Forks, Season 2 Episode 7 of The Bear

**If you haven’t seen the second season of The Bear, this will contain spoilers, and you should go and watch it first or watch it again.**

Photo: Hulu

Although episode six, Fishes, is a tour de force, I think that episode seven, Forks, is the better episode. This may be an unpopular opinion, but watching Richie develop into someone filled with hope, hard work, and purpose was a storytelling masterpiece.

Although episode seven is devoid of the usual lineup of characters, we get to see a spark lit inside of Richie.

Season two does a great job of giving us a ton of background on each character without taking the easy way out and offering a hundred flashback scenes, except, of course, for the entire flashback episode of episode six, Fishes. The season uses stories and dialogue to introduce the characters' past, and we gain a greater understanding of what makes them tick.

We see glimpses of Richie’s story in season one when he talks about being best friends with Mikey, not having a great relationship with his parents, and being raised by the Berzattos.

Season one introduces us to a brash, know-it-all guy who is most likely working at The Beef because his cousin, Mikey, was the owner. We learn that cousin is what they call one another, but there is no blood relationship, Richie was the neighbor kid who became a “cousin,” a best friend, and a part of the Berzatto family. He has grown up with them, attended family dinners, events, and fights (often all at the same time), and experienced the trauma of the suicide death of his best friend, Mikey.

Throughout season one, you wonder if Richie will get tired of the changes at The Beef and take off, it seems the entire time, he has one foot in and one foot out, looking and ready for a new opportunity. Richie ultimately ends up sticking around, but it doesn’t seem to be out of loyalty to the Berzattos or The Beef. Instead, it seems it is solely because he has nowhere else to go. In season one, we hear brief snippets of phone calls with his ex-wife that leads to him being pushed around, called a loser, and reminded that he owes child support. In those same phone calls, when he speaks to his daughter, we hear snippets of an encouraging and supportive dad who wants the best for his little girl. In season one, Richie is a guy who is, at best, down on his luck but, at worst, has given up.

In season two, we start to see The Beef turn into the fine dining establishment, The Bear. We see snippets of Richie helping with the remodel and starting to become invested in the overall success of the restaurant. At this point, he is still skeptical of Carmy and the changes he is planning, but he is along for the ride. It isn’t until episode six, that we understand more fully who Richie is.

In episode six, titled Fishes, we have a full flashback episode. I know I said that one of the things I really liked about The Bear was their ability to give background stories of the characters through the dialogue and not through flashback scenes but in true hypocrite fashion, I loved this episode and how it shows the wounds each person has, tears open new ones, and also provides a glimpse into what life was for them at one point.

In Fishes, Carmy has returned for Christmas from Denmark, where he is chef de cuisine at the world’s best restaurant, Noma. As I said before, this episode is a powerhouse, it is a stressful, anxiety-riddled hour, but it shows glimpses of each character's past, and it sets up their future, for better or tragically for worse. In this episode, we get to see Richie as a loving father-to-be. He brings a very pregnant, Tiffany, played by Gillian Jacobs, who is having some of the normal bouts of pregnancy nausea and sickness. We see Richie be a caretaker when he finds an open room for her to lie down in and ensures that she has a homemade Sprite to soothe her ails. We also see Richie looking to work outside of The Beef, he tells Cicero (the uncle) that he doesn’t want to be wrapping sandwiches his entire life, he wants an opportunity to provide a better life for himself and his family.

As we exit episode six, we flash forward to the present day. Episode Seven, titled Forks, brings us to an episode solely dedicated to Richie. Richie is staging at an unnamed restaurant, but we are to gather that it is one of the best restaurants in the world. He is supposed to learn the basics of high-end service with the hopes that he will find a role in the soon-to-open The Bear. In the first few scenes, we see Richie slamming his alarm off and drearily getting out of bed. Once he gets to the dimly lit kitchen, he polishes fork after fork after fork ad nauseum under the watchful eye of his supervisor Garrett. Aside from the fork polishing, he is rebuked for foul language and for not caring. Richie finds himself way out of his element, but either out of stubbornness or a way to stick it to Carmy, he stays.

As the episode continues, we watch as Richie slowly “sips the Kool-Aid” and realizes that what the restaurant is doing is more than just cooking for people, they are providing a “once-in-a-lifetime experience, every night” to their guests through the gift of food and service.

What was once a hand slamming on the alarm clock is now Richie jumping out of bed to an ever earlier alarm clock, not even allowing it to go off. We see him become more and more invested in the gift of service, he trades in his chef whites for a suit, reads Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, and invests himself more and more in the mission of the restaurant. You get to see Richie slowly emerge from the worn-out shell of a man he was, and a glimpse of fire and passion begins to reemerge. As he straightens the lapels on his suit, his new superhero outfit, you can see him shed years of verbal and mental abuse, ready to take ownership of not only his new position but also his life.

The episode ends with Richie talking with the owner, Chef Terry, played by Olivia Colman. As she is peeling mushrooms, she talks of her past life, how she has not always been successful, how she has not always been doing what she is doing now, and how she has not only been on the verge of giving up but has given up at points and been fired at other points. As she continues to chat with Richie, she shares about her family life and how that, too, hasn’t always been so easy. Richie apologizes for not being up to their standard and says that he knows the only reason he is there is because Chef Terry is friends with Carmy. Chef Terry glances up and says, “I don’t to favors, Carmy believes in you.” At this moment, we see Richie with the realization that he wasn’t sent there to be punished. He wasn’t sent there to be embarrassed. He wasn’t sent there to be gotten rid of for a week. He was sent there to get better. He was sent there because Carmy believes in him, and he believes that he can live to the high standards that he has set.

Episode Seven would not work without the understanding of who Richie is and was, with the background, we get to see him grow from angry and bitter to rejuvenated and hopeful. In later episodes, we get to see him continue to don his coat of armor, his suit, and approach his new role at The Bear with vigor and excitement that had not been present in him before.

This episode would not work without the understanding of who Richie is and was, but with that background, we get to see him grow from angry and bitter to rejuvenated and hopeful. In later episodes, we get to see him don his coat of armor, his suit, and approach his new role with vigor and excitement that we had not seen from him before.

Richie is a great example that even though life can and will hand you some tough breaks and try to tear you down, there is still a fire in all of us. Sometimes the fire is a small spark, but if it is tended to by people who care, that spark will grow and ignite passion.