How Watching 'The Bear' Season 3 Led Me to My First Therapy Session

Recently, I started seeing a psychologist for the first time in my life, and one of the reasons that pushed me to do it was "The Bear" Season 3.

First off, let me clarify that I'm not saying "The Bear" is so bad it drove me to therapy. Quite the opposite—the third season is so well-crafted that I'm totally immersed in it. It made me realize something I'd been denying all the while: some psychological wounds don't just heal as you grow up, and time alone can't fix them. Even if you know there's a problem, you might still subconsciously deal with it using the same old patterns. Eventually, you might even see these patterns as your fate. This is my biggest takeaway after watching "The Bear" Season 3.

From the get-go, "The Bear" has focused more on character development than story progression. Yet, the first two seasons have a clear main storyline. In the first season, the main character Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) and his family and colleagues struggle to sustain the family-run sandwich shop he inherited from his older brother Michael "Mikey" Berzatto (Jon Bernthal), who had committed suicide. In the second season, Carmy and his sous chef Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) ambitiously try to turn the restaurant into a Michelin-starred establishment. By the third season, "The Bear" takes its anti-narrative style to the extreme, gratuitously complicating the main storyline and making it hard to sum it up in one simple sentence. But at the same time, the characters become more vivid and well-rounded. If the first two seasons show how the characters are within each moment, the third chapter delves into how they got to their current states, with Carmy still being the central figure.

Carmy is undeniably a talented chef, but as a viewer, I can clearly see how his anxiety, self-loathing, and desire for control impact others and even wreck his relationships. From the first season, the kitchen led by Carmy is always shrouded in a stifling atmosphere of tension, anxiety, and stress. Influenced by reality shows like "Hell's Kitchen," I used to think professional kitchens were inherently high-pressure and chaotic working environments. It wasn't until the second season, when the late Mikey's best friend Richard "Richie" Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), another hot-tempered character, works at Chef Andrea Terryn's (Olivia Colman) Ever restaurant and realizes what it means to be a head waiter, that I understood a busy kitchen can still be organized and calm, and those working in it can return to a relaxed life after the mad rush.

So, maybe Carmy's frequent breakdowns aren't triggered just by his job as a chef itself. What's really causing his anxiety? I think his source of trauma is another main storyline of "The Bear."

In the first season, it seems like Carmy is anxious about saving the family restaurant from bankruptcy and breaks down over financial issues. Mikey leaves behind a huge debt amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars after his death, forcing Carmy to pay it off in order to inherit the restaurant. This debt is both a real issue and a metaphor for the trauma caused by Mikey's sudden suicide. In the final episode of the season, Carmy reads a letter left behind by his late older sibling. Following the instructions written in it, he finds money hidden in tomato cans and uses it to resolve the restaurant's debt crisis. The debt settlement hinges on Carmy's acceptance of Mikey's suicide, but has Carmy's trauma truly been healed?

The second installment is the most fast paced of the series. Carmy and his team set clear goals and work towards them while overcoming obstacles that come their way through persistence and some luck. Even so, there's one episode in this season that I can't bear to watch a second time, titled "Fishes." This episode flashes back to the Berzatto family's Christmas dinner five years ago, where Carmy's emotionally unstable mother, Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), makes her onscreen debut. The anxiety Carmy shows in the kitchen is almost identical to what his mother experiences. The hour-long episode almost fully exposes the family's internal conflicts and dysfunction. After delivering a heartwarming and touching Christmas speech, Donna crashes her car into the house. This act of hers clearly indicates that the family-induced trauma Carmy suffers can't be resolved through a simple reconciliation with his loved ones.

In the third season, the challenges Carmy faces aren't necessarily bigger than those in the previous ones, but he seems to break down more often. He's demanding of his coworkers; his harshness makes Sydney panic; he fights with Richie and avoids contacting Claire, the girl he hurt. The only time Carmy really faces his emotions in this season is when he confronts his old boss, David Fields (Joel McHale), who used to mentally abuse him. The antagonist who wears black-rimmed Tom Ford glasses is Carmy's nightmare, causing him stomach ulcers and panic attacks. When Carmy finally blurts out the cuss words "F*ck you" to him, he just responds by saying that Carmy should thank him for making him a better chef.

This confrontation, which is often the climax before any dispute resolution in many shows, ends with Carmy being left speechless and David behaving in an indifferently arrogant manner. This short three-minute scene where Carmy packs a powerless punch and sheds tears (White's acting here is phenomenal) made me tear up too. It reminded me of the moment in my own life when I realized my pain and knew where it came from. I even confronted the person who caused it. But that didn't solve anything. Instead, the response I got from the person who hurt me added to my woes. She didn't think she did anything wrong, didn't care about my pain, and didn't intend to make any changes to improve our relationship—that person is my mother.

So, what should people like Carmy, me, and countless others dealing with trauma and pain do? Carmy does try to change things—he cuts off contact with his mom, joins an Al-Anon meeting to understand Mikey's suicide, and confronts the person who hurt him. But these aren't enough to heal his pain or help him escape his past traumas—he mentally abuses Sydney the same way David did to him. Even though I live far from my hometown now, I still feel my mother's and my family's old patterns affecting me.

After watching "The Bear" Season 3, I decided to see a psychologist. During a consultation, I apologized for frequently changing topics. My therapist just shrugged it off and said, "It's okay." I burst into tears from hearing that simple reply (and sensing the underlying tolerance and patience my therapist had for me). I realized psychotherapy might be what I need after so many failed attempts at constantly making peace with my provocateur. I don't know what the next season of "The Bear" has in store, but I really hope the showrunner Christopher Storer makes Carmy (and maybe other characters) see a therapist.