The Bear Season 5 First Reviews: An Intense, Entertaining, Satisfying Finale That Secures Its Legacy
Critics say the acclaimed series' final season is a back-to-basics return to peak form that takes the show out in style and leaves no room for leftovers.
The fifth and final season of The Bear premieres this week, and the first reviews are now online and are almost unanimously positive. Christopher Storer’s award-winning series returns to the high-rated yet struggling Chicago restaurant with more chaos and more catastrophe than ever. It also returns to the tighter storytelling and taught intensity that viewers enjoyed more in the first two seasons. Whether it’s remembered more as a comedy or a drama, The Bear will safely go down as one of the best TV shows of this decade, if not also this century.
Here’s what critics are saying about The Bear Season 5:
97%
Is it still one of the best shows on TV?
With a masterfulness that puts most of its small-screen compatriots to shame, it achieves a poignant grace that’s completely in tune with all that came before.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Nothing else on TV as gracefully captures the machinery that goes into cultivating any artistic experience.
— Michael Savio, Slant Magazine
The Bear Season 5 delivers a fitting ode to what made the series so great to begin with.
— Ricky Valero, Geek Vibes Nation
Season 5 leans into the series’ best qualities, trusting its cast of breakout stars to turn a relatively simple meal into an indelible final course.
— Ben Travers, IndieWire
This is The Bear at its most efficiently entertaining, its narrower focus and leaner run times distilling its strengths into a streamlined whole.
— Nicholas Quah, New York Magazine/Vulture
It’s the best The Bear has been in years. At last, it becomes the chaotic, heartwarming thrill we were first wowed by.
— Rebecca Cook, metro.co.uk
To finish, Storer boils his creation down to its core flavors. This is distilled Bear, concentrated Bear, a Bear jus.
— Jack Seale, Radio Times
It’s not must-watch television. It doesn’t reach the heights of the series at its peak. But it’s a fun ride with some old friends.
— Meg Watson, Sydney Morning Herald
How does it compare to previous seasons?
Christopher Storer tosses away the muscular, accessible, and cruising episodic precision of earlier seasons.
— M.N. Miller, FandomWire
Season 5 feels like a stripped-down, back-to-basics iteration of the show, and that’s to its immense credit.
— Clint Worthington, RogerEbert.com
The show’s third and fourth entries divided fans and critics alike for being a bit too self-indulgent, sentimental, or just plain listless… For its final season, series creator Christopher Storer goes back to basics.
— Michael Savio, Slant Magazine
You might expect The Bear’s fifth and final season to be its grandest. Instead, it’s the narrowest of all… better than its most recent predecessors but rarely as sublime as the second half of Season 1 and Season 2.
— Judy Berman, TIME Magazine
The Bear Season 5 sometimes feels forced in ways previous seasons did not.
— Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm
Is it more of a comedy this season?
Much has been made of how The Bear has been erroneously classed as funny when nominated for TV awards – this series is a reminder of why. It’s got visual and verbal zingers the whole way.
— Benji Wilson, Daily Telegraph
It contains three or four of The Bear‘s best ever gags and by far its most hilarious ever one-off character. If American awards ceremonies classify this show as a comedy again next year, they’ll still be wrong, but not by as much.
— Jack Seale, Radio Times
Several parts made me laugh out loud, which I know isn’t the sort of thing I’m supposed to admit about a show whose awards classification as a “comedy” is one of the most contentious issues in our horribly fractured culture.
— Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter
The comedy lands better, allowed more room to breathe beneath all the yelling.
— Nicholas Quah, New York Magazine/Vulture
This season, Storer also inserts lame slapstick moments that feel like eleventh-hour attempts to justify all those “comedy” awards his rarely humorous show won over the years.
— Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle
Has it gotten too intense?
From scene to scene, the tension is more than just believable; it’s immersive.
— Judy Berman, TIME Magazine
With the pressure amped up throughout, this season is less naturalistic and more like a Tony Scott-directed version of Kitchen Confidential.
— Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter
What does this season get right?
Storer knows we know and love these characters at this point, and so The Bear keeps its nose down and gets down to the business at hand, and it’s so refreshing for that.
— Clint Worthington, RogerEbert.com
The one thing I wanted The Bear to do to close out the show was go back to what made this show special: being in the kitchen. The creators did just that.
— Ricky Valero, Geek Vibes Nation
It continues to find ways to surprise.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
Praise also has to be given to the direction and editing… because there is so much that happens in the show, and especially here in Season 5, that is unspoken.
