Groundhogs (The Bear)
"Groundhogs" is the first episode of the fourth season of the American comedy-drama television series The Bear. It is the 29th overall episode of the series and was written and directed by series creator Christopher Storer. It was released on Hulu on June 25, 2025, along with the rest of the season.
The series follows Carmy Berzatto, an award-winning New York City chef de cuisine, who returns to his hometown of Chicago to run his late brother Michael's failing Italian beef sandwich shop. With the financial backing of his uncle Jimmy and help from his cousin Richie, sister Sugar, and chef Sydney, Carmy attempts to remodel the dingy Beef into a warm and hospitable fine-dining destination called the Bear.
In this episode, the staff returns to work after the Chicago Tribune posts its review, dealing with the aftermath and how to proceed with the restaurant. The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics, who praised its tone, focused storylines, and performances.
Plot
In a flashback, Mikey helps Carmy with a meal in the kitchen. As Mikey mentions problems with his rental car business, Carmy suggests the idea of opening a restaurant. Despite some of Mikey's skepticism, Carmy claims that restaurants always bring good memories to everyone and they can make people happier. When Mikey asks what should it be called, Carmy suggests "Mikey's". Mikey says he has a better name.In present day, Carmy leaves for work. The Chicago Tribune review is seen on a newspaper with the headline: "BEAR Necessities Missing: The BEAR stumbles with culinary dissonance". At The Bear, he talks with Sydney over the review; the critic praised the food and the sandwich window, but criticized the menu's inconsistency and restaurant's chaotic atmosphere. While Carmy and Sydney try to move past it, both Richie and Tina aim to improve their skills after reading the review. Cicero visits the restaurant, and informs the staff that they will have two months to finally start turning a profit, as The Computer has concluded that payments and attendance could point to a dead business. If they fail to achieve it, the restaurant will be forced to close.
As Richie begins to apologize for failing in identifying the critic, he gets into another argument with Carmy over taking the blame. Cicero and Computer agree that getting one Michelin star could save the business, but they also warn them to stop hiring people and wasting money. Richie then reveals that he actually already hired "non-negotiables": Jess, Garrett, and Rene from Ever. They help introduce a new system of communication with the staff, which will help them lose less time at work. During their first night together as a staff, they manage to work together while avoiding problems. During this, Carmy stares at the countdown, exasperated.
Context
- There are no explicit timeline markers for the Carmy–Mikey flashback, but it probably falls before the Christmas five years ago setting of "Fishes," because Carmy has been to Napa, but the brothers are just cooking up the name Bear for their restaurant. After the French Laundry, Carmy worked at Ever for a time before Chef Terry sent him to Noma for further training. Carmy has already been to Copenhagen when he comes back for Christmas in "Fishes" and brings with him a sketch elevation of the Bear restaurant as a Christmas present for Mikey. During this "Groundhogs" flashback, as Mikey snacks on pistachios, Carmy talks about his dream restaurant but "it is clear that it is the exact opposite of The Bear. Carmy describes someplace warm and inviting that plays quality music and feels like home. The Bear, as we know it to be, is cold, harsh, uncoordinated and chaotic. This puts into perspective the fundamental question of the episode: Can The Bear change for the better?"
- Carmy mentions Omega Restaurant & Bakery in Niles, Illinois and Homer's Ice Cream in Wilmette, Illinois, but neither suburban location was filmed.
- The main action of "Groundhogs" takes place on Monday, August 7, 2023, the day the review of the Bear restaurant was published in the Chicago Tribune. Computer's 60-day countdown clock starts at 1440 hours. At the end of "Groundhogs" the timer now shows 1200 hours, meaning 10 days have passed, and they have 50 days left to save the restaurant.
- The Ringer described the Chicago Tribune review of the Bear restaurant as "not so much bad as it is disappointed, which always feels worse." Decider summarized the review as saying "that the place is trying too hard." The most important criticism seems to be the feeling of "culinary dissonance," which Computer translates as the restaurant's vibe being "harmonically fucked." Richie apologized for not recognizing the reviewer as a repeat guest, and Carmy apologized for changing the menu everyday, a reversal from his position at the beginning of season three, when, "reeling from a previous setback, bullheadedly sets out to achieve a Michelin star. He create an unsustainable menu with high-quality ingredients that change every day, and spends hours researching, developing and wasting expensive products."
