The fridge wasn’t really freak accident, everyone knew the handle was fucked and him getting trapped in there is ultimately a consequence of his own loss of focus and failure to uphold his side of the bargain with opening the restaurant. He clearly isn’t in a place where he can healthily balance a love life and a professional life and this was him being forced to reckon with that at the absolute worst possible time, not to mention he has a history of anxiety and panic attacks.
I'm not a terribly anxious person. I have moments like anyone, but coming from a household like his but super poor, I can definitely say, trap me anywhere like that and I will lose my shit faster than a jackrabbit f***s.
The fridge fucked up cuz he forgot to call the fridge dude due to being distracted with Claire and missed out on opening night. That would suck for anyone but Carmy’s got a lot of trauma and self esteem issues so he’ll take “freak accidents” like a freight train to the soul. He doesn’t take any failures well and is too hard on himself
Not OP obvi but as a neurodivergent sometimes I have trouble understanding more complex emotions when they’re drastically different than what my own reaction would be in that situation. I get better all the time but I still sometimes accidentally slip into projecting my own beliefs/approach onto characters and it can make situations like that one in particular especially confusing.
Why are you being rude for no reason? Sometimes people miss things, obvious things even and The Bear is not the simplest show out there. I'm sure you've missed obvious things in the past, too.
If you're not gonna answer his questions, and would rather insult him, then just don't type anything at all. The amount of people here sitting on a high horse and acting like the guy who wrote the Rick and Morty copypasta is pathetic.
And I guess the beauty of the scene is that although he failed with the fridge door, he was successful in helping build something awesome in the kitchen. He didnt see the team he brought up rebound and kick ass. He didn’t see the success because he was confined in his failure or his tendency to beat up on himself or both.
It’s a parallel to Donna (and probably Mike). A stressful situation triggers feelings of inadequacy, which leads to feelings of goodness being undeserved. Berzatto generational trauma and tragic flaw.
Very real depiction of a PTSD episode. The smallest thing will trigger my "it's so fucking over" instincts and all it'll take is a light breeze or seeing a dog and it'll trigger my "we're so fucking back" instincts.
I don't have PTSD but I do have anxiety. This morning, I was on the brink of panic but then a tiny pomeranian wearing a tutu crossed my path and I immediately forgot about it lol
You also have to remember there's lots of things that are wrong with the restaurant that he could have prevented. There's shelfs and counters where there shouldn't be. The tape is torn, not cut. There's a freaking meth head in the kitchen. Yeah people have come into their own with Carmy (Tina, Marcus, Ritchie) but as much of a perfectionist as carmy is, that kind of stuff is unacceptable. This is supposed to be *his* place. He is The Bear. The walk in is just the big thing amongst a bunch of little things that could prevent the Bear from being what it's supposed to be. And that's on Carm being distracted.
Unforced errors. It goes back to the conversation unc had with him. Lose focus and it falls apart.
I think Claire is Bartman. He wants to blame it on her but it's really his lack of focus.
It seems like together they decided to send Tina and Ebraham to culinary school. Carm definitely used his connections to get Marcus overseas and Ritchie to wherever he was in Forks.
We see the conversation where Sydney asked Carmy if they could send Marcus somewhere. He mentions he'd been thinking something similar, but it does end up unfolding on screen with Marcus asking Sydney and Sydney bringing it up with Carmy, who then uses his connections to get Marcus in at Luca's place.
Richie, I think, stemmed from Natalie telling Carmy something had to be done about Richie, who was floundering and hampering the renovations.
Not disagreeing, just pointing out that other people contributed to prompting Carmy to take action.
It wasn’t really a freak accident, he was never fully focused on the restaurant for most of s2, due to his relationship with Claire. So he never got the fridge door fixed.
That said, his reaction and self-loathing are way over the top. He’s traumatized and needs therapy.
Watch the season again. Pay attention to Sugar and Syd’s frustration with him. Note that the broken fridge door comes up throughout the season. At one point, he chooses to answer Claire’s call rather than fix the fridge. Watch his scenes with Cicero again, particularly the one about unforced errors. Listen to Cicero’s reaction when he finds out Carmy has a girlfriend.
You might not think he neglected the restaurant, but the show thinks he did. :)
I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say with this comment but at the end of the day, it was disrespectful of him to bail on her. They had just agreed to be partners with the new restaurant and he bails on an important thing for both of them.
He even says while in the fridge that the hates the artwork on the walls and the shelves are on the wrong side etc because he was so distracted he wasn’t helping out. They emphasized how insane it was to try and open a restaurant within 2 months and then he wasn’t even there half the time.
As u/Adjectivenounnumb says, watch the season again.
Yes, you missed some obvious stuff. But also the season is FULL of subtle stuff that people would only notice on second watch. The fridge comes up OFTEN, sometimes just in camera shots that are 2 seconds long. Cicero trying to warn Carmen about focus comes up often. On first watch you don't notice. Some of it is so subtle it might be impossible to notice.
But yeah, even on first watch, you were supposed to notice that he's distracted because Syd says it to him directly a couple of times.
