The lighting⚡or L train🚄that connects The Bear 🐻 to Groundhog day 🦫, to Back to the Future💥🚘💥 and ofc, to The Odyssey🏹, in a When Harry met Sally🧑🏻👩 kinda way ❤️but in Chicago instead🏙️, and yes, I coulda made this title longer, tnx for asking 💅.
First things first: Storer is a sadist but he's a mastermind when he's ON. Kinda like his self-insert, Carmy Berzatto, who's a POS but also an excellent chef. And The Bear is written in a circular way, inspired, among other things, in Eastern philosophy, which is something Storer likes to bring up a lot in the subtext, and in Saṃsāra specifically, which means it will most likely end like it started, with SYDCARMY MAKING SANDWICHES at what we now know, after the teasers, that has been rebranded as THE BERF, in other words, they end up TOGETHER.
That's called endgame, if that "togetherness" proves to be romantic, right? OK. Well, it will.
In 01x01 The Sadist stated that Syd is gonna make family (I'm pretty sure this means marrying into The Berzattos, not just signing the new agreement but even if they get traditionally married I seriously doubt The Sadist will actually show it to us, if we're really lucky he might just serve a timeskip and show us Sydcarmy already married like 5 years later or something like that, and even that is pushing our luck, honestly-so I'm not holding my breath) in that place and they were Carmy + 3 (Richie, Natalie and Ebra, who's in charge of the WOTSFS, creating opportunities).
OK, so that being said we gotta try and get The Sadist's perspective on this, regardless of how right or wrong we might believe it is, or how much we agree or disagree with it.
IMO his perspective starts about 10 years before S1 began.
He was writing The Bear as a movie, originally, and JAW had mentioned that Storer first approached him to soft offer him Carmy's role when they met in 2019, on the set of the thriller The Rental and at that point told him: I'm working on this script (by 2019 he had already been working on it for about 8/9 years, btw).
Storer was set on JAW playing Carmy whether The Bear was greenlit as a movie or as a TV show and in 2019 he didn't know which one was it gonna be, so he kept polishing the script, while JAW kept working on Shameless, which wrapped production in March 2022. But in 2020 The Bear got greenlit by FX for a TV pilot that was filmed in 2021 in Chicago and in 2022 Storer got confirmation about the show being picked up for 7 more episodes, which we now know as S1.
All this is important because it means that Storer was working on his movie script for almost 10 years, marinating it, creating this story in his head and when he ADAPTED IT to the small screen, out of all the iterations that script went through he chose this one for Syd and Carmy:
TOGETHER. and eye fucking and she coming back to him bc she loves him and he wanting to share his life and dreams with her.
So, that's a love story whether he decided to explore it explicity in the movie that he adapted to the small screen or on the show that at that point he didn't know whether was gonna be renewed for a second season or not.
The rest is filler material and delaying tactics to postpone the original ending 🍒 that is another, better version, of that original blueprint he served in 01x08 - Braciole that is nothing but a love a story that happens within a larger all-encompasing family oriented context. Long story short: Can't be labelled as a romance but it is a love story nonetheless, about ALL kinds of ❤️.
So, now that we established that in essence The Bear is indeed a love story but not necessarily a romance show (which I'm sure is not news for any truther out there atp), bc that's exactly the story Storer wanted to tell after having worked and honed that script for almost a decade, we can jump right to the THE ORIGINS OF THE LIGHTING REFERENCE THAT WAS PRESENT IN 2 MOVIES HE LOVES AND INFUSED THIS BEAR STORY WITH.
Notice the fire, the lighting, the out of time reference that will later on make even more sense when Groundhog Day enters the chat but it already made TOTAL sense in S4 when Cousin told Carmy this and will continue making sense in S5 when the clocks are OUT OF ORDER.
Anyway, so Back to the Future was not explicitly mentioned on the show BUT Back to the Future III prominently features a bear—specifically the unplanned bear that chases Marty McFly into a cave in 1885.
I'm operating under the assumption that an 80s/90s movie major geek like Christopher Storer, 1000% knew about this and has seen and loved this movie, probably multiple times because he grew up during BTTF fever. Every kid that grew up in the 80s worshiped Marty McFly. I bet Storer did too, probably still does.
So, these generational cinematographic influences clearly had an effect on his writing, his creative process and his career in the entertainment industry.
Therefore, I'm confidently taking an educated guess here when I say that I can see an INTENTIONAL parallel between BTTF and TB and this will make sense at the end so be patient or skip to the bottom.
