For most of our lives - atleast mine - ambition was supposed to be an all consuming fire. You burned in the flame and like a phoenix you were born anew.
But The Bear, posits a question about what happens after you’re reborn, and yet your daemons never leave you. It talks about how trauma is reshaped by ambition, Carmy never really got over his trauma, he just channelled it into external perfection. And while he got really good at keeping the trauma at bay from his food, everyone else around him suffered because that chaos he wanted to move away from was constantly being projected.
In recent times, I’ve never seen a better rendition of a character who at the top of their game gives up what makes them great because it hurts the people they love the most.
And it tore me apart in ways that I have never let anything, it questions ambition which when placed at a pedastal would ruin everything else that comes in your way including your happiness and peace.
This is the second time The Bear wrecked me. The first was Carmy’s confrontation with his mentor and his mentor’s callousness to Carmy’s condition because it’s the trauma that made Carmy what who is in the show.