FX/Hulu’s The Bear is a name that has been on almost everybody’s lips since it premiered in 2022. With series creator Christopher Storer’s debut cleaning up at the 2024 Primetime Emmys, it seems like a perfect opportunity to take a deep dive into what has established the show’s massive success. Let’s put The Bear pilot script “System” under the microscope and see if we can’t find the hallmarks of a smash hit. Feel free to follow along with the teleplay, which you can download from The Script Lab here.
Premise of ‘The Bear’ Pilot
A young chef from the fine dining world returns to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop.
First Ten Pages
Hook: Save the Bear!
On the first page, our hero, Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, takes a page from Blake Snyder’s book. Literally. We see him free a caged animal, which we later discover is a bear straight out of Carmy’s subconscious view of himself. As Snyder intends with his Save the Cat! theory, Carmy is immediately set up as someone to root for. His interaction with this animal elicits sympathy and empathy, which, in theory, the audience will pay back to him throughout the narrative.
Even when this scene is revealed to be a dream sequence from an on-the-job micro-nap, this moment is important to the painstakingly particular, imperfect hero with an explosive temperament.
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Setting: Isn’t It Chi-ronic?
While the frantic big-city pace of the kitchen contains an energy that could easily place it somewhere like New York or Boston, there is something about the specific environment of Chicago that adds to Carmy’s claustrophobia. With his time in Napa referenced in dialogue, it’s no wonder the land of the polar vortex has got him so tense.
It also makes one wonder whether The Bear alludes to the city’s football team as an extra nod to Carmy’s return being a loss in his life. Perhaps the most on-brand allusion to Chicago is when Richie busts out a Glock in the pilot’s final moments to break up a band of rowdy cosplayers. Sydney’s non-reaction seals the deal.
Tone: Slice Of Life
Anyone who knows and loves a food service worker has heard an earful of stories about days like the one Carmy and the gang have in this pilot. Maybe those stories are entertaining. Maybe, “you had to be there.” But in “System,” standard kitchen antics are blown up from the mundane to downright zany.
The thickness and crumb of a piece of bread amounts to an arc. But minutiae matters to the audience because it matters to the characters and the writer. The Food Network only boasts decades of success testing the attention-worthiness of these matters. However, when 12 hours worth of gravy ends up splattered against the wall, it’s not an ordinary day, is it?
Dialogue: Banter is Better
With most of the story confined to the kitchen and much of the action coming down to casual tasks heightened by moments of exaggerated tension, the dialogue does a lot of heavy lifting. Since we are essentially watching a dinner shift in real-time, or as close as narrative TV will allow us to get, the dialogue carries the story’s pace and conflict. After all, they are ultimately working toward the same goal. Rather than physical opposition, we are presented with ideological opposition that allows the team to work as a unit, especially when Carmy pulls rank to get everyone on the same page.
Throughout the story, multiple characters reference “the system,” which we know will be improved upon by our culinary whizkid hero, by hook, or by crook. But Carmy’s attitude toward the malleability of a system comes down to more than braising vs. roasting. It is through his dialogue with Sugar, his sister, that we learn that Carmy has a history of assaulting co-workers. That sounds a lot like foreshadowing.
Speaking of roasting–the staff at The Beef have a love language that consists almost entirely of insults. Zingers like “Marcus’s mom teach me as we sex,” from Ebraheim underscore the familiarity of the crew. When Richie is the closest thing to HR, a newcomer like Sydney has to assimilate into the company culture.
‘The Bear’
What Is the Act Flow of ‘The Bear’ Pilot Episode?
None, Really
Carmy’s introduction on the first page echoes something of a teaser. However, it drops right into him waking with a start on the job. Perhaps a “cold open” would be a better label for this moment, but industry veteran Storer doesn’t seem too concerned with placing structure boundaries on his story.
One could argue the existence of a 2-Act Structure in The Bear pilot episode, like many half-hour shows, but the arcs are their own animal.
First Half
The action (in the traditional sense) is limited. With much of this script amounting to dialogue-based characterization, the story beats are hard to summarize in more than a few points. The audience gets a crash course in Carmy’s inner world when we see his mental state represented by the image of a caged creature cornered into viciousness by its circumstances.
The first sign of trouble arrives when the surly young chef’s family restaurant receives 25 pounds of meat instead of the 200 he requested. Overwhelmed by the sandwich shop’s finances, Carmy and the staff have resorted to promoting an obscure arcade game to attract attention and customers. The machine fills the already turbulent environment with loud exclamations like: “YOUR BALLS ARE MY BALLS NOW!”
To bridge the meat gap, Carmy hits up his friend Chi-Chi to trade high-end sneakers for black-market meat. Meanwhile, Sydney arrives to audition as the new sous-chef. She is quiet, serious, and professional–a rarity in this environment. She hangs back to learn the space while Carmy and Tito continue to bicker about the prep system Carmy is hellbent on changing. But the staff is hanging onto it out of respect for Carmy’s late brother Michael, whose shoes Carmy is stepping into. Sydney races against the clock to transform fridge scraps into the crew’s family meal. However, Richie breezes in to show who the real boss is in the kitchen.
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‘The Bear’
Second Half
While the cousins bicker over bread thickness, an associate named Fak arrives to rig the arcade game to double the price. With the tournament approaching, Fak’s handiwork has a ticking clock. In the fray, Carmy realizes he has cut himself with a dull knife. Trays fall to the floor. Expletives are exchanged. Things are heating up.
Carmy takes a bathroom break, and we see a blueprint for his new, high-end vision of the restaurant hanging up on the wall. Richie’s demeanor looks like it may push Sydney away as he borders on inappropriate conduct with her. But she powers through it.
Still needing the black-market meet, Carmy steps out to pick up an extra pair of shoes from Sugar. The shoes were a gift from their beloved late brother, Michael. Sugar informs Carmy of a potential buyer sniffing around the restaurant, but Carmy can’t spare a second for their interest. Carmy returns to give a speech about redefining roles in the restaurant but ends up feeling disrespected by the lack of attention, especially by Richie. In an explosive fit, he throws the gravy pot against the wall and flips a table.
Without the gravy, improvisations to the new sandwich are needed. Costumed gaming enthusiast are starting to line up outside, waiting impatiently for the tournament to start. The overzealous cosplayers brawl outside, pulling Richie out from the back with his Glock to fire a warning shot. Of course, it all goes off without a hitch from there. Despite Carmy’s successful new sandwich, Richie warns him to watch himself.
‘The Bear’
So, Why The Emmy?
What The Bear pilot episode lacks in the usual expectations, it makes up for in vibes. Storer’s work in this pilot is nothing if not confident. And the spot-on casting has brought to life an ensemble of characters who might otherwise be lost in the sauce. So to speak.
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