‘The Bear’ Season 2 Episode 8 Recap: “Bolognese”

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The opening scenes of The Bear Season 2 Episode 8 (“Bolognese”) are of Sydney walking through the new renovations in the dining room, thinking about the ten days between now and show time, meanwhile, we have Carmy and Claire in the morning, as she consoles him, stressing about the Fire Suppression guy who comes today, which determines the fate of their restaurant even before its doors open.

Back at The Bear, Ebra returns from his brief walkabout and sees Tina at the newly renovated sandwich window. They lovingly insult each other, and Ebra agrees to return as the takeout sandwich lord.

Sydney and Carmy at the giant, daunting floorplan of The Bear, talk strategy. Sydney spouts off a Coach K-ism: “Sometimes the best offenses have the ability to reset and adapt on a dime,” Sydney passes Carmy a bottle of Pepto. Their dream lives or dies by a surgical glove attached to a gas line. Richie comes into The Bear dressed in a suit, dapper as hell, newly enlightened that The Bear and its inhabitants are worthwhile purposes. “I get it now.” Carmy is shocked by the transformation but pleased as hell. Aw, Cousin.

Meanwhile, Marcus whips up one of his Scandinavian death metal desserts for Sydney.

It’s a hit. Carmy comes in and eyeballs it. “Very yes,” he says. Then he tries it, and, boom–Marcus is locked in! The rest of the crew…not so much.

The new hires for behind-the-line arrive, and Tina’s overseeing their integration. She sizes up each one like a drill sergeant. “Let’s go, freshmen!” eliciting a “Yes, chef!”(Glad to see Tina’s ascent comes with some real boss-level power.)

Natalie is in her office, working the phones to get some inside info on when the fire suppression inspector could pop by because the whole restaurant is incredibly screwed if they come by before Fak figures out the gas line situation.

Nat has a surprise visitor–Suit Richie’s come in to apologize formally. “May I sit?” he says. Nat asks Gary to come in so if Richie reverts back into a roaring dipshit, she has an official witness. But after he’s finished, Nat and Gary agree that Suit Richie’s apology feels genuine. (Fork polishing–it changes lives.) Suit Richie and Nat form an unlikely alliance together after that, and the first order of duty is to do front-of-the-house interviews.

Also, we have Sydney and Carmy still trying to work through menu issues (and trust issues), but Carmy presents her with a set of beautiful drawings he made of the menu that she finds both insane and charming. The scope of his ideas appears to be very similar to the Chaos Menu the two of them had originally conceived of but that Carmy had all but abandoned until now. It turns out, he came around thanks in part to a conversation and pep talk from Claire. Sydney begins to wig because she now sees Claire as a threat to the already deteriorating partnership she has with Carmy, and she goes in hard on him.

Things get so heated between them that Sydney has to whip out the sign language to get them back on track.

They move on. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, the Suit Richie-Sugar Nat alliance is in full swing, as they do front-of-the-house interviews together.

The first candidate they see has seven years of experience at very high-post restaurants, and Natalie is wowed by her, but Suit Richie nixes her immediately. Turns out he purposely left a napkin crooked, and she didn’t straighten it out, so he already knows her attention to detail is suspect. “Sugar, you guys want stars, and that ain’t a star catcher.” Micro basil, fuck yes, Richie!

Carmy runs into Fak, who’s hiding in the walk-in fridge because he can’t figure out the gas line problem, but Carmy’s got more important things on his mind. “Is Claire my girlfriend?” Fak says depends on how much he loves her. Turns out it’s lots. So I guess that’s official.

Fak notices a photo of Ebra, Tina, and Mikey that is a little burned and asks Ebra what happened to it and without going into too much detail, Ebra says that Mikey was on drugs one time and it caught fire. That’s when Fak solves the gas line problem: Fak remembers that Mikey at one point considered blowing up Original Beef for insurance money and installed a system override that would keep the gas line on even if a fire broke out.

When the fire suppression inspector comes through, they pass the test, and he stamps the papers and approves their application. The Bear is officially a restaurant. To celebrate, Carmy goes over to Claire’s apartment and finally makes his girlfriend dinner.

THE BEAR SEASON 2 EPISODE 7: LEFTOVERS

QUESTION I STILL HAVE: Is anyone from the Christmas Eve hell-shit dinner going to show up to Friends and Family night? Or will they be disinvited? How about Coach K?
MIDDLE-AGE DAD NEEDLE DROP: “Throw Your Arms Around Me” by Eddie Vedder and Neil Finn. THIS. IS. AWESOME. A track originally recorded by New Zealand pop group Hunters & Collectors but became a Pearl Jam encore favorite in the early 2000s on a few of their live albums. Though this version is a very rare studio version that features Ed and Split Enz singer Finn.
CARMY ARM PORN: Plus a bonus heater.