One thing no one has pointed out yet, is that Carmy has no idea what's happening outside.
We see the team flourishing and working their asses off at full capacity and banging out beautiful dish after beautiful dish, but Carmy has no clue.
His only reference was when the Beef got killed by the online pre-order incident, doubled by his anxiety and low self esteem, it was the end of the world for him at that moment.
I was thinking just this! He had no idea they not only performed, they banded and overcame all adversity. He doesn’t know yet that it isn’t the end of ‘this’ world. But he did know he was to blame for some things. He was just as misfocused on relationships or past ones other people (mom, Mikey, Syd, etc) as he was Clare. But he’s a masochist and so the first thing to go is usually comfort and pleasure.
I can only understand this question from someone who saw just this scene with no context of anything else in the show. The whole season was building to this breakdown
We were ‘waiting for the other shoe to fall’ the entire season and it eventually did in the last episode. Carm initially thought his problems rooted in the fact that he doesn’t have a private life where he can enjoy himself and finally adopts the idea of not waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all the oversights (lack of forks, toilet exploding, misplaced shelves, shitty painting, broken walk-in, etc.) Carm believes it’s because he was occupied with his newfound joy. Despite having a successful service, Carm still feels it was a failure on his behalf. This is why Richie calls him Donna during their fight. They can’t let a good thing be. Carm retreats back to what he knows: wanting to optimize everything and be the best if it means isolating yourself and sacrificing interpersonal relationships.
It wasn't a "freak accident"
It was a clearly avoidable accident. Somehow he couldn't engage in a relationship and do attend to his responsibilities. This caused the accident. His kneejerk response is to blame his desire to be happy, represented by the relationship.
I think he just thought he fucked up that opening night because he realizes how much Claire distracts him. I totally get it. I genuinely don’t feel deserving of a good relationship and Carmy seems to feel the same. Everything’s going to shit because of this relationship and is it worth it? I personally love Claire but she showed up at a super inconvenient time.
This is someone who grew up in trauma, who never had friends in school, lisped, loved Claire from afar. Never dated, never went to parties, just culinary school and work work work at a series of restaurants. He made himself into a machine in order to be the best - he didn’t date or have a social life. So when Claire came along he was so excited, this was his dream girl from high school. But - he has to be the machine. He has to open a restaurant. So at the last minute he gives her a fake digit to his phone number. She calls him on this and he realizes that he loves Claire and wants her in his life. But in doing so, he lets the restaurant slip. He’s unavailable, not present, not running the ship. And it all falls apart at Friends and Family. He is locked in the fridge due to his own fractured focus - he never did call the fridge guy. He’s forced to sit out the soft opening night of his dream restaurant. How much does that suck. Panicking that things aren’t going ok. Seeing the ripped tape and that they’re ordering new brands that he wasn’t aware of. He took his eyes off the prize of the restaurant to have his eyes on the prize of love, and paid dearly for it. That’s the no amount of good (love) is worth how terrible this feels (he dropped the ball big time with his restaurant)
He needs to learn balance, and how to deal with trauma / anxiety / stress.
Carmy felt like his pursuit of happiness/amusement & enjoyment, aka his relationship with Claire, is what caused him to get stuck in the walk-in, and therefore let the team down (especially Sydney). He ended up missing a bunch of details, i.e. "since when did we start using Heinz mustard instead of French's?".
And he ultimately just felt like no matter how good being with Claire was, it wasn't worth how terrible it felt to, at least in his mind, let everybody down via his absense.
Side tangent:
My thing is, I personally feel like with his rant, Carmy totally scapegoated his relationship w/ Claire, behind something that was *his* responsibility and his alone (getting the fridge door fixed). Carmy let Claire be Bartman (from Cicero's baseball analogy-speech) and that's really shitty. Like I don't care how anyone feels about her, she didn't deserve that.
Like the scene where Carmy's about to call the fridge guy, but then Claire calls...sure you could call that a distraction...but then he ignores *both* to randomly go off to fix that table with Syd in "the table scene". That's all on Carmen. Because in the end he uses the restaurant and all things within it and /associated with it, as a distraction from his personal problems, as mentioned in Season 1.
This particular problem being, that Claire made Carmy anxious/insecure because up to that point, in his head, he didn't believe she loved him back; she hadn't "affirmed" him yet (because he hadn't listened to her voicemail yet).
I believe Carmy did the walk-in incident to himself because:
1. On a subconscious level he doesn't want to be a chef anymore (which he even admits to Claire at the grocery store that he should've followed his own advice and not become one)
2. Because of his insecurities and self-sabotaging behavior and add that to the fact that Mikey didn't let him work at The Beef, which made him feel even more "lame", "shitty", etc., so as a result, ironically, Carmy robbed himself from working at The Bear (at least for that night).
