The Bear may be known for deafening cacophony, claustrophobic chaos, and blood-pressure-spiking stress. But it’s always been most effective when it halts all of that din like a jarring record scratch, calms down, and takes its time producing a quiet, unexpected moment.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
That narrative trick is actually the narrative norm in the just-released fourth season of the FX on Hulu series, which slows the frenetic pace down to a persistent, meditative lull. The element of emotional surprise still thrives, however, and is most striking during the opening moments of Episode 5, “Replicants,” which also features one of The Bear’s other big reliable stunts: an out-of-left-field guest star.
The first four minutes of the episode is an uninterrupted, four-minute monologue performed by actress, comedian, and podcaster Kate Berlant.
Kate Berlant in The Bear pic.twitter.com/nK1Md1UvJ6
— daily kb (@DailyBerlant) June 26, 2025
Berlant might be best known for a surreal, absurdist style of comedy, featured in her Emmy-nominated special Would It Kill You to Laugh? with John Early, scene-stealing TV roles like her one in The Other Two, and her raved-about one-woman show Kate. She’s shown off her more dramatic range in projects like Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and A League of Their Own, but this appearance in The Bear shows off her talent in a new, very moving light.
The episode opens on a close-up of her character, Georgie, speaking at what appears to be a support group of some sort—context clues point to Al-Anon for family members of alcoholics. It’s not immediately clear what, if anything, this has to do with the story of The Bear, its characters, and the hustle to open a successful fine dining restaurant, but it’s instantly captivating.
Georgie is recounting the time she was trusting her brother to housesit while she went away for three days. “There can be no mischief,” she remembers telling him. “You have to water the plants.”
The plants were a sticking point. One of them was their late mother’s, and she had been bringing it back to health. He explains to her how he’s six months sober and it will be fine.
“He’s my brother, I love him,” she says. “And I want to kill him. And love him and kill him again.” He says to Georgie, “I love you. I’m going to water the plants. No mischief.”
Georgie returned after three days and, she tells the group, when she opened the door there were four people naked and asleep on her couch. There were beer bottles, burnt foil, and piles of vomit everywhere—the latter of which he tries to tell her “was there before.”
On the bed were ripped-up ketchup packets, “which is equally confusing as it is genuinely terrifying.” Georgie says that she panicked that her brother was dead. Then she turned to the bathroom and there he is, in the bathtub, fully clothed and smoking a cigarette.
“He’s happy,” Georgie says. “I mean, he’s happy as I’ve ever seen him.”
She starts to cry. He starts to sing a Doris Day song, “Magic,” that their mother loved. He then comes over, sits down at her feet, looks up at her, and says, “Georgie, don’t worry. I watered the plants.”
If you made it this far into Berlant’s monologue without a pool of tears puddling in your eyes, that final line turns them on like a firehose. (A nerdy aside: If you’ve seen Berlant’s one-woman show, Kate, which focuses on her struggle to produce tears while acting, you’ll feel extra catharsis when they fall at the conclusion of this one-take performance.)
The camera then cuts to a close-up of Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), finally revealing the connection to The Bear universe. His facial expression pretty much mirrors mine exactly after watching Georgie’s testimony: His eyes are wet with tears, he can’t look away from her, and, following that tragically sweet note of optimism that ended the story, a relieved, almost tickled smile.
Taking a full four minutes to reveal so much of a character who is never before or after seen on the show is a creative risk, but also serves as a moving metaphor for the journey of Season 4.
Nearly every character this season is finally confronting the complicated relationships they have with those who are closest to them: the broken trust, the bitterness, and the self-destructiveness that festers owed to those things.
They are opening themselves up mending those relationships, which means making the active decision to be vulnerable themselves. (I’m not a psychologist, but it’s not hard to diagnose that perhaps all the constant yelling in The Bear kitchen might be owed to a restaurant staffed by people with closed emotional walls.)
That means, however, opening themselves up to pain—pain, with hope of healing. The end of Georgie’s story about her brother, his promise that, even after everything he did that hurt her, he remembered to water the plants—that’s the seed of optimism that anyone embarking on a repairing journey needs.
It’s the scene from this season of The Bear that has stuck with me ever since I watched the screeners. It’s the highlight of the season.
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