If you haven't skipped, tnx. Now let me explain and tie all this together:
BTTF is about Marty inadvertently preventing his future parents from falling in love, threatening his existence, and must fix the timeline to get back home, right? So, I could safely say that its concept was to fix the past to change the present and have a future/life. Correct? I could also say that:
BTTF is not a love story per se, it's a sci-fi/comedy movie with a love story in it that revolves around FAMILY, but it doens't fit the romance or rom-com genre. And it basically uses time manipulation as a medium to tell this story and LET IT HAPPEN.
So if we extrapolate that same logic to TB and specifically to Carmy enheriting a family business and fucking his HS crush (both legacies from the past that needed loooots of fixing, right?), choosing to change all of it and by doing so, meeting and falling in love with Syd, which clearly changes his present and gives him the chance to build a future/life together, a life completely different from the life that either of them had before they crossed paths, because Carmy comes from a dysfunctional family and Syd from a loving monoparental one and the life they are building together revolves around a family-family that left dysfunction behind (by S5). After all, isn't that fixing the timeline not to end up like those that came before him? FAMILY. It's basically changing the ending of a story that was gonna end up perpetuating the cycle of abuse, chaos and dysfunction UNLESS Carmy FIXED his family and Mikey's death and legacy were his opportunities ⚡ to do so, but Syd was his inspo. Sydcarmy's love story revolves around TIMING. Bc they are right for each other but the timing was never right till they MADE EACH OTHER BETTER AT THIS. In S5 we get to see that. So their love story will get to finally happen, timing is everything. Just like in BTTF.
In both every second counts. I mean, is clearly no coincidence that the clocks are basically parts of the cast in both pieces of media and are used as story-telling prompts. And both stories go back and forth in time all the time.
Pay attention to 2028 for a potential "come back" (hopefully a movie).
As I elaborated in my Loop theory, started in 2x10 with Carmy getting stuck in the walk-in, hearing the ILY curse the C Siren put on him and by S5 the TL will be finally FIXED and the family-family will be together, the love story will happen so Marty BERF (Bear + Beef) can be born (the McFlys also had 2 children btw). Like Marty could successfully fixed his TL as well, in BTTF III, at last, after several attempts.
2x10 soundtrack, as this OUT OF TIME phase that I call Loop began (read loop meta part 2 for context), was HALF THE WORLD AWAY by REM, and now it makes total sense because it foreshadows the ending of the series. Again, when Storer wrote 2x10 he didn't know for sure yet that TB was gonna be renewed for another season, so he wrote 2x10 as a semi-happy open ending in case it wasn't the end of the series just yet. Now, in S5, the ending will be more solidified as happy for everyone, including Carmy.
This could be the saddest dusk ever seen
You turn to a miracle high-alive
My mind is racing as it always will
My hands tired, my heart aches
I'm half a world away, here
My head sworn to go it alone and hold it along
Haul it along and hold it
Go it alone, hold it along
And hold
Oh, the lonely deep sit hollow
I'm half a world, half the world away
My shoes are gone, my life spent
I had too much to drink
I didn't think, and I didn't think of you
I guess that's all I needed
To go it alone and hold it along
Haul it along and hold it
Blackbirds, backwards, forwards and fall
And hold
Oh, this lonely world is wasted
Pathetic eyes high-alive
Blind to the tide that's turned the sea
The storm, it came up strong
It shook' the trees and blew away our fear
I couldn't even hear
To go it alone and hold it along
Haul it along and hold it
Go it alone and hold it along
And hold
Go it alone and hold it along
Haul it along and hold it
Blackbirds, backwards, forwards and fall
And hold
Oh, this could be the saddest dusk I've ever seen
I turn to a miracle high-alive
My mind is racing as it always will
My hands tired, my heart aches
I'm half a world away
Go...
This means that towards the end of the season, something terrible will happen but will MIRACULOUSLY have a happy ending. I hope it's not the jewish lighting. But, really, it could be anything related to the Storm.
The storm is another element in common with both Groundhog Day and BTTF. In GD it was a blizzard, but still, bad weather nonetheless or THE FORCES OF NATURE, which is the metaphore for NATURE vs NURTURE, which is the underlying conflict of the whole show because it is about breaking the cycle of trauma, or as Marty McFly would put it: FIX THE TL/FIX THE FAMILY. Ofc, nurture always wins, which explains the "miracle".
