‘The Bear’ Is Exquisite Torture for Estranged Daughters

“It should be illegal for a mother to have a daughter.” 

^{Includes minor spoilers from season 5 of The Bear.} 

The Bear is a tense watch. Most people agree on that, but differ on whether that makes it bingeworthy. I think it does. 

The show gets hearts racing for at least two reasons. For viewers who’ve worked in a restaurant, whether it’s McDonald’s or Michelin-starred, the kitchen and dining room scenes exhibit the stress that comes with the ever-changing priorities of a chaotic dinner shift: minimizing wait times, serving quality meals, managing difficult personalities. There’s a reason smoking is so prevalent within the hospitality sector. It’s a lot. I’ve worked in a family-run diner, chain restaurants, and a biker bar—the stress was always the same. 

Another reason I’ve been simultaneously glued to The Bear and repulsed by it for five seasons (I took a break in year three and watched the third and fourth seasons together): the family dynamics are painfully relatable. Donna Berzatto, played inimitably by Jamie Lee Curtis, has remarkably little screen time but leaves the gravest mark as matriarch of the sprawling Berzatto family, which includes her kids, Carmy and Natalie, as well as countless “cousins” who are rarely blood relatives and often engaged somehow with the family restaurant.

Donna is an alcoholic, and her unpredictable mood swings and chaotic behavior leave everyone around her on edge—so much so that Carmy doesn’t even see her for several years and the majority of the series, and Natalie has limited contact. My mother was never much of a drinker, but her erratic and arbitrary bouts of anger mirror Donna’s enough for The Bear to hit very close to home for me.

We first meet Donna halfway through season two, in a now-notorious flashback to a Christmas dinner that ends with Donna driving her car into the house. Across the 66-minute episode, I felt the familiar anxiety of walking on eggshells around the person you should be able to trust more than anyone. Natalie dumps wine into the sink while repeatedly—dangerously—asking Donna if she’s OK.

Donna is not OK, and although we can assume Donna has parentified Natalie in countless ways, we also infer Natalie is not allowed to enquire about Donna’s well-being. I know these perverse rules. Most estranged daughters know them well. I was expected to trade the usual teenaged escapades for taking care of my younger sisters and often, my mother, too. But she maintained a mysterious, shifting line of responsibility I crossed at my own peril. If I suggested therapy or stricter budgeting at the wrong moment, I could be looking at days of silent treatment, or worse. It didn’t matter that the repercussions of her behavior and careless spending inevitably became my problem to fix.

So yes, Natalie’s compulsive refrain of “are you OK?” is cringey because I have lived it. Natalie needs to know if Donna is OK, because if she’s not, Natalie will need to figure out how to help her. She is forever waiting for a catastrophe to manage. She can’t relax at a family meal because, somewhere along the way, it became her job to fix things. I scrambled away from this reality, like Natalie does, but the sense of responsibility is never far off.

The feeling I don’t know, however, is that of my mother changing. Would I feel glee? Relief? Renewed fear at having much more to lose? 

Most estranged daughters will never know the complex emotions that arrive for Carmy and Natalie in later seasons, when Donna shows up for them as a changed woman. But what’s most impressive about this element of The Bear’s narrative is that it’s not a miracle. We don’t get unrealistic, sappy scenes of a mother tearfully apologizing and the child forgiving everything in an instant. Donna’s evolution is hard-won. We get brief glimpses throughout the series of her working behind the scenes, in private, toward renewal even while she doesn’t expect redemption. 

Carmy is on a similar journey, having suffered for years from the strain of his family, his brother’s suicide, his abusive employers, all while his pain has atomized over anyone close to him. Natalie is more well-adjusted, but as a “fixer,” watching Carmy and her mother fall apart is equally painful for her.

At the end of season two, years after that flashback Christmas, we see Donna make a selfless choice: although she was invited to the restaurant’s “friends and family” opening night, she falters outside and decides not to go in. She tells her son-in-law not to tell anyone she was there. She won’t ruin a big night for her kids. In season three, Natalie can’t reach anyone but her mother when she goes into labor, but—oh boy—does Donna show up. She’s not perfect, but she listens to Natalie without argument or explanation. In season four, we see further evidence of Donna’s evolution at a family wedding, when she sees Carmy again for the first time in years and makes no demands of him. Donna’s slow but steady steps to relationship repair are the most wrenching for me to watch, because it’s not something I’ve ever experienced or expect to experience, and it makes her apology to Carmy (S4,E9) something we can trust.  

“I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. And I did that…It’s my fault. What happened is my fault…I never, you know, did anything to look at my own problems, and I am now. I’m trying to…I have been sober almost a year. And I know that’s not a lot. I know it’s not a lot, but it’s a start. And I am trying to be responsible and accountable. And I am trying to apologize. And I’m trying to make…I’m trying to make things better. And I’m here asking if I can be part of your life again… because I miss you.”

At first, Carmy squirms, likely anticipating a return of the old Donna, who centers her own pain at the expense of everyone around her. One of the things I’ve learned through interviewing dozens of estranged daughters is that there’s no use hoping for a changed mother. That hope is dangerous; it will drive you crazy. 

But halfway through the apology, Carmy seems to give in, to start to trust that this new version of his mother is authentic. I think most of us might do the same. It would be so easy to surrender to that hope. The question that would dog me is: How long is this going to last?

So when season five was released, I watched with trepidation. Could Donna possibly stick the landing in this exceptional reconciliation? And would it be realistic? I saw my fears play out in Natalie, who reluctantly leaves her new baby girl in Donna’s care while she goes to work. But Donna isn’t unattended; Natalie keeps one earbud in and anxiously listens to her mother babble to the baby all day long. Donna doesn’t complain or explain anything—she listens and shows her kids how serious she is about taking accountability. Eventually, Natalie cries tears of relief when she takes out the earbud, coming to understand that her part of this transformation must be to trust it. 

Natalie is painfully attentive to the difficult choices she has to make as a working mother, as a wife, as a daughter to Donna. Natalie tells her brother, “It should be illegal for a mother to have a daughter.” 

This simple statement is a revelation. She knows her baggage will not go away. She will carry it forever. All mothers everywhere will inflict some pain on their daughters. How much and how often will vary, but it is inevitable. Being a daughter to Donna is a special hell reserved just for Natalie. Being a mother is a beautiful experience they will both be forever afraid of fucking up. 

Watching The Bear’s Donna Berzatto change is torture because it’s what we estranged daughters all want, but can’t allow ourselves to want. How would it feel to have a mother who’s there for me, who changes for me, who says “it’s my fault” and “I miss you”? I don’t know, and to be reminded that I don’t know is painful.

It’s torture because the exceptional writing and acting make this reconciliation seem possible—not least because, while Natalie and Carmy let their guards down, we can still see a germ of fear lurking, wondering, how long will it all last? How long until my heart breaks again?

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