‘The Bear’ Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: “Forks”

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“In order to get better, we must change limits.” This comes from a clip of Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Sydney’s bizarre spiritual guide throughout the season, through her headstrong endeavor as part-owner of The Bear early in Season 2, Episode 7 (“Forks”). Other Coach K-isms: “Learn how to be on a team. Surround yourself with good people. Learn how to listen.” She’s an overachiever who’s been in need of a strategy; she’s a leader learning how to lead.

Next, we have Richie, a close-up of his alarm clock at 5:38, and him pounding it to make the incessant ringing stop.

At first, the whole sequence, comes off like a Kubrick-inspired nightmare with him up at 5:30 a.m. then entering a building where he’s through a mysteriously dark and cavernous hallway that leads into a harshly-lit kitchen, but we soon discover that it is, in fact, real. Carmy has asked one of his old bosses to give Richie a week-long apprenticeship. Once again, we see the sign on the wall as Richie puts on his chef’s coat: EVERY SECOND COUNTS.

We get a close-up of Richie tediously polishing forks (badly) as he meets his supervisor, a no-nonsense 30-year-old named Garrett (Andrew Lopez). Richie asks if this is his job for the week, compares his fork polishing to a prison sentence, and says he won’t give Carmy the satisfaction of bailing early. “I can do my time standing on one foot,” he says. The supervisor pushes back. “So let me get this straight — he’s punishing you by making you work at the best restaurant in the world?” As we know from “Beef” (Season 2 Episode 1), Richie quietly realizes he’s a rudderless 45-year-old do-nothing who believes he lacks purpose. But he doesn’t believe for a second that his purpose involves polishing forks.

Garrett reprimands Richie for leaving streaks on his forks, Richie talks back, and he’s summoned outside. Garrett lets Richie know that the stakes are always high at the best restaurant in the world (“It’s the Super Bowl every day”), and he demands that Richie respect the job, the staff, the customers, and himself. Despite his constant abrasive self-centeredness, we see the first glimmers that Richie might finally get it.

There is bad news on the horizon, though, as he gets a phone call from his ex-wife Tiffany. He tells her that he’s managed to get three Taylor Swift tickets (another Cicero favor, natch) so they can all attend if she wants, but Tiffany declines because she has to share some uncomfortable news: Frank proposed to her, and she said yes. We get a clear shot of Richie’s wedding ring, a sure sign that as much as he knew he screwed up his marriage, he still believed it was salvageable. Now what was his purpose?

The next day, Richie’s luck starts to turn as he’s elevated from fork-polishing to trailing Garrett on front-of-the-house duties and introduced to the restaurant’s complicated but military-like precision to give each table the perfect dining experience—from which diners eat slowly, which ones have special dietary restrictions, who’s got a birthday, to which patrons are assholes. Because the servers aren’t allowed to speak to each other on the floor, they communicate through small notes passed between each other with special observations relayed back to the kitchen. Richie gets handed a note that the family on table 9 has a daughter leaving town, and her biggest regret is that she never tried Chicago deep dish, then, is tasked with running across town to pick up a pie, return it to the restaurant so the chef can turn it into a culinary work of art. (Wonderful Richie-ism during this moment: “Micro basil–fuck yes!”)

And to make it more exciting, Richie asks and is granted permission to drop the special surprise deep dish off at table 9, where he gets to see the excitement on their faces first-hand and gets to turn on his everyman charm.

His apprenticeship ends, and he’s made everyone on staff appreciate him–even Garrett. “We’re gonna miss you, Richie,” Richie asks if there’s an opening, but Garrett tells him it’s not his call. Richie is crestfallen at the thought of leaving, especially right when he’s started to gain some self-respect–and purpose.

On his last day out the door, he finally meets the elusive Chef Terry, played by Olivia Colman, patiently peeling mushrooms by herself. She invites Richie to join her, and he asks why she does this–doesn’t she have a stage to do this? “I like doing this. I think it’s time well spent.”

“That’s what it’s all about, huh?”

On the way out the door, he looks up at the sign on the wall again and finally understands why every second counts.

What Richie initially thought was Carmy’s attempt to get rid of him, as it turns out, was actually a gesture of good faith. Richie has a purpose, and he’s needed if The Bear is to succeed.

THE BEAR SEASON 2 EPISODE 7: LEFTOVERS

QUESTION I STILL HAVE: There’s a poster for the 1996 movie White Squall hanging in Richie’s kitchen. The storyline follows a group of young sailors and a hard-to-love skipper who teaches them the ways of the world. Hmm.
MIDDLE-AGE DAD NEEDLE DROP: “Glass, Concrete, and Stone” by David Byrne. Given how her Eras tour seems well-attended by our selected mid-dad demo, I thought about using Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” which Richie listened to while victoriously cruising around in his car, but this one stays more in the zone.
CARMY ARM PORN: Yes chef.