Now, I'm gonna get rather philosophical here, maybe even a bit mystical, bc we know Syd was sent from above by Mikey when he died, to INSPIRE Carmy to FIX THE TIMELINE, or break the curse, whatever... Notice I said inspire, not fix, because Carmy is his own worst enemy but ALSO his own fixer. No women in his life play that role. Not Syd, not C, not even Sugar or Terry. They move him to make his own choices, which are either right or wrong. Some move him by inspiring him and others by manipulating him, but that's a different story altogether. What I'm pointing out here, is that C was also sent by Mikey, in a sense. Carmy was "pushed" by his Idol, his heroe, his Big Bro who he admired, to fuck C, while Mikey was alive, but Syd was his gift to Carmy from beyond. Syd was literally heaven sent, C was sent from the past, like the hostage-taking Bufford Mad Dog Tannen. This guy was an obvious antagonist in BTTF, whereas C is not that obvious but she is hostage-taking in her own subtle manipulative way as well, and she's "from the past" too, and she doesn't take Marty McFly Carmy down, even though she tries, repetedly, like Mad Dog did with Marty. 3/3. In case you're wondering, Mad Dog ends up defeated in a duel by Marty McFly and then is arrested. I don't believe we're gonna be that lucky but C might end up being completely removed from Carmy's life and all of the Berzatto's lives as well, after being "defeated in a duel" of sorts. Don't ask me what that is but if at any point Storer gives us a showdown between C and Syd, the winner is pretty predictible and the winner takes it all, which includes Carmy, ofc. And actually Carmy will not be the prize but the winner himself, because he will lose C and win Syd in that case. So... anyway... MANIFEST!
The point is that she's an antagonist, represented by the storm (not the lighting), who came from the past, in S2, to fuck up the whole TL or prevent Carmy from "fixing it", and will be defeated in S5. Period.
I said I was gonna get philosophical because the storm breaking, the flooding that ruins the restaurant's drywalls when Cicero says he's selling the place, IMO is "Mikey's ghost" doing his job. And Richie, as usual is his voice amongst the living.
Michael's job is to help Carmy in his cycle breaking mission/fixing the family/fixing the TL, basically what he couldn't do when he passed the torch to Carmy. Whether we like it or not, Carmy grew as a person by dating C, experiencing a relationship he had never had before, learning the dos and don'ts, etc, and as I mentioned in the storm meta, according to Eastern philosophy, "Storm" basically means opportunity to change (crisis), because once it passes, whoever is still standing is not the same person. He will man up, like Marty, like Phil, even like Odysseus.
Carmy who was very immature person and like a petulant and child that threw tantrums because he was a control freak, among other things, will mature, chronologically, obvs because all this took time, but also EMOTIONALLY, which will prepare him for a mature, healthy relationship with Syd. A relationship he could never have with the C person. The C person Mikey basically threw him in the arms of.
So both were Michael-sent. To teach him different lessons. One is represented by the storm/chaos in the story. The other one is the rain/the water/the river that is mentioned in the song that last year was the soundtrack of Carmy’s SOLO.
Like I said, the forces of nature. BUT also, the elements.
I'm actually happy about the restaurant flooding, because water means EMOTIONS, in Eastern philosophy and also means $$$, as I mentioned in this Bonus track.
I keep seeing everywhere that Syd is the water and Carmy is the fire, assigning each one of them, one of those elements, respectively. And I agree, but with some caveats. I also think that POV is quite reductionist because Syd is truly multifacetic and more complex than assigning her just 1 element, and thus requires a broader perspective.
Syd is also the smoke that comes after C's fire that burned Carmy emotionally and sent him in a guilt trip he got stuck in for about 6 months.
Syd is also the "spark" that reminds Carmy the right reasons purpose to do what he loves, or used to love and will fall back in love with, because of her, etc.
Syd is the light at the end of his tunnel, Syd is the lighting that wakes him up so he can finally see the light, putting and end to his self-inflected blindness, and that's when he will finally get unstuck outta the lamb dish.
Sydney is the wall wrecker and the wall itself, that's why she's so guarded but at the same time they only lower each other's guards with one another, like under the table or during the fight, if only for fleeting moments, but they still count and plus that's gonna change in S5. No more denial, no more walls, no more blindness, the storm will be devastantingly cleansing this time, not destructive, cleansing.