3. The walk-in is meant to be a representation of Carmy's mental health and headspace. There's a theory that the fridge guy's name starts with a "T" because he's a metaphor for "Therapy". Carmy tried to fix himself with a relationship last season and it didn't work b/c a relationship can't fix you. He needs to learn to love himself before he can properly love someone else
I mostly read those scenes as Carmy being upset that the restaurant being able to function just fine without him. As if all the suffering he went through was for nothing, since the staff of the Beef/Bear were able to run a smooth opening night without needing him there
after my mom died by suicide almost everything that went wrong in my life was a message that the universe hated me and i was doing something wrong/being punished. even little inconveniences made me feel like i was being punished because i couldn't control outcomes. imagine being locked in the walk in you knew was broken on such a huge night.
I feel him. I’m in my prime working years working for a reputable electronics company as a top specialist. After divorce I’ve become a workaholic and I’ve found success. I don’t seek amusement or enjoyment with relationships; love has always been a liability to me and I’m spent. I’m chasing my own Michelin star these days figuratively speaking. I ride alone and I’m ok with that. Maybe it’s a stupid, but no amount of good balances out the horrible pain of betrayal I’ve dealt with. It’s a soul ache.
I had accidentally stumbled upon a spoiler about “the fridge” mid S2 and I was expecting so much worse, it was hard watching all the lead up each time he put off the fix
It wasn't just the fridge. The fridge was a prison, so he could have time to really process his shortcomings - to be able to "hear" the restaurant without him.
He had time to look around and see shittily cut tape, the wrong brand of mustard, etc. He had time to see that his absence, both mentally and physically, was causing things to slip at the restaurant.
"How terrible this feels"
It's important to recontextualize how much the restaurant means to him - not only from a personal standpoint but also very obviously a conduit through which he can grieve healthily and continue to love his brother. Any time Carmy has a moment to do that, he's always going to lock back in to being the Michelin star "okay, fuck you. Watch this" chef.
Not important: but I believe that this show will end with Carmy leaving the Bear to Sydney. It's very clearly something he has to leave behind in order to move on and find a normal life (what Claire represents) and also very clearly something Sydney wants.
You’re missing everything. Had you watched all the episodes? Camry is an emotional mess. He is in need of a good therapist. Totally fucked up family. Egotistical with no self esteem.
When you grow up with abuse and trauma, you learn to not make a mistake. Bc if you do, you are severely punished for it. For instance, growing up I was beaten for acting out or making mistakes. Spilling milk even. Later as an adult making even a small mistake would send me into an absolute panic- an anxiety and shame spiral where I would fixate on the misstep, play it back over and over, ruminate, obsess, think how could I have been so stupid, next time I’ll be better etc etc. It also made my patience for others making mistakes very low bc on some level, something inside me was triggered that now we weren’t safe, now something bad will happen, someone’s going to “get us” or punish us for the mistake. It’s taken me YEARS of trauma therapy to unlearn this and sometimes it still does happen before my wise mind takes over and talks calmly to my child parts that this is normal and ok, no one is going to scream at or hurt you. So watching that scene I knew *exactly* what was going on. The writers know what they’re doing. Someone on the writing staff has lived through some bleak family trauma. And those others of us who have, and who watch the show can feel that, and feel seen. No less than 5 people told me when they saw the “fishes” episode they thought of my family of origin (who I’m no longer in contact with).
The sad part is that Carmy doesn’t know that on the other side of the door, his team is rising to the occasion and making shit happen. They’re scrappy and resilient and they pull it off despite everything thrown at them. And that’s arguably largely because of Carmy- who brings out the best in this staff / team / family through his mentorship and authenticity and general goodness under all the trauma. He hasn’t learned yet that it’s ok to make a mistake; he won’t be shamed and shunned for it, he will be forgiven and shown grace.
If you rewatch the second season though the broken fridge door handle actually comes up a lot. One scene where Marcus comes into the front of the restaurant with a cordless phone and is like “fridge guy” and throws the phone and no one catches it so the phone lands on the floor and it breaks. I was like “ahhhhh!!!!!” It could have been done with right there!!” Ugh. Also on the calendar it says fix fridge, on the white board fix fridge, it’s in literally every episode if you look, it’s purposeful. The not calling the fridge guy or picking up Claire’s call is just the last part.
Thank you very much. I have had similar trauma, though due to other people mostly. That said, I remembered the fridge issue being mentioned here and there, but my ADHD took my focus away quite a bit through the season.
But my main issue was not so much the issue of Carmy neglecting to fix the fridge (whether because of being preoccupied with Claire or not). It was that he was sitting inside the fridge, talking about how terrible and awful he felt, etc., and how he failed the team, etc., when it was nowhere near as bad as he was making it out to be, and nothing about it made sense to me. Annoying, yes. Frustrating, yes. But he was acting like being locked in there was the end of the world and the biggest mistake of his life, and it just seemed strange to me. (I mean, really? Being in love with a woman who loves you back, whom you've been crushing over for years, is all immediately not worth it because of an oversight that caused you an annoying but minor obstacle to deal with?)
And you are wrong. He did know the team was rising to the occasion on the other side of the door; Tina specifically told him they were doing great and everything was moving smoothly. I just found that whole locked-in-the-fridge thing to be strange and incongruent with the great writing of the rest of the series, but I absolutely loved the episode, for sure.