- The title of the episode is a reference to the film Groundhog Day, directed by Harold Ramis and starring Bill Murray. Groundhog Day is playing on TV when Carmy wakes up on his couch the morning after the Ever funeral and the mixed review. A poster of the movie was on the wall in the dining room of the Original Beef, and Mikey and Richie repeatedly retold a Bill Murray anecdote in seasons one and two. The song "I Got You Babe" is an important motif in the film and resurfaces later in season four, specifically in "Green," over an interstitial montage of sophisticated dishes and bills getting paid, while Bear profit line go up. Carmy also says "I got you" at various points during the season, addressing Tina, Sophie, Donna, and Sydney. Cracked.com writer Tara Ariano commented on the use of the film: "It's an allegory of, as Landgraf put it to Vanity Fair, the 'stuckness' we may all feel from time to time. If the movie is being used as an intertext here to make it very clear season three's wheel-spinning was intentional...good one? But maybe now Storer can spin his wheels like he's trying to drive himself and a screaming groundhog off a cliff and step on it."
- Cicero and Computer reference the lyric "...the sound of her laughter may sing in your dreams" from the song "Some Enchanted Evening" from the 1958 movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.
- As he did in the season three episode "Next," Carmy promises the Bears that the restaurant will get a starred rating in the Michelin Guide to Chicago.
- Richie calls the Chicago Tribune reviewer a "scustamad millennial ". Scustamad is Italian-American slang for someone with bad manners who is rude or otherwise cannot conduct themselves properly. In season one Richie called Sydney's reforms "scustamad millennial bullshit".
Production
Development
In May 2025, Hulu confirmed that the first episode of the season would be written and directed by series creator Christopher Storer. It was Storer's 15th writing credit and 20th directing credit.Costuming
Sydney wears two scarves manufactured by Kapital: "rain smile" and, when talking to Carmy about the Tribune review, "mirrored Fuji." Later in the episode she wore scarves produced by the brand Eloi: the hot dogs bandanna is called "Weiners," and the Matisse-cut-paper-collage-looking one is called "Soul Alphabet." When the crew are calling out "Doors!" in the last segment of the episode, Syd wears a Mur by Ayca scarf in a design called Life of Shapes.Filming
The New York Times commended the visual storytelling of Carmy sending an SMS message while riding to work on the train, during "which we can see that he has been texting Mikey since his brother died." The visible messages are:Miss you broSat, Jan 21 at 4:03 p.m. - Found the tomato cansWed, Apr 18 at 7:04 a.m. - You were right about Claire BearFri, May 26 at 7:28 a.m. - Thinking of you todayToday, at 7:46 a.m. - The restaurant was called Kerrigan'sThe episode ends with a time-centric montage: "...the culminating seconds of the first episode emphasize precisely that with a rapid-fire sequence of clocks and timers. There's a dirty timer thick with pasta sauce, a Chicago city clock, wall clocks, stop watches, and the timers that haunt Tina as she tries to get her pasta course plated in three minutes...Time has always been an integral part of The Bear
Music
The songs featured in the episode include "That's the Way" by Led Zeppelin, "I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher, "Getting in Tune" by The Who, and "Diamond Diary" by Tangerine Dream. The use of Led Zeppelin's "soulful ballad" underscored the poignancy of the Carmy–Mikey flashback.Release
The episode, along with the rest of the season, premiered June 25, 2025.Food
- During the flashback conversation between Mikey and Carmy, Mikey is shelling and eating pistachios, and Carmy is working on a red sauce, which Mikey says has too much garlic and is sticking.
- While running expo at the Bear, Chef Jess calls "Marcus, need for B4, B5 now." Mignardises are a "mixed tray of different types of petits fours," often served with espresso or a glass of port wine. Mignard in French is essentially "pretty little thing"; an alternate term is friandises.
Critical reviews
"Groundhogs" received mostly positive reviews from critics. Jenna Scherer of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "B" grade and wrote, "After last year's strangely listless 10-episode run, the season four premiere is a welcome return to form for a series that built its reputation on rapid-fire dialogue, big feelings, and harried chefs sweating into their béchamel."Marah Eakin of Vulture gave the episode a 4 star out of 5 rating and wrote, "I have a hard time believing that The Bear would ever really fuck over our onscreen pals given that their scrappy perseverance is the whole heart of the show, but the stakes this season are pretty evident in that big clock. The season is just getting started, but it looks like the end may already be in sight." Eakin would rank the episode as the 15th best episode of the first four seasons. A.J. Daulerio of Decider wrote, "This sort of meta 'screw all the haters' way of saying 'sorry, not sorry' reminds me of how Lena Dunham used to make it known that she read all the reviews about Girls by writing storylines that would often be direct responses to the show’s critics."
Bryce Olin of Show Snob wrote, "Overall, I don't know how much I loved the season 4 premiere. It was a solid episode. There were a lot of things that needed to happen to shift this story and move Carmen's quest to be great back in the right direction after the major steps back in season 3. There's still a lot of drama to be had, though."
Substream magazine argued, "Christopher Storer creates an easy re-entry point with 'Groundhogs', in which he still places Carmy as the centerpiece. He has to adjustwhether he chooses to do it or others do it for him. This time, it may be a hair too late for Carmy to do so."