That finally takes me to the water that Syd represents in this grand scheme of things Storer came up with. She's not the storm per se, she's the rain in this song and the river in this one (where she'd sail in when he stood her up in S2 and escaped with C). And like I said, WATER MEANS EMOTIONS. She represents the Love Carmy was afraid of bc he always associated it with pain and loss. She represents amusement and enjoyment and doing this for all the right fucking reasons. She re-connected Carmy with those human emotions his animalistic persona couldn't handle. She made him more human because he fell in LOVE with her. Love is the most elevated emotion. She elevated him by inspiring him, they both upped their games because of one another, they made each other better at this, because they love each other. She's THAT SYMBOLIC WATER, EMOTIONAL WATER, TEARS, the ones they both cried in the back alley during the fight, maybe even tears of joy they'll cry in S5 we haven't seen yet, the rain that floods the restaurant HE STAYED AT because of her, to save it. She's the emotions he didn't deem himself capable or worthy of feeling and that make him a BETTER MAN or maybe a man for the first time in his life, not just the most excellent CDC at the most excellent restaurant in the entire United States of America, which no longer fillfilled him, maybe never really did because in all honesty back then all he wanted was someone who told him: "Good job!" and that someone was never there for him till Syd came into his life and told him "she knew who he was". And only now (S4/5), he's finally prepared to see it, now that he's manning up and emotionally maturing because of the love he feels for HER, not for cooking. Only now, in S3, in the middle of his the existential crisis he spiraled into because he had let her and everyone else down, but mostly her, he was finally able, for once, to know exactly what he wants, not what he wanted to do with the restaurant, that was always clear for him, but with his whole LIFE and his LEGACY. She was the drive behind that shift in him. That's wild! Life-altering, and perfectly imperfect. That was the most real thing that ever happened to him and tha's why after that, shit got real (4x10). And he wanted her too but at that point he wasn't ready to admit it to himself or to her so he oversimplified it and just said she looked "nice".
I consider these last 2 representations of her energy and character as the most crucial ones and accuretely descriptives of her.
So, yeah, she's water too, but in that way and contextualized like that, not just a simple complementary force and balancing element to his fiery temper. No. She's the beating of his ❤️, that's why BLOOD is what unites them and he made a Paupiette of hamachi with blood orange sauce for her, which was The Best she's ever had. Blood is 80% water. She's family, she's the new mother of Victory... She's the 8th FISH 🌊🐠🌊
SYD IS EVERYTHING, SHE'S THE BEAR AND THE BEAR IS NOT JUST HER OR CARMY OR THE RESTAURANT, THE BEAR REPRESENTS THE FAMILY-FAMILY, THE PHYSICAL PLACE WHERE ALL THOSE SOULS COLLIDED AND ALTERED THEIR COURSES, THE CHAOS MENU, THE WINDOW ON THE SIDE FOR SANDWICHES AND THE STAR/S THEY WON. THE BEAR IS THE COLLECTIVE. THE BEAR IS EVERYTHING.
This EVERYTHING Carmy was talking about in S1 that made him feel like for the 1st time in his fucking life he could find some station for himself or control something, even if it kicked the shit outta him.
So, how is this connected to BTTF and GD, WHMS, or even to The Odyssey?
Easy. All of those stories are basically coming of age stories, that show the journey of a hero/anti-hero and ultimately this male character, who started out as an emotionally immature or too naive idealistic and maybe even entitled, ego tripping, sometimes fun, yet tortured guy, who ends up being a loving person that became this new and improved version of himself FOR LOVE, after going on this life-changing journey and unequivocally they always, at the end, wind up in love and happily ever after, having learned that whatever they THOUGHT they wanted in the beginning, no longer represents them or fulfills them. In this case that is C and the way of doing things Carmy had, goal oriented and soul-less after Mikey cut him off or to escape his traumatic and disappointing household. That no longer serves him but not just because of himself, but because of everyone else in his life, most importantly but not only, bc of Sydney.
It's called THE WAKE UP CALL EFFECT.
The "hero" wakes up and starts seeing all that's wrong with what he did or didn't do while he was asleep/blind, even if he was never ill-intended, and then pays the price for his mistakes but also learns from them, but usally he drags a lot of other ppl down with him in his journey before he unlocks this new better man he will grow to be after facing and defeating his inner demons and wises up.
But always, always, at the end of the journey, there's a:
Sydney Adamu, Jennifer Parker, Sally Albright, Rita Hanson, Penelope of Ithaca, etc. who they love, loves them, fought by their side and they also fought FOR and at points they looked pretty doomed, but they beat all odds because they belonged together and chose each other inspite of all the hardships they both had to endure to be together and succeed at the end. THEY ALL END IN THE EXACT SAME WAY, with a HOMECOMING, AFTER THE "HERO" FINDS HIMSELF AND ACCOMPLISHES HIS MISSION.
Bonus track: Location, location, location.
Also in all of those stories, WHERE the action takes place is vital.
In BTTF the action takes place out of time, in a parallel universe from the past, but mostly importantly, in a tunnel and in a train. The train sequences happen on a 19th-century steam locomotive that serves as a critical plot device. Hijacked by Doc Brown and Marty McFly in 1885, it is used to push the DeLorean to 88 mph when no gasoline is available. At the end of the film, Doc returns with his own time-traveling train.