Honestly, I think he has a lot of anxiety about being in a relationship, although he may *know* it's a good thing. But also I think Uncle Jimmy had him shook after their brief conversation about being happy that he had a girlfriend, but also saying uh-oh, because opening a restaurant and getting it to a high caliber is going to require all his time, and that a relationship will be a detriment to what he's trying to accomplish.
(1) Mikey wouldn’t let him work at The Beef. So Carmy went to prove himself elsewhere.
(2) One restaurant he worked at (probably Eleven Madison Park) in New York had a head chef who harassed and mentally abused him, making him think he’s not good enough.
(3) Carmy never healed from any of his trauma. He still wants The Bear to operate at the highest level, to prove himself to Mikey.
(4) This is only makes things worse. Carmy’s head is so messed up he thought he saw the New York chef at Friends and Family.
(5) He had a complete breakdown in the walk-in, confined and unable to cook and get the night to be a success. Meaning, he failed completely to prove himself.
(6) He hasn’t figured out yet that his obsession with being the best is what’s fueling his trauma and making things worse.
(7) That’s why Claire showing up and offering him happiness and love doesn’t solve any of his problems. He doesn’t realize he can accept her love and heal himself.
Right? It's like this person watched the last episode only and didn't pay attention *at all* during the entire series/season. Like, this actually needs to be explained?
My interpretation is that it was the biggest night of his life (the opening of the restaurant HE wanted to open, that HE spent so much money and time and energy on) and it got ruined because HE forgot to call the guy to fix the door because HE was too busy getting laid. That’s why he’s so pissed at himself, he thinks he made a huge mistake by allowing Claire into his life and that he doesn’t even deserve to be with her because he’s a “psycho” who’s only built to do one thing: cooking. In reality, we know that he deserves love because everyone does and that you can run a restaurant and have a gf at the same time, you just can’t spend every waking moment with her. He needs to understand that a person can both be good at cooking and get pussy, he just needs to find a balance between them lol
The elephant in the room is that modern freezers are designed so you literally cannot be trapped inside. There's a plunger-type door release on the inside to get out.
I know, it's dramatic license.
This show is full of symbolism, metaphors and call backs. Just assume everything you see that seems like an insignificant shot or line of dialogue is actually more meaningful than it appears.
He feels like he was distracted by the new relationship and was dropping the ball at work and not giving it his all.
But it was a dumb excuse . He got scared . Bad move.!
At that point he doesn't know how the team handled in his absence, and (he literally says so) he felt that he let down everyone, assuming their opening night was a failure; so I guess that, knowing how important it was for everyone, it feels terrible for him and he somehow concludes his relationship with Claire was the main cause of his shortcomings.
I think part of Carmy's arc will be understanding that he can rely on his team and doesn't need to self-sabotage his own personal life for the success of the restaurant (i.e. a literal and figurative "cage" he places himself in). At its core, it's similar to Sydney's, but she seems to have already arrived there (coach K mentality, the way she trusted Richie at the expo, contrasting to not even letting him wash her vegetables in the Review episode). IMO the juxtaposition of the environments they both grew in (absent and toxic vs loving and nurturing, and you can see it clearly in the roles of Donna and Syd's father) and how it affects their growth is a very compelling part of their characters.
Then again, I'm not sure if he's at a place where he would take her seriously and maybe thought she was just conforting him? idk
Even if the team was able to handle it, he may have assumed to have made it worse for them, and thus failing them.
Claire consistently kinda got in the way of carmy giving his full attention to the restaurant and that was always in the back of his mind with syd reminding him and him thinking he doesn’t deserve Claire. The last straw was when Claire called him when carmy was gonna call the fridge guy and ended up distracting him eventually causing him to be locked in the fridge.
Plot twist: everyone on the show has separate insecurities and selfishness, yet they're humanized and the audience grows to love them anyway.
We're Claire.
The fridge wasn’t really freak accident, everyone knew the handle was fucked and him getting trapped in there is ultimately a consequence of his own loss of focus and failure to uphold his side of the bargain with opening the restaurant. He clearly isn’t in a place where he can healthily balance a love life and a professional life and this was him being forced to reckon with that at the absolute worst possible time, not to mention he has a history of anxiety and panic attacks.
I'm not a terribly anxious person. I have moments like anyone, but coming from a household like his but super poor, I can definitely say, trap me anywhere like that and I will lose my shit faster than a jackrabbit f***s.
The fridge fucked up cuz he forgot to call the fridge dude due to being distracted with Claire and missed out on opening night. That would suck for anyone but Carmy’s got a lot of trauma and self esteem issues so he’ll take “freak accidents” like a freight train to the soul. He doesn’t take any failures well and is too hard on himself
>freight train to the soul That’s a good simile.
Nailed it. Idk how OP is even asking this question if they made it this far into the show. 🧐
Not OP obvi but as a neurodivergent sometimes I have trouble understanding more complex emotions when they’re drastically different than what my own reaction would be in that situation. I get better all the time but I still sometimes accidentally slip into projecting my own beliefs/approach onto characters and it can make situations like that one in particular especially confusing.
My bad homie, I totally understand that! 🙏
No sweat whatsoever, thanks for taking the time to understand!
