‘The Bear’ Is a Love Story. Let Us Explain.

The Bear is a love story between Carmy and Sydney. That might sound blasphemous to people who believe The Bear has eschewed, and will continue to eschew, a traditional romance between the show’s two leads and top chefs, played by Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri. Yet after a third rewatch of The Bear, whose third season drops on Hulu on Thursday, I believe that Syd and Carmy’s relationship has been marinating right in front of us the whole time. In fact, their romance might be the show’s main course.

Syd is filling the void in Carmy’s life that his brother, Mikey, left. The show hasn’t been subtle in drawing connections between Syd and Mikey.

• Just as Carmy is about to open the tomato sauce recipe from his brother at the end of Season 1—the note that says “Let it rip”—Carmy stops to text Sydney an apology.
• When everyone is pulling money out of the tomato cans at the end of Season 1, Carmy sees Syd walk in. The first words he says after finding this life-changing sum are “Family style?”—like the type of restaurant he wants to build with Sydney (which he was supposed to build with Mikey).
• When they finally open the doors to the restaurant in the penultimate episode of Season 2, Richie, Sugar, and Carmy say they’re doing it for Mike. Then Sydney walks in and, with their blessing, says, “Let it rip.” Sydney and Mikey are constantly intertwined as major figures in Carmy’s life.

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Earlier in that same episode, Syd helps Carmy fix a table before opening night. It’s basically a sex scene without any sex. Sensual music plays in the background. Carmy is on the floor, being vulnerable, while Syd is (kind of) on top of him. “You deserve my full focus,” Carmy says. “And I’m sorry. It’s not Claire’s fault … my attention shouldn’t be split. It shouldn’t have to be shared.” Does that sound like something you’d say to a coworker?

Syd says she doesn’t want Carmy to think she was being jealous or bitter. Then they switch positions (!) so that Carmy is on top and Syd is on the bottom. Now Syd gets vulnerable. “[I’m] scared that I don’t have what it takes to not fuck this up,” Syd says. That leads to this exchange.

Syd: “You could do this without me.”

Carmy: “I couldn’t do it without you. I wouldn’t even wanna do it without you. You make me better at this.”

Syd: “You make me better at this.”

Did I mention that this happened while they were literally screwing?

With that, Carmy gets up and gives Syd an incredibly expensive and thoughtful pair of embroidered chef’s whites. A very loving gesture, if I’ve ever seen one.

And sure, it’s easy to think that this is a riff on how their relationship is sexless, demonstrating how Syd is a part of Carmy’s family but it’s not romantic. White weighed in on this last year. “There’s admiration and I think and I hope that even in platonic relationships, you are able to say things like, ‘I need you,’” he said to Variety. “When they speak to each other under the table in Episode 9, it’s such a beautiful scene, and it is a scene about partnership, but not a romantic partner.”

Not yet. Because if the show has no interest in making this a romance, it is forcing a lot of direct comparisons between Sydney and Claire. Follow me down this rabbit hole, Charlie Kelly style.

Earlier in the same table episode, Carmy has a panic attack. We see him flashing through various memories: his mom, his brother, Claire. But the panic attack goes away when he focuses on a sequence of memories of Syd: the first time they met, her compliments about his career success, the moment she walked back into the restaurant when they found the money in the tomato cans. As this Syd montage plays out, the song in the background is “Strange Currencies” by R.E.M.:

“YOUUU WILL BE MINEEEEEEEE / ALL THE TIMEEEEE.”

This song had played earlier in the season, in Episode 2, when Carmy first reconnected with Claire by the freezer. But now, during his panic attack, it is playing for Sydney. This is not subtle stuff! But there are plenty of other tiny details that, upon a rewatch, show that the writers have been building to this. (Shout-out to this incredibly detailed and unhinged Tumblr account named Chefkids, which is devoted to The Bear and shipping Carmy and Sydney.) Among the evidence:

• When Carmy first spends the day with Claire in Season 2, Episode 3, he texts Syd that he is bailing on her while she is eating alone at a table, invoking the idea that he’s standing her up on a date. (She does their planned Chicago food tour without him as Edwin Starr’s “25 Miles” plays—I’ll let you listen to the lyrics and decide on the meaning.)
• Syd gets upset that Carmy was discussing their menu with Claire.
• Syd’s old company was called Sheridan Road Catering. When Carmy takes Claire on their first date, we see them pass through Sheridan Road, along Syd’s old UPS route.
• When Claire sees Carmy in the convenience store, she asks him whether he is making a veal stock sundae. The next episode, we see Syd eat an ice cream sundae.
• In Season 2, Episode 2, Syd explains that she made a perfect lamb ragù for a catering event but ran out of pasta. Later in the season, Carmy makes Claire a lamb ragù with handmade pasta.
• One of the most convincing through lines is the iciness of Claire and Carmy’s relationship. They (re)met in the freezer aisle. They broke up while Carmy was in a freezer. As the Chefkids tumblr points out, when Claire visits the restaurant in the fifth episode of Season 2, he tells her that she’s sitting on the cold prep station. Claire is the cold prep. She is the rehearsal girlfriend before Sydney, the real thing.

It’s certainly possible that the show is trying to give Syd and Carmy a platonic relationship. [Charlie Kelly voice] That’s what the writers want you to think—that they’re above a standard love story. But if that’s the case, isn’t it odd that the show so frequently draws parallels between Syd and Claire? When Carmy is with Claire, his mind drifts back to Syd. But Syd acts odd when Claire is mentioned, too. In fact, this is Syd’s face the moment she meets Claire.

“Uh, I’m Sydney, it’s nice to meet you,” Syd says after Claire walks in on a staffwide argument. “I’m also sorry that you’re here. Or not that, that, uh, it’s happening in front of you. It’s good that you’re here.”

At this point in the series, some people might feel that a Syd-Carmy relationship would come off as shoehorned in. In truth, not only have the writers laid the breadcrumbs from the start, but a romance between Carmy and Syd also makes perfect thematic sense.

The secret ingredient in any great dish is love. Everyone has heard this from their grandmother or at least put it together from watching Ratatouille or something. But Carmy does not cook with love. Carmy cooks with robotic precision. He may have a culinary education his brother, Mikey, lacked, but Mikey cooked with a certain tenderness. Instead, in addition to his precision, Carmy cooks with his mother’s anger. (That’s why Richie says, “OK Donna!” when Carmy yells at him from the freezer.) Carmy pursued his career because he wanted to tell his brother, in Carmy’s own words, “OK, fuck you, watch this,” after Mikey didn’t let him work at The Beef. Carmy did initially cook because he loved his family, but he became a chef because he was mad at them—especially Mikey.

Ostensibly, Carmy is teaching Syd how to be a better chef. But by falling in love with Syd, Carmy could fall in love with cooking all over again. If Season 3 does indeed give us #SydCarmy, then you know what they say: Let it rip.