— Ben Gibbons, Screen Rant
Does it feel like it has all led up to this moment?
Season 5 feels like the show The Bear has always wanted to be, the final form it was always hoping to achieve.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
The Bear did the work to stay in our lives consistently for five years, and it pays off in the final season.
— Ben Travers, IndieWire
It hits the very high notes to which it’s long been building.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Storer and his expert team usher us through the highs and lows of The Bear’s make-or-break shift in ways that feel earned.
— Clint Worthington, RogerEbert.com
Is there another all-timer among its final episodes?
I found [Episode 7] to be a complete triumph from beginning to end, and one of the show’s best, most beautiful episodes that encompasses everything the series does so well.
— James Hunt, ComicBook.com
A payoff involving a candle in the seventh episode, “Caramel,” reduced me to the kind of sobbing that just can’t be explained, can only be felt.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
The seventh episode, titled “Caramel,” delivered everything I hoped for and expected from a series finale for The Bear, [but] this is an eight-episode season.
— Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter
Who in the cast stands out this season?
Of particular praise is Edebiri, who sells the pressure of getting the responsibility she had waited for the whole show to receive.
— Clint Worthington, RogerEbert.com
Best of all this season is Edibiri.
— James Hunt, ComicBook.com
For me personally, I am bowled over by the performance of Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays Cousin Richie.
— Ben Gibbons, Screen Rant
Liza Colón-Zayas’ Tina… has become the show’s most reassuring presence.
— Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle
It’s Abby Elliott who steals the show as Sugar.
— Abe Friedtanzer, Awards Buzz
How is the score?
It’s a driving, thriving soundtrack which brings the same intensity Zimmer created for F1 last year, the perfect spice for this dish.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
The heart-pounding, Reznoresque theme instills a sense of urgency in the viewer to match that of the kitchen crew.
— Alison Herman, Variety
The score, composed this season by Christian Lundberg and produced by Hans Zimmer, leans toward cheesy sports-movie propulsion, complete with echoes of the Alan Parsons Project’s Chicago Bulls anthem.
— Nicholas Quah, New York Magazine/Vulture
Does the show go out with a bang?
Though this review comes without the benefit of seeing the season’s final episode, all signs point to success.
— Clint Worthington, RogerEbert.com
For its final act, The Bear goes out in style.
— Abe Friedtanzer, Awards Buzz
This inimitable gem goes out on top.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
This season was the perfect final bite.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
There is a warmth and comfort that envelopes this season, making it one of the most satisfying endings to a series in recent history.
— Ben Gibbons, Screen Rant
The seven episodes I’ve seen are fast-paced and watchable, but there’s a sameness here that keeps Season 5 from feeling like a real finale.
— Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm
Will we be sad it’s all over?
You’ll start missing this series and that chemistry before the last seconds run out… but this show makes bittersweet taste so good.
— Sherin Nicole, RIOTUS
Even as a fan of the show, I have to say that’s for the best. I’ve had my fill and there’s no room for leftovers.
— Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm
I would love a spin-off about [Marcus and Luca] opening a place in Copenhagen, as their buddy potential is limitless.
— M.N. Miller, FandomWire
Does this season have any major problems?
The Bear’s final season sometimes delves into episode television cliches.
— M.N. Miller, FandomWire
With its storytelling so weighted in favor of moments, tableaus, conversations, and the interiority of some characters more than others, the whole suffers.
— Judy Berman, TIME Magazine
The visual metaphors in these new episodes are painfully unsubtle.
— Meg Watson, Sydney Morning Herald
Most frustrating of all is the melodrama between staffers. When they’re not yelling at one another, they sound like therapists spelling out The Bear‘s themes in the simplest of terms.
— Belen Edwards, Mashable
Is The Bear’s legacy secure?
It was a series that needed to regain its focus and go out strong in order to secure its place in TV history — and Season 5 feels like it might do the trick.
— Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
The Bear’s ultimate lesson… will cement it as one of the most dynamic and satisfying shows of the 21st century.
— Clint Worthington, RogerEbert.com
The Bear has been one of the medium’s true 21st-century tour de forces. It may be closing up shop, but it won’t soon be forgotten.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
For those who’ve stuck with The Bear through its low point, these final episodes may cement a memory of the show that’s more than its worst moments.
— Alison Herman, Variety
Shows about food will come and go, but there will never be anything quite like The Bear.
— Abe Friedtanzer, Awards Buzz
The Bear: Season 5 premieres on FX on Hulu on June 25, 2026.
