Ayo Edebiri Gets A New Role In The Bear Season 3, Will Shoot Back To Back With Season 4
The cast of FX/Hulu's hit restaurant drama/stress simulator "The Bear" won't just be saying "Yes, chef!" to Ayo Edebiri in season 3 — they'll be saying "Yes, director!" Amid news (via Deadline and Variety) that "The Bear" has been quietly renewed for season 4, which will film back-to-back with the previously-announced season 3, we've also learned (via Vogue) that Edebiri will be making her directorial debut with a season 3 episode set to shoot this spring.
"The first time I met ['The Bear' creator Chris Storer], I was 21, and he was like, 'You're a director.' I was like, 'Mind your business, bro,'" recalled Edebiri, who plays head chef Sydney Adamu in the series. After Storer invited her to come to set every day during the filming of "The Bear" season 2 and she saw whole episodes being put together, she realized, "Oh, okay. Yeah. I think I want to do this."
Last week, Reel Chicago reported that FX and Hulu were understandably keen to get a fourth season of "The Bear" locked in alongside season 3, but that Storer was ready to move on to other projects after season 3. The outlet reported that Storer agreed to additional episodes only if they were filmed back-to-back with already-planned episodes for the third season. Now it appears that those additional episodes will actually be season 4 — but is there a future for "The Bear" beyond that?
Does The Bear have a story without Storer?
A major running theme in the first two seasons of "The Bear" is that the characters are perpetually on the verge of running out of money and seeing their restaurant dreams crushed. That's appropriate since that's also a major running theme in the life of people who own restaurants. As the show itself acknowledges, 60% of restaurants fail within the first year of operation and 80% fail within the first five years. The odds of a TV show getting renewed after its first season or making it to five seasons are a little better than that, but it's still a tough business.
Reel Chicago reports hearing across the board that the episodes being filmed this year will conclude the series. However, Deadline reports that season 5 "remains a possibility." At this point, probably neither statement is true for certain. If the reports of Storer wanting to move on after the current batch of episodes are true, however, then some fans of "The Bear" might prefer for the show to end with season 4 rather than attempt to go on with a new showrunner.
There's also a question of how much further the story can go before it starts going in circles. The first two seasons each had a clear forward momentum: in season 1, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) was attempting to turn things around for his family's beef sandwich shop in the wake of his brother's suicide; in season 2, Carmy and Sydney were building their own restaurant from the ashes of The Beef. In season 3 they'll be trying to keep their baby alive in the brutal post-Covid restaurant landscape, but there's only so long you can drag out the tension of "will they make it or won't they?"
That said, whether it's a four-course meal or a five-course meal, if the food at "The Bear" is good I'll stay for as long as it's being served.