-time...Shapiro's restaurant is big and expensive and will have secret compartments hidden around the kitchen for seemingly no reason. But in a way, what he's talking about building—an equitable kitchen with a diverse staff, educational opportunities, and potential health-care benefits—already exists at the Bear."[12] Meanwhile, during her visit to the fractionally converted industrial space, Syd's fractionally undone hair is shielded from Shapiro's gaze by an angled-askew multicolored knit beanie.[2] The hat in question was a Susie Kondi Lumi striped cashmere beanie.[13] Edebiri described this as "the most insane hat of all time."[3]
Culinary producer Courtney Storer told Variety that she talked to Edebiri and Boyce about hiring in the restaurant, stating, "I've run kitchens and had other chefs pull me into new operations with every opportunity that I could want...working in one operation and then having a chef come in and be like, 'Hey, we have HR, and we have a whole structure for vacations and training. And sometimes that stuff that's promised never happens. Everyone's trying to bargain and bring on talent, and when you're in that space as a chef, it can be really isolating."[14]
Christian
Chantel
T.J.
Sydney usually wears "extra small knotless braids,"[7] and her stylist is her cousin Chantel who works out of her home for friends-and-family clients like Syd.[2] When Chantel takes a break mid-appointment to restock on braid hair, she discovers during her parallel day away from the house (including a side trip to Adidas) that her husband Christian has been working part-time "at the hair store" to save up for a couple's trip to Costa Rica.[15] As Edebiri later pointed out in an interview with Variety, Christian is out of the house that day, but Chantel is not a single mom to T.J.[4] Gossip with hair dresser is, naturally, included as one of the perks of any hair appointment, leading Vulture's Eakin to weigh in on the news of the day: "Darnell sounds like a real piece of shit. A second family in Texas? Fuck off, Darnell."[12]
Correctly casting the role of T.J. was considered critical to the success of the episode. Per Boyce, "As I watched it, I texted Ayo because I was so impressed with Arion. That was the thing, when we wrote it, Chris [Storer, creator and showrunner of The Bear] was like, 'Yeah, I love it, but you gotta find a great kid.' Jeanie Bacharach, who's the casting director, and everyone did such a good job at finding Arion. Because that relationship is a tentpole of this episode, and you'd see it unfold. Watching it, it felt lived-in, and it reminded me of my sister in ways."[5] Arion King went through four rounds of auditions before she won the part.[3]
Director Bravo, and writers Boyce and Edebiri disagree about whether or not Sydney will make good on her plans to hang out with Chantel and their third friend, Mary, in three weeks. Bravo says no, because Syd can barely show up for herself at this point in her character's arc, but both Boyce and Edebiri believe the friend group will figure out how to make it happen.[4]
General Hospital is playing on the TV while Chantel is telling Syd about Darnell cheating.[16]
Food
The main dish prepared during the episode is an elevated but kid-friendly beef bowl made with the Cheeseburger Macaroni variety of Hamburger Helper.[17][18][6] According to The Today Show's food reporter Joseph Lamour, "Like previous seasons' standout dishes...this one combines haute cuisine with accessible ingredients."[18] All Hamburger Helper varieties are essentially a meal kit offering a "blend of spices and pasta...meant to be prepared with ground beef."[19] When interviewed by Rolling Stone about the episode, Boyce picked Hamburger Helper as his preferred "instant-comfort nostalgia food," specifically the beef stroganoff and mac and cheese varieties.[5]
Hamburger Helper became popular in American homes in the 1970s when, "strained by inflation and soaring beef prices, [people] looked to turn a pound of ground beef into an entire meal."[17] Ground beef is a comparably economical form of this protein, depending on which part of the cow it came from and the fat percentage: "The least expensive product is sold as regular ground beef or regular hamburger. It's usually made with trimmings of the less expensive cuts such as brisket and shank, and can contain up to 30 percent fat."[20]
According to Edebiri, "Sydney's canonically bad with kids," but she manages to connect with T.J. through the process of constructing this dish.[4] Syd (with help from T.J.) adds double-concentrated tomato paste, diced yellow onion, shredded cheese, toasted panko bread crumbs, and replaced some of the milk with heavy cream "for a richer sauce."[19][21] Food Republic's Cara J. Suppa said Syd's cheese looked like it was probably white cheddar or mozzarella, but recommended substituting Parmigiano Reggiano for maximum umami, and suggested that ketchup works as a substitute if tomato paste is unavailable, with the sugar in ketchup adding another flavor dimension to the dish.[22] Other versions of Syd's dish used an aged Irish cheddar,[6] and added finely minced fresh parsley, oregano, and basil to season the sauce and to finish the dish.[18] Chantel intended to add hot sauce.[19][23]
The Hamburger Helper beef bowl that Sydney made for T.J. and Chantel in "Worms" in The Bear (2025)
The Kitchn's Perry Santanachote replicated Syd's amendments and determined that the resulting dish "looked like something I'd expect to be served at a restaurant—or proudly offer to guests at my own table. And once I dug in, it was every bit as satisfying: deeply savory and beefy, creamy and comforting. The tomato paste brought a hit of umami and mellowed the artificial yellow from the powdered cheese, making the dish look more natural. The real cheese added a tangy edge, but it was the parsley and panko that were my favorite additions, adding a fresh, green note and satisfying crunch."[21]Today food correspondent Lamour also made a version and reported, "This is the very first time in my 42 years of life that I have eaten Hamburger Helper—and I am officially a convert. Each spoonful was rich, but not not too rich. The herbs gave it a fresh bite and the panko added a buttery crunch...Plus, the dish is attractive. You could make this for a dinner party and get compliments from people who would have no idea that a glove with eyes was involved in its creation."[18] (Hamburger Helper's advertising "mascot," named Lefty, is a puffy white glove with a face on its palm.)[17]