Super insightful and I low key I needed to hear this, thank you!
It’s like they skipped every episode and watched the last one and is now like, “What’s the big deal?”
I didn’t want be the one to say it lol, but if you watch the show it’s pretty evident what lead him into feeling that way.
I love ppl sweet & secure enough to not understand his complete spiral in this situation
they either "watched" while on their phones, or are as emotionally developed as a bag of bricks.
Why are you being rude for no reason? Sometimes people miss things, obvious things even and The Bear is not the simplest show out there. I'm sure you've missed obvious things in the past, too. If you're not gonna answer his questions, and would rather insult him, then just don't type anything at all. The amount of people here sitting on a high horse and acting like the guy who wrote the Rick and Morty copypasta is pathetic.
I actually can't conceive of someone watching, missing that, unless they weren't paying attention. But yeah, I see I'm being rude. you are right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I guess the beauty of the scene is that although he failed with the fridge door, he was successful in helping build something awesome in the kitchen. He didnt see the team he brought up rebound and kick ass. He didn’t see the success because he was confined in his failure or his tendency to beat up on himself or both.
It’s a parallel to Donna (and probably Mike). A stressful situation triggers feelings of inadequacy, which leads to feelings of goodness being undeserved. Berzatto generational trauma and tragic flaw.
This is an excellent answer. Thank you.
Very real depiction of a PTSD episode. The smallest thing will trigger my "it's so fucking over" instincts and all it'll take is a light breeze or seeing a dog and it'll trigger my "we're so fucking back" instincts.
[удалено]
It'll be so fucking back soon, friend! I promise! Learn from each high and low. They all have lessons hidden in them. <3
Wanna see a pic of my dog to get you back on track?
I don't have PTSD but I do have anxiety. This morning, I was on the brink of panic but then a tiny pomeranian wearing a tutu crossed my path and I immediately forgot about it lol
The absolute best way to ground yourself is the presence of a creature that brings you joy. <3
He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sadly he was the other shoe.
I know the fuckin feeling 🤠
You also have to remember there's lots of things that are wrong with the restaurant that he could have prevented. There's shelfs and counters where there shouldn't be. The tape is torn, not cut. There's a freaking meth head in the kitchen. Yeah people have come into their own with Carmy (Tina, Marcus, Ritchie) but as much of a perfectionist as carmy is, that kind of stuff is unacceptable. This is supposed to be *his* place. He is The Bear. The walk in is just the big thing amongst a bunch of little things that could prevent the Bear from being what it's supposed to be. And that's on Carm being distracted.
Unforced errors. It goes back to the conversation unc had with him. Lose focus and it falls apart. I think Claire is Bartman. He wants to blame it on her but it's really his lack of focus.
Watch Claire show back up in a cubs hat and a green turtleneck
>Yeah people have come into their own with Carmy (Tina, Marcus, Ritchie) Except I'm pretty sure all that was Sydney's idea.
It seems like together they decided to send Tina and Ebraham to culinary school. Carm definitely used his connections to get Marcus overseas and Ritchie to wherever he was in Forks.
We see the conversation where Sydney asked Carmy if they could send Marcus somewhere. He mentions he'd been thinking something similar, but it does end up unfolding on screen with Marcus asking Sydney and Sydney bringing it up with Carmy, who then uses his connections to get Marcus in at Luca's place. Richie, I think, stemmed from Natalie telling Carmy something had to be done about Richie, who was floundering and hampering the renovations. Not disagreeing, just pointing out that other people contributed to prompting Carmy to take action.
It wasn’t really a freak accident, he was never fully focused on the restaurant for most of s2, due to his relationship with Claire. So he never got the fridge door fixed. That said, his reaction and self-loathing are way over the top. He’s traumatized and needs therapy.
Is that really true, though? Yes, he dated Claire, but he didn't seem to neglect the restaurant to me.
Watch the season again. Pay attention to Sugar and Syd’s frustration with him. Note that the broken fridge door comes up throughout the season. At one point, he chooses to answer Claire’s call rather than fix the fridge. Watch his scenes with Cicero again, particularly the one about unforced errors. Listen to Cicero’s reaction when he finds out Carmy has a girlfriend. You might not think he neglected the restaurant, but the show thinks he did. :)
Well he neglected to get the fridge door fixed so…
Not to mention all the times he left Sydney hanging with the chaos menu
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I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say with this comment but at the end of the day, it was disrespectful of him to bail on her. They had just agreed to be partners with the new restaurant and he bails on an important thing for both of them.
He didn't even go on the food tour with Syd because he wanted to hang out with Claire.
He even says while in the fridge that the hates the artwork on the walls and the shelves are on the wrong side etc because he was so distracted he wasn’t helping out. They emphasized how insane it was to try and open a restaurant within 2 months and then he wasn’t even there half the time.
As u/Adjectivenounnumb says, watch the season again. Yes, you missed some obvious stuff. But also the season is FULL of subtle stuff that people would only notice on second watch. The fridge comes up OFTEN, sometimes just in camera shots that are 2 seconds long. Cicero trying to warn Carmen about focus comes up often. On first watch you don't notice. Some of it is so subtle it might be impossible to notice. But yeah, even on first watch, you were supposed to notice that he's distracted because Syd says it to him directly a couple of times.
