The Bear Season 3 Ending, Explained

With the third season of FX’s critically acclaimed series, The Bear, the show takes a far less comedic tone as it explores the aftermath of the Season 2 finale. Now, the ending of Season 3 will set the stage for what comes next in The Bear. Here’s what happened.

What Happened At the End of The Bear Season 3?

For the majority of the season, Carmy and the rest of the staff at The Bear were trying to figure out what direction the restaurant should take and what they should do in their individual lives. Almost as a reflection of the show’s theme, the third season of The Bear was a confusing, meandering, and at times dull look into the restaurant’s future now that it’s actually opened. All of this should have been building to something, yet the end result was ambiguous and unclear.

The two major plot threads that the season focused on were how Carmy was putting too much pressure on himself to succeed, thereby pushing everyone else away in the process. He forces unrealistic demands on his staff and quickly spirals into debt due to buying extravagant ingredients, only for the menu to change every night. To add to that, he becomes absolutely obsessed with an upcoming review of his restaurant that may sink the entire enterprise if it’s bad.

The other major plot thread focuses on Sydney, who has become increasingly disillusioned working with Carmy. She was promised to be Carmy’s partner in the restaurant, but she has no say in the menu or any of the decisions, with Carmy treating her more like an employee than a partner. She drags her heels on signing a contract solidifying her as a partner in The Bear, but what conflicts her even further is how she’s offered to join a new start-up restaurant as their Chef De Cuisine, or CDC. Before the ending of The Bear Season 3, she even finds out that the terms of the position are better than the ones that Carmy is offering her as a partner.

This all comes to a head in the season finale, where Carmy and Sydney attend the funeral service of one of the most respected fine dining restaurants in Chicago, Ever. While there, Syndey hears from other world-renowned chefs how to best enjoy their craft, good business decisions, and how they make positive work environments, all of which are counter to her experiences working with Carmy this season. Meanwhile, Carmy confronts David Fields, his abusive former boss, and tries to chastise him, only for Fields to say that Carmy wouldn’t be as good as a chef if it wasn’t for his abuse. Carmy can’t really counter his claim and begins to cry.

Related: Bradley Cooper’s Character from Burnt Is Canon in The Bear

After the service, Sydney invites the staff from The Bear and Ever to her apartment for a party and has a panic attack, thinking about all of the good times she’s had with them and how devastated they would be if she left. Because of this, she’s unable to make a decision on whether to go or not. Carmy, who doesn’t attend the party, instead heads home and checks his phone to see several calls from Cicero, who told him earlier that if the review is bad, he would have to pull out and stop funding The Bear. All of those calls are because The Bear’s first review got published, and it appears to be a mixed one. Then, without any closure on any of the main character’s arcs, the words “To Be Continued” pop up on the screen, ending the season.

It’s a frustrating finale, one that doesn’t really tie up any of the major loose threads from the season and instead serves as set-up for the fourth season. Neither Sydney nor Carmy have resolved either of their issues, and most of the supporting cast hardly factored into any of the events of the season. When Season 4 starts up, it’s gonna have to work extra hard to justify the glacial and meandering pace of the third season.

And that’s the ending of The Bear Season 3, explained.

The Bear is streaming now on Hulu.