The inclusion of Hamburger Helper in the series was not a paid product placement.[17]
The title of the episode, "Worms," refers to favorite-treat gummy worms that Syd buys at the market.[1]
Production
Filming
The episode was shot in March 2025 over the course of about five days.[3] Adam's restaurant space in Avondale was shot at the then-forthcoming Avondale location of local coffee roaster Milli by Metric.[24] Milli by Metric is "the official behind-the-scenes coffee vendor for The Bear's cast and crew."[25]
Location scout John Roxas found a house in Bronzeville to possibly serve as Chantel and Christian's house, which director Bravo said she "knew 'immediately' was the right place to film. 'Let's not create some sort of patchwork to tell the story...Let's really drive across the train tracks, so to speak."[3]
The scene where Syd and T.J. shop for ingredients was filmed at Olivia's Market in Bucktown.[24]
Rolling Stone critic Alan Sepinwall commended Deadwyler, "one of most chameleonic actors we have," for disappearing into this "relaxed, confident, funny role."[1] He praised the episode overall as one of the season four installments that "zeroes in on the emotional details that matter," writing:[1]
In all, "Worms" is a lovely spotlight on the series' co-lead, that feels at once like a little interlude from the main action and like an important stepping stone in the season's larger arc about what will happen to The Bear, and whether Syd wants to keep working with Carmy. Like the cheffed-up Hamburger Helper meal Syd teaches TJ to cook—or, for that matter, like the pared-down menu The Bear has to deploy this season after the grocery budget starts getting too low—it turns its lack of ingredients into a strength. The simplicity of it allows the most important part—in this case, Edebiri's screen presence, charm, and palpable vulnerability in this role—to stand out, rather than getting lost in a busy sauce.[1]
Rolling Stone reporter C.T. Jones wrote that "the genius of 'Worms' also lies in how deftly Boyce and Edebiri lay out some of the most treasured and joyous parts of Black community onscreen without explaining them to death. The Bear is a show about all of the different ways a group of strangers can become family. 'Worms' turns that same silliness, banter, and heartwarming energy radical, by placing the Black home in a place of soft reverence."[5] Slate's Nadira Goff found "Worms" to be a "lovely episode. It's both a testament to Black culture and an overdue check-in with Sydney, who has been ruminating on this choice between the chaos of her chosen family and the normalcy of strangers for ages," but felt that the story told therein frustratingly "doesn't end up mattering in her final decision between the two offers."[9]Time's Judy Berman found the episode "...refreshing, thanks in part to Bravo's lighter hand and in part to the respite it offers from Carmy's wallowing.[27]
Vulture's Marah Eakin rated "Worms" four out of five stars, commenting, "It's always nice to get a Sydney-focused episode of The Bear, and this one is a doozy."[12] Vulture culture correspondent Roxana Hadidi wrote that it "endures as a genuine, distinct portrait of Black womanhood created by a team making for themselves what they want to see onscreen."[3] WaPo's Heil found that "the bits where Sydney is helping the girl decide whether to go to a slumber party and winds up turning her decision to stay at the Bear or take the offer to help open a new restaurant into a metaphor about which slumber party she wants to attend was funny and sweet. When she described Carmy as the 'big brother' at one of the houses who is the best video game player in the world, it was such a clear breakdown of their dynamic."[11] Decider declared that Worms immediately "joins The Bear's hall of fame" commending the episode's illustration of Syd's thought process about her competing partnership offers:[28]
As Sydney effortlessly performs the mental gymnastics required to flawlessly carry out the extended analogy, Edebiri does the same, delivering the demanding monologue while riding the complex emotional roller coaster that the weight of Syd's decision and the idea of letting people—herself included—down, inspires. The talented multi-hyphenate is a standout throughout the season, but her deep connection to the words she penned in 'Worms' makes her performance even more nuanced. She also has precious chemistry with King, who holds her own in every shared scene with humor and heart that helps set the overall tone."[28]
BuzzFeed reacted to the "more serene episode" with a "*chef's kiss*," calling it "a beautiful look at Black culture and family" and commending it as "by far...the most Black coded episode in the entire series," turning the Chicago-centric eye of The Bear to focus on the city's large Black population for the first time.[2] BuzzFeed staffer Jahmal wrote, "From their lingo to their body language, it's just such a fresh, funny, and vivid window into the culture. The way they gossip, the way they throw shots at each other and allude to family beef...it feels so authentic, like I'm sitting in my auntie's house while watching it."[2]
TVLine named Ayo Edebiri their Performer of the Week, commending "Worms" as a stage for Edebiri, who did "maybe her best work of the series, digging into Sydney's inner conflicts and showing off her considerable comedic chops, too, in a very funny, emotionally resonant half-hour...All in all, it was a side of Sydney we don't get to see in the kitchen—a funny, complicated, utterly human side—and we're just happy Edebiri was able to share it with us."[29] TVLine's Dave Nemetz commended guest star Deadwyler and child actor King for equally "terrific" but distinct performances.[29]
Retrospective reviews
In 2025, Vulture ranked "Worms" as 11th-best out of 38 episodes of The Bear, commenting that "You know 'Worms' is going to be special when you see [the talent involved]...The Bear has always done one-off episodes like this well, and 'Worms' is no exception."[30]
Collider placed "funny, lovely, and genuine" "Worms" at number 3 on its 2025 list of top 10 episodes of The Bear, calling it "easily the best episode of [season four], and it is genuinely one of the best episodes of the entire series."[31]
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