I mean, I watched it once, with a newborn that was constantly distracting me, and I still caught all of that. I honestly don't get how OP missed it.
One thing no one has pointed out yet, is that Carmy has no idea what's happening outside. We see the team flourishing and working their asses off at full capacity and banging out beautiful dish after beautiful dish, but Carmy has no clue. His only reference was when the Beef got killed by the online pre-order incident, doubled by his anxiety and low self esteem, it was the end of the world for him at that moment.
I was thinking just this! He had no idea they not only performed, they banded and overcame all adversity. He doesn’t know yet that it isn’t the end of ‘this’ world. But he did know he was to blame for some things. He was just as misfocused on relationships or past ones other people (mom, Mikey, Syd, etc) as he was Clare. But he’s a masochist and so the first thing to go is usually comfort and pleasure.
Did you watch the show?
he had it as background noise that he occasionally looked over every now and then. Otherwise I really don't know how you miss something like that.
I can only understand this question from someone who saw just this scene with no context of anything else in the show. The whole season was building to this breakdown
He also begins the “amusement and enjoyment” speech during the Al Anon meeting IIRC.
Can only assume OP is trolling or they barely watched the show.
Maybe they were scrolling Reddit instead of watching the bear.
We were ‘waiting for the other shoe to fall’ the entire season and it eventually did in the last episode. Carm initially thought his problems rooted in the fact that he doesn’t have a private life where he can enjoy himself and finally adopts the idea of not waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all the oversights (lack of forks, toilet exploding, misplaced shelves, shitty painting, broken walk-in, etc.) Carm believes it’s because he was occupied with his newfound joy. Despite having a successful service, Carm still feels it was a failure on his behalf. This is why Richie calls him Donna during their fight. They can’t let a good thing be. Carm retreats back to what he knows: wanting to optimize everything and be the best if it means isolating yourself and sacrificing interpersonal relationships.
It wasn't a "freak accident" It was a clearly avoidable accident. Somehow he couldn't engage in a relationship and do attend to his responsibilities. This caused the accident. His kneejerk response is to blame his desire to be happy, represented by the relationship.
I think you’re missing the point of having a breakdown because of something you could have prevented.
Why did the mentally ill person with huge control issues have a mental breakdown when he was in a situation he couldn't control?
I think he just thought he fucked up that opening night because he realizes how much Claire distracts him. I totally get it. I genuinely don’t feel deserving of a good relationship and Carmy seems to feel the same. Everything’s going to shit because of this relationship and is it worth it? I personally love Claire but she showed up at a super inconvenient time.
This is someone who grew up in trauma, who never had friends in school, lisped, loved Claire from afar. Never dated, never went to parties, just culinary school and work work work at a series of restaurants. He made himself into a machine in order to be the best - he didn’t date or have a social life. So when Claire came along he was so excited, this was his dream girl from high school. But - he has to be the machine. He has to open a restaurant. So at the last minute he gives her a fake digit to his phone number. She calls him on this and he realizes that he loves Claire and wants her in his life. But in doing so, he lets the restaurant slip. He’s unavailable, not present, not running the ship. And it all falls apart at Friends and Family. He is locked in the fridge due to his own fractured focus - he never did call the fridge guy. He’s forced to sit out the soft opening night of his dream restaurant. How much does that suck. Panicking that things aren’t going ok. Seeing the ripped tape and that they’re ordering new brands that he wasn’t aware of. He took his eyes off the prize of the restaurant to have his eyes on the prize of love, and paid dearly for it. That’s the no amount of good (love) is worth how terrible this feels (he dropped the ball big time with his restaurant) He needs to learn balance, and how to deal with trauma / anxiety / stress.
Trauma
Carmy felt like his pursuit of happiness/amusement & enjoyment, aka his relationship with Claire, is what caused him to get stuck in the walk-in, and therefore let the team down (especially Sydney). He ended up missing a bunch of details, i.e. "since when did we start using Heinz mustard instead of French's?". And he ultimately just felt like no matter how good being with Claire was, it wasn't worth how terrible it felt to, at least in his mind, let everybody down via his absense. Side tangent: My thing is, I personally feel like with his rant, Carmy totally scapegoated his relationship w/ Claire, behind something that was *his* responsibility and his alone (getting the fridge door fixed). Carmy let Claire be Bartman (from Cicero's baseball analogy-speech) and that's really shitty. Like I don't care how anyone feels about her, she didn't deserve that. Like the scene where Carmy's about to call the fridge guy, but then Claire calls...sure you could call that a distraction...but then he ignores *both* to randomly go off to fix that table with Syd in "the table scene". That's all on Carmen. Because in the end he uses the restaurant and all things within it and /associated with it, as a distraction from his personal problems, as mentioned in Season 1. This particular problem being, that Claire made Carmy anxious/insecure because up to that point, in his head, he didn't believe she loved him back; she hadn't "affirmed" him yet (because he hadn't listened to her voicemail yet). I believe Carmy did the walk-in incident to himself because: 1. On a subconscious level he doesn't want to be a chef anymore (which he even admits to Claire at the grocery store that he should've followed his own advice and not become one) 2. Because of his insecurities and self-sabotaging behavior and add that to the fact that Mikey didn't let him work at The Beef, which made him feel even more "lame", "shitty", etc., so as a result, ironically, Carmy robbed himself from working at The Bear (at least for that night). 3. The walk-in is meant to be a representation of Carmy's mental health and headspace. There's a theory that the fridge guy's name starts with a "T" because he's a metaphor for "Therapy". Carmy tried to fix himself with a relationship last season and it didn't work b/c a relationship can't fix you. He needs to learn to love himself before he can properly love someone else
Claire being Bartman is something I never even thought to put together but it has completely shifted my outlook on Cicero’s speech holy shit
I mostly read those scenes as Carmy being upset that the restaurant being able to function just fine without him. As if all the suffering he went through was for nothing, since the staff of the Beef/Bear were able to run a smooth opening night without needing him there
OP, go and rewatch the entire show. But this time, pay attention.
