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Spoilers ahead forThe Bears second season, including the finale.
Also looming is Donna, the combustible, very much alive Berzatto matriarch played by Jamie Lee Curtis.
She can hardly stand anybody knowing she was there.
I dont deserve to see how good this is, she says.
I want them to have this good thing.
I dont want to hurt it.
Donna is the Berzatto childrens foundational wound.
The setting is Christmas Day, about five years before.
Michaels still alive, Natalies hair is brown, and Carmys back from Copenhagen for the holidays.
Armed with a perpetually full wineglass, Donna spends the evening slaving over an extravagant meal.
Donnas cooking a fleet of dishes simultaneously, and only she seems to know the design.
Laboring in the kitchen is her way to express affection, but its also a source of deep resentment.
Curtis doesnt just play Donna big, butgalactic.
Instead of laughing, she falls dramatically to the floor.
For a show that excels at bottling anxiety, the tension in Fishes is unbearable.
That, in turn, is stopped in its tracks by Donna driving a car into the house.
The Berzatto children are indelibly shaped by Donnas emotional swings.
Michael suffered from intense self-loathing and similar volatility of the self that likely informed his eventual death by suicide.
Nothing could be more different from the disorder of the Berzatto family kitchen than the exacting nature ofMichelin-star restaurants.
The Bearportrays culinary work as a double-edged sword.
For Carmy specifically, the Berzattos central trauma is wrapped up in the cuisine.
The season finale ends in disaster.
Not for the restaurant, as Friends and Family night ultimately succeeds, but for Carmys soul.
So hes thrown into the worst possible feedback loop from the experience: With any good feeling comes disaster.
I dont need to receive any amusement or enjoyment, he says.
And Im completely fine with that, because no amount of good is worth how terrible this feels.
Donna didnt enter the restaurant, but she haunts him all the same.
