If you know a millenial who has social media, you may have heard about The Bear. Hell, I'm sure many of you have watched it. The harrowing story of Carmen Berzatto's attempt to save his deceased brother's restaurant has met with astoundingly positive critical response.
Season Two focuses on Carmy and Sydney's attempt to turn The Original Beef sandwhich shop into a Michelin star worthy restaurant. In working towards that goal, many characters find joy in honing their craft while others unhealthily lose themselves in the work.
There's plenty of stories to tell but I wanna focus on the personal journey of resident asshole "cousin" Ritchie. I wanna talk about forks, bleeding for your work, and the ways we sometimes close ourselves off from others.
Ritchie Jerimovich (played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is a fucking asshole. Close friends with Carmy's deceased brother Michael, he's constantly positioned himself as the one motherfucker on the planet who knows how to run the restaurant. In Season One, he continually fights against any changes to the menu or the sloppy way the Original Beef was run. He's called "cousin" but he's not even Carmy's cousin by blood; he has wedged himself into the Berzatto family's life. And as season two drives closer and closer toward the restaurant's rebranding and grand opening, Ritchie has continued to push back on others.
Ritche, again, is a fucking asshole. He swears and yells at others, he tosses out slurs liberally. In season one, he nearly kills a drunk patron in a fist fight during a bachelor party the restaurant is hosting. His mistakes mount up and it is only through chance moments of luck and fleeting self-reflection does he start to change.
The change is not complete at the start of season two. It comes with a scant few episodes left.
In the episode "Forks," Carmy sends him to stage in the high-class and award winning restaurant helped earn Three Michelin stars. As Ritchie works, mostly forced to fold forks into napkins, he reckons with the restaurant's high standard but eventually finds comfort in the work. He is learning to serve others, to be aware of people's needs, and how to listen to those around him. It transforms into into someone more open and receptive. He cleans up, wearing the restaurant's required suit for when he is observing the work in the dining room. He muses that it feels like armor.
Ritchie returns to The Bear ahead of opening and continues to wear a suit. Many people remark about the change but most note that it suits him. And in the lead up to a family and friends night soft-launch, he apologizes to others and helps them rise to high standards.
Meanwhile, Carmy descends into self-loathing even as other's require his attention. Sydney needs him to focus as a partner, the staff need him to teach them and lead. But Carmy can't step up. He can't even decide if Claire, the old flame he's reconnected with, is his girlfriend.
Even as he works to open his dream restaurant, he is in pain. He tortures himself with worry, rarely gives himself time away from things even if his ability to coordinate and communicate with Sydney deteriorates . He forms a confusing armor around himself and doesn't respond to the needs of those around him. He is bleeding for his work.
Ritchie doesn't bleed. Ritchie has discovered something else.
I remember, vaguely, a meeting we had at Kotaku around 2018. It's funny to say I remember because the context of the meeting is lost; my actual memory is terrible but I always remember embarrassments. I said that "you gotta bleed for you work." It was an offhand comment in response to how many reviews some folks, including myself, were taking on. I was a fast worker, so I took on a excessive amount of assignments.
There was a palpable discomfort in the room when I said what I did.
I was embarrassed and I always remember embarrassment.
The pace of journalism is one part dopamine and another part full on dry heaving. I had given myself in to the former because I love writing. It is my oxygen. It's part of why I'm writing this. I can't stop myself. back then i didn't notice how much dry-heaving I was doing to myself. how much I was physically destroying myself.
You can love too much and capitalism too keen to take advantage of that. This is known but it worth saying anyway. I ground myself into powder as a journalist. That's not bragging. It's a warning. i can happen to you and it can happen with any job. but you should not bleed for your work. You can bleed for others—workers should certainly bleed for each other if it means securing better treatment—but you can't bleed for the work.
To his credit, some time later, Stephen Totilo took me aside and said I should take vacation. Which I had never done because, well, news does not stop and there is always another game. I was bleeding and even my boss could see that I was running out of blood. Yes, there was incentive to asking me to take a break; there was risk I would produce poor work. So go take a vacation, right? That way you can return and be a Better Employee.
I could be cynical and see his half-order as a boss managing a worker so they could be more efficient but I choose to belief, against all realities of late-capitalist life, that it was it was a person looking out for a person. Contrary to the idea that age instills distrust I have found that it impresses the need to have faith in those around you.
I have faith.
I took staycation in New York visiting as many highly regarded pizzarias as I could. I arrived two hours early and waited in the snow so I could get a table at Lucali. In spite of taking time to love all the amazing cuisine New York offered and in spite of my own love of home cooking, I would go on to lose over thirty pounds while working at Kotaku. Maybe I didn't learn the right lesson; maybe the forces of capital are that strong. Either way: I make myself bleed again and it's only with the benefit of hindsight that I see how fucked I was. I had a problem.
sometimes, I still do. sometimes it comes back to me and I work on everything I can kinda of like why I'm writing right now and I do it because I have these moments where I can't stop and then I crash for months. sometimes I still make myself bleed.
