Whither the Sandwiches?

Justice for The Beef! And give Ebra a raise. Photo: FX

Spoilers ahead for the full third season of The Bear.

Last season on The Bear, when Syd and Carmy first imagined the restaurant they’d like to rebuild out of the ashes of the original Beef, the deal was that they’d have a kitchen and a room for fine dining where they could mess around with whatever exciting, artistic Mind of a Chef ideas came into their heads, but they’d also have a sandwich window out the side, where all the regulars could keep showing up for their Italian beefs. It was meant to be a perfect union, a way to hold on to the old while embracing the new. To some extent, that’s what happens: The Bear opens, Carmy agrees that it’s okay to open the sandwich window, and they run along in unison. Except by the end of season three, The Bear side of the business has taken up all the narrative energy. They’re frantic about the Tribune review, Syd is being lured away to open another place, Carmy’s so far up his own ass he can breathe fresh air, and everyone’s in pieces about the fact that Ever is closing. All along, no one seems to care about one of the biggest questions of this whole venture: What is happening with the sandwich window? 

It does get some minimal attention throughout the season. There’s a note early in episode two that the regulars are “talking shit” about the fact that the beef window isn’t open yet, which forces Carmy to agree that it’s time to open that part of the business. (The exact words relayed to Carmy are “Yo, fuck this fancy fuck, I want my shit.”) Then there’s a small set of scenes in episode three where Ebra’s ability to hold down the sandwich window has completely fallen apart, mirroring the chaos in The Bear kitchen during the first month of service, and then the beef window disappears until episode five, when Natalie agrees to hire Chris and Chuckie to give Ebra more help. By episode seven, Chris and Chuckie help Ebra turn the window around and service starts running smoothly.

All the while, there are little hints at what this whole sandwich-window plot could do for this show. Natalie’s happy to get Ebra more help, she says, because it’s the only part of this business making money. In every shot of the window, there are lines of people waiting for their sandwiches. The last images we get of Ebra working behind the window are a full-on competence-porn montage. Beef’s getting slapped into buns. Names are shouted out with efficiency. There’s a smile on everyone’s faces.

This would seem like an interesting and even obvious counterbalance to everything happening inside The Bear. From the perspective of pure plot mechanics, the idea that The Bear’s dining room struggles while its sandwich window succeeds could be a strong element of added tension. Should Carmy scale back the dining and emphasize the sandwiches, and wouldn’t that put him right back where he started? Is there a scenario where the sandwich window helps keep the dining room afloat for a bit until it gets its economics in order? It’s even a striking potential outcome for the dreaded Tribune-review plot arc. What if what we’re seeing in the last moments of the season finale is a glowing review for the sandwiches and an out-and-out pan of the dining room? Wouldn’t that be a fun twist! (And wouldn’t that be an interesting development for the end of this season rather than the vague, contradictory word salad we get instead?)

More emphasis on the sandwich window could help tighten the plot of this season, which in general lacks forward momentum: Tina’s departure episode is a flashback; Natalie’s birth episode is a backward-looking reconsideration of her relationship with her mother; the finale episode is not about the future of The Bear, it’s about Carmy looking back on his experiences thus far, and about all these chefs mourning the end of a beloved fine dining institution. A revived sandwich window, a line of business with real hope for the future, could be an engine chugging along into the future of this show.

But the best reason for more time spent on sandwiches, and the most frustrating part of their overall neglect in season three, is how beautifully they’d play into The Bear’s larger thematic obsessions. This show is extremely into ideas about food versus cuisine, commercial success versus artistry, the asshole genius versus the warm collaborator, familiarity versus innovation. What does excellence look like in the context of a restaurant? Is it about something exquisite no one’s ever seen before? Or is it about perfectly executing this beloved standard? This season is very invested in the exquisite, innovative, asshole genius sides of those questions. You know what would be a perfect foil for all of that? A plot thread that could provide a sense of familiarity, food rooted in accessibility and tradition, service that thrives with collaboration rather than a lone authority figure? The damn sandwich window.

Maybe all of this is just being seeded now, and the promised results will finally flourish in season four. Maybe next season will open with Uncle Jimmy knocking Carmy upside the head and pointing out that the part of this business that’s really working is the part that everyone already loved! But it’s frustrating to see that opportunity already there for the taking in season three, and to watch it get largely ignored while the rest of the season deliberately spins its wheels. Justice for The Beef! And give Ebra a raise.