Is it finally time to quit 'The Bear'? Let's discuss.

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TV’s most serious comedy returned this week with 10 episodes depicting the dysfunctional lives of modern Chicagoans working in a professional kitchen. In its fourth season, “The Bear” finds its characters working through many of the same problems that were introduced when FX launched the Emmy-winning series a few years ago: money woes, mommy issues, communication breakdowns — and that’s all before you get to the actual challenges of running a functional restaurant.

Tempestuous chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is still figuring out how to honor his late brother by upgrading their family sandwich joint, now renamed the Bear, into a Michelin-star-worthy establishment. Carmy’s talented co-chef, Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri), is still hoping to help her friend and mentor while weighing whether she wants to make a clean break with the unrelenting chaos by accepting a job offer elsewhere. The rest of the staff is still laboring under the weight of their own emotional baggage.

A ticking clock sounds in everyone’s ears, reminding them that time is running out for the Bear to become profitable.

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An uneven third season had some viewers ready to quit “The Bear” and all its fluorescent misery. But the fourth go-round might determine their course of action for good. Is this show still worth watching? Will it even be renewed? Join us — food reporter Emily Heil and Style reporter Sonia Rao — in discussing all the juicy beef. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

Emily Heil: Let’s start with the ending, which is a pretty big plot twist: Carmy decides to leave the Bear — and probably all restaurants — to work on his many issues. It’s interesting both as a major personal development for our favorite tattooed hothead and for the rest of the restaurant staff. I think so much of this season was about the importance of the collective over the individual, so it actually felt okay when Carmy announced he was leaving, because the Bear is now not just about him, even though it’s literally named after him. It’s the combined work of everyone on the show.

I thought it was so significant when Sugar (Abby Elliott), Carmy’s sister and business partner, addressed the staff to announce that pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) had been named to Food & Wine’s list of hot new chefs. She was trying to get their attention and yelled, “Bears!” It’s like what Carmy said in an earlier episode: “One true thing in restaurants: You are never alone.”

Sonia Rao: I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I think Carmy deciding to leave might have been one of the few things that actually made sense to me. I was incredibly frustrated last season by how repetitive Carmy’s emotional arc felt — which some would argue is the point, as the character is supposed to feel stuck, but that doesn’t make for good TV! Carmy “retiring” from restaurants finally opens the show up to new narrative opportunities. Maybe it will follow Carmy on a separate journey that’s easier to shoot between all the other projects White has booked since skyrocketing to fame. Maybe we get to spend more time with a character like Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), who was reduced to a single storyline this season.

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That all depends on whether “The Bear” is renewed. I’d be satisfied with this last episode as a series finale, personally. What else worked for you this season?

EH: I thought, too, that Tina — and Marcus! — had far less satisfying plotlines than in previous seasons. But I loved Episode 4, which deploys one of the series’ signature moves, where it focuses on one character and their life outside the restaurant. In it, Sydney visits her friend/cousin — unclear if they are actually related because there are so many non-blood “cousins” in this show — Chantel (a very fun cameo for Danielle Deadwyler) to have her hair done and winds up babysitting for her daughter.

The bits where Sydney is helping the girl decide whether to go to a slumber party and winds up turning her decision to stay at the Bear or take the offer to help open a new restaurant into a metaphor about which slumber party she wants to attend was funny and sweet. When she described Carmy as the “big brother” at one of the houses who is the best video game player in the world, it was such a clear breakdown of their dynamic.

Though her decision about whether to leave the Bear and take up the offer from rival chef Adam Shapiro (played by an actor of the same name) to co-helm a new, shiny restaurant really felt like it took up too much time overall this season.

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SR: I was actually relieved when Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) and Computer (Brian Koppelman) brought in the countdown clock marking how many hours are left for the Bear’s financial parachute, because I am so often confused by the passage of time in this fictional universe. Has Sydney been trying to make this career decision for months, or does it just seem that way? How much time has actually passed since Carmy and Claire Bear (Molly Gordon) last saw each other? They speak to each other as if they haven’t seen each other in a year, but the events of Season 3 weren’t all that long ago. Why is Sugar so understanding about Carmy still not having met her daughter, given how much they all talk about family being so important? Or was that birth episode with Jamie Lee Curtis so recent that it isn’t actually a big deal?