GD, takes place in Punxsutawney, where there's a blizzard that changes it all, which apparently mirrors 5x1's plot, according to the episode list, except that in TB's case what falls from the sky is WATER, and I already elaborated on its meaning in this universe, above. Phil Connors goes on a late-night joyride with two drunken guys. He intentionally drives his Cadillac down an active railroad track, casually telling his passengers, "I'm betting he's going to swerve first" as a speeding freight train approaches fast.
Do I need to mention that each season of The Bear uses Chicago's Loop train as prompt to signal something significat will happen or just did?
That parallel right there is a wink to TIME, because even though in BTTF the time travel is apparent, on TB there's also a lot of time travelling, in a different way because Carmy is stuck in the past for most part of the series, even when he is in present time. On the Bear Storer explores the headspace TL, whereas in BTTF Bob Gale and Robert Zemecki (Storer's personal idols!) go about it in a literal, "metaphysical" way, via a mad scientist.
Carmy just uses his own mind to go back and forth in time, same as the rest of the characters of the show because even thought it is quite "symbolic and spiritual" it is not sci-fi. But the influences are there, for sure.
In WHMS NYC is basically another character of the film, a core one, just like on TB Chicago plays that part. EVERY SEASON.Plus Harry had a pretty similar experience throuought the movie, with the whole I'M YOUR FRIEND thing and then they made the typical friends to lovers move at the end. (after he changed).
In The Odyssey the action takes place in many settings but the main ones are THE SHIP/THE SEA/THE WATER and ITHACA/THE RETURN HOME. Carmy coming back home in the first place to take posesion of THE BEEF kickstarted the series, in The Odyssey it symbolically ends it, but THE PERFECT SHIP, the same one that Storer hid in plain sight in 4x5, literally written on the wall, is in a subliminal way the whole point of the journey and the reason why Carmy truly finds out where his real home is, by Syd's side, because home is where the heart it is, which is the same realization Odysseus had and that hit all these other heros hard, because they didn't know what they were looking for, till it found them, that IT is a FEELING, not a physical home. That comes later, at the end of the journey. That's one of the lessons they learn as a result of having gone in the self-discovery journey that ends up being reveling but that it didn't start that way.
See? It's all connected and it all foreshadows our PERFECT SYDCARMY SHIP SAILING. There's no way this Sadist would follow these same structures and draw soooo many paralellisms if he plans to end the show in a completely different way. If Marty after his perfect time-travelling lighting bolts ended up happily ever-after with Jennifer, Phil Connors survived the seeminly never-ending blizzard he that snowed him in and got him stuck in this town he didn't wanna be in at first, because he was forced to go, to then end up falling in love, changing for the better, maturing and staying there because that's where he felt HOME, because he was with Rita, his soulmate & co-worker. If Harry went from dick to friend, to broken-hearted cynical playboy to best friend, to stranger, to lover to Mr. Albright and Odysseus went from forcefully FIGHTING A WAR that at the end he realizes was mostly against himself, and then comes back, a new better man, a whole and wiser man, returning older but in 1 piece against all odds to fight for his beloved stringing his rigid bow (which represents his mind) and wins Penelope back by PROVING HIMSELF, then Syd and Carmy can very well be endgame and we all will get out happy ending.
I'd dare to say there's no more need to manifest, which doesn't mean we should anti-manifest being sooooooo close to the fucking finish line. Let's just wait knowing Storer is following these playbooks I showed you above and so far has been connecting the dots pretty similarly. I don't think that having Carmy realize WTF he has been doing with the lamb, having Syd make caramel, the sweetest thing possible, with THE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SPOON HE GAVE HER, naming 3 of the eps with the ingredients SHE PROPOSED when they were brainstoming their chaos menu together, which is their red string, are all random coincidences that mean and foreshadow absolutely nothing at all. Please! And on top of that Storer literally edits the teasers by cutting to Carmy when Syd says: "The one" (S4), and to Syd when Carmy says "ILYSM" (S5). I mean! And that's not even mentioning that when Carmy had EVERY CHANCE to rekindle his 🔥 with C, HE DIDN'T, they just remained friends, BC HE'S MATURING NOW! Hello! I mean, in the new teasers we can clearly see they all end up happily ever after TOGETHER, we may not have all the details yet, but it's pretty obvious they all end up as a functional family-family. And what was keeping Syd and Carmy apart? DYSFUNCTION, exactly 💅. So, we're sooooooooooo close. I can smell it. And more importantly, Syd could too.
Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs 💋
PS: If you love any of these movies and see the vision, chime in if you want to, be my guests, chefs.