Near the end of "Forks," Ritchie walks into the kitchen to find head chef/owner Terry (played by Olivia Colman!) peeling mushrooms for a lamb dish. There is no particular culinary purpose; it will not change the taste of the mushrooms. She is there early in the morning and peeling mushrooms because "it's a fun little detail" that lets diners know someone spent time with their dish. Strictly speaking, it is extra work but there's a difference between this gesture and (for example) the way I burnt myself out. It's generosity. It's truly done for others. It is service given willingly and while it does benefit the restaurant it's mostly done because she feels like it and finds comfort in giving a portion of herself to others.
You shouldn't ever bleed for the job. If there is any blood, let it be a donation. In spite of what faith I have, the universe has not seen fit to reveal any truth to us when it comes to the mechanisms that keep it spinning. The reflex is to find absurdity in our ignorance and in our fundamental smallness. Purpose cannot exist in any extant manner because the universe is indifferent to our works. Perhaps this is true and if so it stands to reason that all we have is each other and the having is a fleeting thing.
Knowing this, service takes on a fresh significance although this is perhaps not the more revelatory things to notice. Service is the means by which we insist against all odds that we are here. It is one of the most beautiful ways we reach out and touch someone and say "yes, we are here and we need not be here alone." And service can never be mistaken for work.
Ritchie puts on this suit and dons his armor so that he doesn't bleed for the work. His fellow worker Garret explains that before he worked at Terry's place, he had a drinking problem but he sobers up and learned "acts of service" and it gave him purpose.
he says there's a reason hospitality and hospital share the same root word.
One time I passed out on the new york subways because I couldn't breath. there were times throughout the day that stood up and nearly passed out. my doctor thought I was anemic.
sometimes work becomes like armor. you pour yourself into it because you think it's the only way you can reach people. sometimes, I still believe that. maybe the words are all I have
We all certainly have armor although it's sometimes hard to identify what it is. There's two kinds of armor though and I think one is probably better than the other. There is the armor we put on to protect us from others. There is the armor that we put on the protect us from ourselves.
The first is borne out of suspicion; the second comes with experience. The first is easy to forge and hard to take off. The second is more difficult to build but slips off and on easily as needed. For one and a half seasons, Ritchie has warded other off with bards and rudeness. He's lacked empathy, discarded it entirely. But when we watch him talk with his coworkers in this episode, it's clear that empathy can come easily for him if he allows it. He's a natural with people and it comes into focus the moment he starts shedding the old armor.
I have a propensity to overshare in my work and in my thoughts about other's work. I firmly believe we should be able to be honest with people perhaps to the point of being radically honest but I find it can be difficult to know where lines are. I often wonder if there are ways in which my own honesty has driven people away. if it's simply become angry bluntness.
it is hard to know if it has become an armor I've donned for that very purpose without knowing it. Maybe I pushed folks away because I somehow thought I didn't deserve their friendship. I'm not sure. what i know is that i certainly feel lonely and hardly feel comfortable in any group. i'm suspicious of every and unable to tell what is sarcastic or not.
I fear all I've done is wedge myself into different families.
Watching Ritchie shed his abrasiveness shook me more than anything else this season and this is a string of episode with perhaps the most nightmarish Christmas ever shown in anything I've watched. Ritchie's shortcomings are obvious and loud; his transformation is nothing short of astounding and a testament to The Bear's writers.
It has also left me wondering about my own shortcomings or if I might be able to perceive and understand other people's armor. so I can better empathize with them and their needs. so I can understand how I could better serve them. What are the moments where they are wearing their own armor? What are the moments where my own ill-forge set has driven people away? Hard to know!
Season Two ends with Carmy locked in the walk-in freezer during The Bear's friends and family night. it's the teams first night running the restaurant; this is their first shot to see if they can really work together. to see if everyone fits into place and is not wedged.
Throughout many episodes, Carmy's been reminded to call someone to fix the walk-in's door handle. He's failed to listen and failed to reach out. It might be self-sabotage but it is also a reminder of happens when we bleed for our work. We pour ourselves into something until we are locked away. we fail to act as we should. Carmy simmers in his thoughts while he is locked in the freezer. Eventually, he wonders if he's allowed to be happy and if he's allowed to allow Claire to love him. He wonders if she's just a distraction.
He craves the work, he wants to bleed.
And in the end, as Claire listens through the door, his words drive her away. His relationship crumbles. The work has killed one of the only good things he has taken a chance on. Trapped behind a literal wall and locked in a prison caused of his own neglect, he's not even able to help everyone in the kitchen. He's not there to lead and not there to share in their victory as the night end and they deliver outstanding service. Ritchie is there.
The episode ends in an argument between the two. It starts because Ritchie, empathetically, wants to know what Carmy said to hurt Claire. But Carmy can't open up and continues to lash out. As they yelled, Ritchie declares that he love Carmen. Even as he argues and they swear viciously at each other, he hasn't put on his old armor. And if Carmen could open the door, maybe he'd find someone there who would listen to him and be radically honest.
One of Carmy's biggest regrets is that he wasn't able to work. There is a dash of empathy there—he knows he has failed the staff—but there's still, the audience might fear, a need to hide in the work and bleed. Perhaps he'll discover the difference between work and service. Perhaps he'll end up peeling mushrooms in order to share a human touch with guests.
But for now? The door is stuck.
