Since we’ve just been in a delightfully calm cold case murdery headspace, it’s only right we switch to the chaos of The Bear! Rolling into The Bear season 2, episode 7 Forks after the break.

We open with Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edibiri) testing out a new dish with crayfish, paprika while some important-looking guy talking in the background about how to grow, and fail, by changing limits. About being part of a team, and listening and the back and forth.

‘Cousin’ Richie Jeimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) gets up at unholy hour of 5:38 am and heads to a fancy restaurant with unfortunate decor, cursing his cousin along the way. It’s 6:17 am, where is everyone? Oh, Garrett (Andrew Lopez) is here, except he thinks Richie’s name is Forks and he needs to change his shirt.

An ‘EVERY SECOND COUNTS’ sign dominates the room under a giant digital clock in the kitchen.

Richie throws a chef’s jacket over his Original Beef of Chicagoland shirt and starts polishing forks in this beautiful, empty commercial kitchen. He will be cleaning and drying forks for the next week, interning or doing a ‘stage’ at the ‘best restaurant in the world’ Ever so he doesn’t feel so ancillary.

Weird that baking hasn’t started.

Cue montage of Richie polishing forks without regard for three days while we watch the rest of the team work on prep for The Bear, opening is still 4 weeks away.

Garrett watches Richie throw two dirty forks into the case and pulls him outside; he doesn’t need Richie to be here. He can go. But if he’s going to stay, he needs to respect this restaurant, respect Garrett, respect the diners who want streak-free forks and respect himself.

Richie can do respect, even if he can’t take forks seriously.

This is obviously a bigger message about small things making up the big experience and pride in oneself and one’s work and being your best, and it’s not a bad thing for Richie to learn. It’s always the ones who refuse to drink the Koolaid that need it the most.

**Side note: that’s a horrible reference, a lot of the people were force-fed Koolaid, including kids and babies. Gross.

The Ever GM (Rene Gube) goes over the People of Note attending this evening and I’m sorry, but I legit cried when they called out a married teaching couple who posted how much it meant to them to be dining here, at a 3-star restaurant. I don’t know why! It felt like people really caring and YES I KNOW IT’S A SHOW.

Much is made of ‘the smudge’, which nobody has owned up to. Sous Chef Adam (Adam Shapiro) brings it up as well after a menu change announcement, what was smudged? Seriously, what? A glass? A plate! A plate with persimmon glaze was smudged and it set the kitchen back 47 seconds and ‘f**k you, Garrett!’

What the Sam Hill.

Richie’s ex-wife Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs) calls with news, her boyfriend proposed and she accepted. We watch this whole call with the perspective of Richie holding his cell phone with his wedding ring on, front and center.

Richie has been promoted to shadowing front of house, he suits up (‘it’s like armor’) and watches Jessica (Sarah Ramos) run the room, from plans based on eating speeds to attitudes to sending cars for waitlisted diners. These are careers, not jobs. They are also constantly spying on guests, creating bespoke experiences as they go. Richie even gets to deliver a deconstructed Chicago deep dish pizza appetizer with all his personality.

Richie has bonded with the team, blowing up a taste test and driving home screaming along to ‘Love Story’ by Taylor Swift, in between raging at drivers.

The next day, the penultimate day, Richie wakes up before his alarm (we’ve watched it get earlier and earlier from his first snoozed alarm) to polish glasses with Garrett, and learn more about him. Garrett had a drinking problem, and he’s here not because he’s a chef (they all call each other chef), but because he likes to serve people: acts of service.

**My very favourite part of serving was feeding people.

Richie’s stage is almost done, a new person is starting next week but they will miss him. This is wholly unpaid, just for learning’s sake, and Richie is sad to go. He’s bonded with these people in a way he didn’t at The Beef or The Bear yet.

Probably because of how chaotic and stupid it is at The Bear. He calls Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) who can’t even have a conversation because he has Neil Fak (Matty Matheson) electrocuting himself in the background.

This is always how things are in Carmy’s kitchen and he quite sincerely needs to get things under control. We don’t need 100 meetings about a smudge or TPS reports, but Carmy needs to lead and be serious about it. Using Fak for anything is not serious.

Discouraged, Richie falls back on calling everyone a jagoff and hangs up.

On Friday, Richie wakes up over an hour late, and takes a moment to clean up before he leaves his place. He’s quiet at the restaurant and doesn’t listen in on the daily planning with the staff.

Hey, there’s a picture of Carmy and Chef Will on the wall!

AND OH OLIVIA COLMAN.

Olivia Colman is on my show!!! Who is she?? Ohhhh she’s Chef Terry!! She’s the mysterious head chef we haven’t seen and who Richie is now currently asking for silver polish as she peels some mushrooms. It’s to show care taken with the food to the diners. It turns out she and Richie have something in common; dads in the service. That’s why Chef Terry likes standards.

Richie still has no clue who he is talking to. Oh. He does. He’s just playing it cool.

He still has his wedding band on.

They turn mushrooms together, and Richie asks what I’m thinking: they usually have stages do this type of time-consuming menial labour. Not the head chef of the Best Restaurant in the World.

**I saw an episode of Top Chef back in the day when I used to recap it; during one of the challenges, one of the competing chefs said something like: I haven’t turned a mushroom or peeled a tomato in a million years – I have people for that.

Chef Terry thinks this is exactly what she needs to be doing: it’s her job. And it’s time well spent.

They have a lovely chat about families and starting over and it never being too late. You can see that one land on 45-year-old Richie, who is so worried he’s nothing and will be nothing and will disappear. Carmy told Chef Terry he believes in Richie, that’s Chef Terry’s parting gift, Carmy believes in Richie, he’s good with people. And so he is.

We are out to Taylor Swift’s ‘Love Story’ playing over Richie staring at the EVERY SECOND COUNTS sign mounted in the kitchen.

I absolutely love a full Richie episode; the things Ebon Moss-Bachrach can do with his face have left him underutilized until now. Being away from the show for a little while has given unexpected perspective; can this disorganized screamy mess actually be transformed into a fine dining experience?

We shall see!

Thank you so much for the Olivia Colman of it all, The Bear. All the kisses.