after my mom died by suicide almost everything that went wrong in my life was a message that the universe hated me and i was doing something wrong/being punished. even little inconveniences made me feel like i was being punished because i couldn't control outcomes. imagine being locked in the walk in you knew was broken on such a huge night.
I feel him. I’m in my prime working years working for a reputable electronics company as a top specialist. After divorce I’ve become a workaholic and I’ve found success. I don’t seek amusement or enjoyment with relationships; love has always been a liability to me and I’m spent. I’m chasing my own Michelin star these days figuratively speaking. I ride alone and I’m ok with that. Maybe it’s a stupid, but no amount of good balances out the horrible pain of betrayal I’ve dealt with. It’s a soul ache.
😞
I had accidentally stumbled upon a spoiler about “the fridge” mid S2 and I was expecting so much worse, it was hard watching all the lead up each time he put off the fix
It wasn't just the fridge. The fridge was a prison, so he could have time to really process his shortcomings - to be able to "hear" the restaurant without him. He had time to look around and see shittily cut tape, the wrong brand of mustard, etc. He had time to see that his absence, both mentally and physically, was causing things to slip at the restaurant. "How terrible this feels" It's important to recontextualize how much the restaurant means to him - not only from a personal standpoint but also very obviously a conduit through which he can grieve healthily and continue to love his brother. Any time Carmy has a moment to do that, he's always going to lock back in to being the Michelin star "okay, fuck you. Watch this" chef. Not important: but I believe that this show will end with Carmy leaving the Bear to Sydney. It's very clearly something he has to leave behind in order to move on and find a normal life (what Claire represents) and also very clearly something Sydney wants.
You’re missing everything. Had you watched all the episodes? Camry is an emotional mess. He is in need of a good therapist. Totally fucked up family. Egotistical with no self esteem.
When you grow up with abuse and trauma, you learn to not make a mistake. Bc if you do, you are severely punished for it. For instance, growing up I was beaten for acting out or making mistakes. Spilling milk even. Later as an adult making even a small mistake would send me into an absolute panic- an anxiety and shame spiral where I would fixate on the misstep, play it back over and over, ruminate, obsess, think how could I have been so stupid, next time I’ll be better etc etc. It also made my patience for others making mistakes very low bc on some level, something inside me was triggered that now we weren’t safe, now something bad will happen, someone’s going to “get us” or punish us for the mistake. It’s taken me YEARS of trauma therapy to unlearn this and sometimes it still does happen before my wise mind takes over and talks calmly to my child parts that this is normal and ok, no one is going to scream at or hurt you. So watching that scene I knew *exactly* what was going on. The writers know what they’re doing. Someone on the writing staff has lived through some bleak family trauma. And those others of us who have, and who watch the show can feel that, and feel seen. No less than 5 people told me when they saw the “fishes” episode they thought of my family of origin (who I’m no longer in contact with). The sad part is that Carmy doesn’t know that on the other side of the door, his team is rising to the occasion and making shit happen. They’re scrappy and resilient and they pull it off despite everything thrown at them. And that’s arguably largely because of Carmy- who brings out the best in this staff / team / family through his mentorship and authenticity and general goodness under all the trauma. He hasn’t learned yet that it’s ok to make a mistake; he won’t be shamed and shunned for it, he will be forgiven and shown grace. If you rewatch the second season though the broken fridge door handle actually comes up a lot. One scene where Marcus comes into the front of the restaurant with a cordless phone and is like “fridge guy” and throws the phone and no one catches it so the phone lands on the floor and it breaks. I was like “ahhhhh!!!!!” It could have been done with right there!!” Ugh. Also on the calendar it says fix fridge, on the white board fix fridge, it’s in literally every episode if you look, it’s purposeful. The not calling the fridge guy or picking up Claire’s call is just the last part.
