Jeremy Allen White in “The Bear.”
The critics’ score for The Bear Season 4 — starring Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach — is the lowest in the acclaimed show’s history.
The Bear Season 4 premiered on FX and Hulu on Wednesday with all 10 episodes released simultaneously. The logline for the show’s fourth season reads, “Season four of FX’s The Bear finds Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto (White), Sydney Adamu (Edebiri) and Richard ‘Richie’ Jerimovich (Moss-Bachrach) pushing forward, determined not only to survive, but also to take The Bear to the next level. With new challenges around every corner, the team must adapt, adjust and overcome.”
With 30 reviews counted to date, Rotten Tomatoes critics have collectively given a 77% “fresh” rating. And while that critics’ score is solid, it falls far below the acclaim of the first three seasons.
By contrast, The Bear scored a perfect 100% “fresh” rating based on 80 reviews and Season 2 had a 99% “fresh” rating based on 112 reviews. Season 3 of The Bear scored an 89% “fresh” rating on RT based on 103 reviews.
At least audiences appear to like The Bear Season 4 more than Season 3. The Bear Season 4 has an 81% “fresh” Popcornmeter score on RT based on 50-plus verified user ratings to date, while Season 3 had a 51% “rotten” based on 1,000-plus verified user ratings.
RT audiences awarded the first two seasons of The Bear a 92% “fresh” score on the site’s Popcornmeter based on 2,500 verified user ratings for each season.
What Are Individual Critics Saying About ‘The Bear’ Season 4?
Richard Roeper of RogerEbert.com is among the top critics on Rotten Tomatoes who gives The Bear Season 4 a “fresh” rating, writing in his review summary, “While the 10-episode Season Four has no shortage of heavy baggage unpacking, the overall tone is relatively lighter this time around.”
Kristen Baldwin of Entertainment Weekly is also a fan of The Bear Season 4, writing on RT, Though not quite at the level of the sublime second season, the new episodes put Carmen and company back on track by allowing them to confront, at long last, “the f—ing elephant in the f—ing restaurant.”
Nick Schager of The Daily Beast is also impressed with The Bear Season 4, writing in his RT review, “A wonderfully nuanced and touching portrait of combatting loneliness, self-destructive rage, and bitterness and resentment through calm, trust, and compassion.”
Among the top critics on RT not impressed by The Bear Season 4 is Alison Herman of Variety, who writes in her “rotten” review, “The good news is that Season 4 marks an improvement over its predecessor … But just like a restaurant that goes from losing money hand over fist to barely breaking even, ‘better’ isn’t quite the same as ‘enough to make the payoff worth the slog.’”
Also assigning The Bear Season 4 a “rotten” score on RT is Liam Matthews of The Wrap, who writes, “Even though more is happening than there was in Season 3, it’s not quite enough to give the show a shape. Its overemphasis on character and vibe at the expense of narrative momentum leaves it repetitive and flabby.”
Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair also gives The Bear Season 4 a “rotten” score, writing in his review summary, “Growth is in short supply on The Bear, save for a few effective moments when a character actually makes a decision … Maybe that slowness is indeed how people process things in real life, but it makes for fatally inert television.”
All 10 episodes of The Bear Season 4 are now available on FX and Hulu.