Anyone who has dared to attend a Family Holiday Dinner—let alone an Italian one!—will relate to the opening moments of The Bear Season Two's standout sixth episode: "Fishes." In a flashback to a Christmas Eve dinner roughly five years ago, three siblings—Carmy, Mikey and Sugar Berzatto—stand outside, deliberating how exactly to tip-toe around the ticking time bomb that is a certain family member. Here, it's their mother, and her trigger? Whenever Sugar asks: "Are you OK?" (Spoiler: she asks "Are you OK?" many, many times, with catastrophic consequences.)
But that's simply the first thing "Fishes" gets right. It's an hour-plus-long episode that will surely go down as one of the year's best, right alongside Succession Season Four's standout episode, "Connor's Wedding, as well as BEEF's trippy season finale. The plot, quite simply, follows the ups and downs (mostly downs!) of the Berzatto family's Christmas Eve dinner. They're truthers of the traditional Italian "Seven Fishes" holiday meal—the menu is in the name—but of course, it becomes a look into why Carmy is Carmy. "Fishes" is what happens when you take a group of performers that would typically only convene, in front of a camera, at something like The Hollywood Reporter's Actors Roundtable, and ask them all to attempt to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in one fell swoop. Who knew Carmy is related to so many famous people?
Roll call, please. Jamie Lee Curtis plays the family matriarch, Donna Berzatto, as a frightening, raw-nerved alcoholic. Sarah Paulson is Michelle, another cousin!(You know this family member: the one who sits just outside of the family's fringes enough to feel confident gossiping about their sh*t.) John Mulaney is That Weird In-Law: her partner, Stevie, who gives the surprising, Tiny Tim-esque "God bless us, every one!" grace before dinner. Bob Odenkirk is Uncle Lee, another quasi-outsider who is itching to swing fists. Jon Bernthal returns as Mikey, but here, we're meant to see his ugly side—the one that chucks forks at dinner guests. Gillian Jacobs is Richie's wife, pre-divorce. (That's all I have to say—Jacobs is simply a delight.)
Each and every actor in the episode dutifully takes their turn on the merry-go-round, reminding you why they've made the Avengers-esque crew of thespians that now comprises the Berzatto clan. The real genius of "Fishes," though, is when—and why—this episode appears halfway through the season. At this point in Season Two, we're just seeing real growth from Carmy. The chef is leaning into his budding relationship with Claire, openly admitting to her how much life he's missed. It's oddly fitting for The Bear to follow their first kiss (!) with a supersized episode breaking down the trauma he's been subjected to, both subtle and overt, from a family where alcohol abuse, swindling, passive-aggression, and a looming threat of physical blows are normal dinner fodder. Over the course of "Fishes," we see Carmy wince through it all, desperate for just one true expression of love from the family he's moved across the planet to live away from.
Don’t throw that fork, man!
That said, the episode's most important moment isn't when Mrs. Berzatto drives through the living room, even though it's right up there. It's Carmy's reaction to the literal integrity of his home—and with it, his family—crumbling in front of his eyes. He wears the same blank stare he's had for most of the night, looking like a son who has long suffered from, internalized, and dissociated from the terror of his family... but he's staring at a mound of cannoli.
The Bear explores the Carmy-cannoli connection later in the season, but for now? The series draws a straight line between the chef's family trauma and the work that, just one episode prior, he proclaimed his love for. The need to cook, to pleasure and satisfy and placate. The relief that comes with crafting, with bare hands, a medicine that people can stick a fork in, put in their mouth, and swallow. Carmy's mother couldn't fix his family with her labor, once a year, every Christmas Eve—and it drove her insane.
The question? The one that drives The Bear? Whether or not Carmy–in the gross, greasy thing he's made his life's work—can fix himself. Or maybe, in what he's found with Claire, he's better off reclaiming all of the life he's left behind.