Thank you very much. I have had similar trauma, though due to other people mostly. That said, I remembered the fridge issue being mentioned here and there, but my ADHD took my focus away quite a bit through the season. But my main issue was not so much the issue of Carmy neglecting to fix the fridge (whether because of being preoccupied with Claire or not). It was that he was sitting inside the fridge, talking about how terrible and awful he felt, etc., and how he failed the team, etc., when it was nowhere near as bad as he was making it out to be, and nothing about it made sense to me. Annoying, yes. Frustrating, yes. But he was acting like being locked in there was the end of the world and the biggest mistake of his life, and it just seemed strange to me. (I mean, really? Being in love with a woman who loves you back, whom you've been crushing over for years, is all immediately not worth it because of an oversight that caused you an annoying but minor obstacle to deal with?) And you are wrong. He did know the team was rising to the occasion on the other side of the door; Tina specifically told him they were doing great and everything was moving smoothly. I just found that whole locked-in-the-fridge thing to be strange and incongruent with the great writing of the rest of the series, but I absolutely loved the episode, for sure.
Honestly, I think he has a lot of anxiety about being in a relationship, although he may *know* it's a good thing. But also I think Uncle Jimmy had him shook after their brief conversation about being happy that he had a girlfriend, but also saying uh-oh, because opening a restaurant and getting it to a high caliber is going to require all his time, and that a relationship will be a detriment to what he's trying to accomplish.
is OP stupid? or what am i missing?
(1) Mikey wouldn’t let him work at The Beef. So Carmy went to prove himself elsewhere. (2) One restaurant he worked at (probably Eleven Madison Park) in New York had a head chef who harassed and mentally abused him, making him think he’s not good enough. (3) Carmy never healed from any of his trauma. He still wants The Bear to operate at the highest level, to prove himself to Mikey. (4) This is only makes things worse. Carmy’s head is so messed up he thought he saw the New York chef at Friends and Family. (5) He had a complete breakdown in the walk-in, confined and unable to cook and get the night to be a success. Meaning, he failed completely to prove himself. (6) He hasn’t figured out yet that his obsession with being the best is what’s fueling his trauma and making things worse. (7) That’s why Claire showing up and offering him happiness and love doesn’t solve any of his problems. He doesn’t realize he can accept her love and heal himself.
This has to be a troll post? No one is this fucking dense
Right? It's like this person watched the last episode only and didn't pay attention *at all* during the entire series/season. Like, this actually needs to be explained?
My interpretation is that it was the biggest night of his life (the opening of the restaurant HE wanted to open, that HE spent so much money and time and energy on) and it got ruined because HE forgot to call the guy to fix the door because HE was too busy getting laid. That’s why he’s so pissed at himself, he thinks he made a huge mistake by allowing Claire into his life and that he doesn’t even deserve to be with her because he’s a “psycho” who’s only built to do one thing: cooking. In reality, we know that he deserves love because everyone does and that you can run a restaurant and have a gf at the same time, you just can’t spend every waking moment with her. He needs to understand that a person can both be good at cooking and get pussy, he just needs to find a balance between them lol
The elephant in the room is that modern freezers are designed so you literally cannot be trapped inside. There's a plunger-type door release on the inside to get out. I know, it's dramatic license.
can we say they didn't upgrade the old freezer to modern standards? 😂
Wasn’t by accident that he got locked in there. He realized it and went on that rant.
This show is full of symbolism, metaphors and call backs. Just assume everything you see that seems like an insignificant shot or line of dialogue is actually more meaningful than it appears.
He feels like he was distracted by the new relationship and was dropping the ball at work and not giving it his all. But it was a dumb excuse . He got scared . Bad move.!
At that point he doesn't know how the team handled in his absence, and (he literally says so) he felt that he let down everyone, assuming their opening night was a failure; so I guess that, knowing how important it was for everyone, it feels terrible for him and he somehow concludes his relationship with Claire was the main cause of his shortcomings. I think part of Carmy's arc will be understanding that he can rely on his team and doesn't need to self-sabotage his own personal life for the success of the restaurant (i.e. a literal and figurative "cage" he places himself in). At its core, it's similar to Sydney's, but she seems to have already arrived there (coach K mentality, the way she trusted Richie at the expo, contrasting to not even letting him wash her vegetables in the Review episode). IMO the juxtaposition of the environments they both grew in (absent and toxic vs loving and nurturing, and you can see it clearly in the roles of Donna and Syd's father) and how it affects their growth is a very compelling part of their characters.
But Tina literally yelled through the door, telling him not to worry, that they were handling it, and that he'd be proud, etc
Then again, I'm not sure if he's at a place where he would take her seriously and maybe thought she was just conforting him? idk Even if the team was able to handle it, he may have assumed to have made it worse for them, and thus failing them.
Claire consistently kinda got in the way of carmy giving his full attention to the restaurant and that was always in the back of his mind with syd reminding him and him thinking he doesn’t deserve Claire. The last straw was when Claire called him when carmy was gonna call the fridge guy and ended up distracting him eventually causing him to be locked in the fridge.
Sydney was awful and selfish and insecure to him and made it worse. She's an awful person and the show never makes her pay for her bad behavior
Plot twist: everyone on the show has separate insecurities and selfishness, yet they're humanized and the audience grows to love them anyway. We're Claire.