Someone help me! I need time stamps.

EH: Maybe ask Computer, who seems to be the only one with a handle on hard facts. I was confused about why — if the mission was to figure out how to make the restaurant profitable by the time the clock ran out — no one seemed to be willing to sit down and … I don’t know? Do that? Instead, it took more than half the season for Carmy to finally back down on his insistence that every dish had to be different every night, ensuring chaos and loads of money out the door.

One stray thing I noticed this season were the movie clips: We see Carmy watching “Groundhog Day” and then Sydney watching “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” in her apartment. Am I being too analytical to think that these are themes for each character? Carmy feels stuck, like Bill Murray’s character, and the plot of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” is basically a very competent Black woman, played by Whoopi Goldberg, trying to help a White man escape.

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Too on the nose?

SR: That’s the modus operandi around these parts — I don’t think you’re overthinking it at all. The “Groundhog Day” comparison scared me into wondering whether this would be yet another season of Carmy not budging on his “woe is me” mentality, but I was thankfully proved wrong by the end. The “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” reference is clever, given how much Carmy relies on Sydney to keep things running smoothly (well, somewhat) at the restaurant. At the same time, I do think he genuinely wants her to succeed in the way we see his older brother, Mikey (Jon Bernthal), supporting his career growth in flashbacks. There is so much lost in translation between Carmy and Sydney, mostly because he’s an absolute idiot when it comes to expressing his wants and needs, and I’m glad we finally got that blow-up between them in the season finale.

EH: Yes! Use your words, Carmy! Which a lot of characters did this season, finally saying the things they had long needed to. A now-sober Dee Dee (Jamie Lee Curtis) had so much to get off her chest to her children that she had to write it all down on (many) notebook pages. But she finally just said to Carmy, “I love you, and I didn’t say that enough,” and that felt simple and yet cathartic. And Carmy said thank you to Uncle Jimmy. And told Claire that she was “wonderful.”

So that’s progress for this crew. And Sugar finally made up with her childhood bestie, Francine Fak (Brie Larson), with whom she has had an unexplained, years-long rift.

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SR: I ruined that surprise appearance for myself by Googling “Who is Francie on ‘The Bear’” the second that Sugar’s husband, Pete (Chris Witaske), first mentioned her — that really came out of nowhere, didn’t it? I thought I had forgotten a major character. I was pleased to see Bob Odenkirk return for the wedding episode as Dee Dee’s boyfriend, Lee, but was more tickled by the appearance of Rob Reiner as a guy hired to help the Bear take advantage of the sandwich window’s financial success. This restaurant desperately needs more adults in the room.

EH: If the show does get another season, I am really looking forward to the interaction between the Reiner character and Uncle Jimmy, which didn’t happen this season because of Jimmy’s impatient horn-blowing. Do these two have a history?

SR: The pairing of Reiner and Platt could save this show from itself. Remember when “The Bear” was funny enough to be considered a comedy at award shows? Ebon Moss-Bachrach can be an absolute hoot, and it makes me sad that his character has been sanded down into this fine-dining suit. I miss Richie’s playfulness, which we saw a glimpse of in the wedding episode through his interactions with his daughter’s new stepdad, Frank (Josh Hartnett). Maybe Carmy leaving will allow Richie to be fun again. Free Richie!

EH: I also savored the few moments where the Bear gang still showed the rough-edged camaraderie they used to have, even though they’ve gone full white-tablecloth these days. Like when Marcus got his Food & Wine recognition, and Richie yells “Best New D---head!” and Marcus playfully gives him the finger. And the Faks are still welcome comic relief. I also cracked up at Sydney’s panic dream in which she has a “Barefoot Contessa”-like TV cooking show. The wig and coastal grandma aesthetic are so not her vibe.

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SR: The “Barefoot Contessa” theme music sets off some sort of Pavlovian response in me. I’m actually also listening to the audiobook of Ina Garten’s memoir right now, so that might have been my favorite moment of the entire season. It reminded me of how funny Edebiri can be, too, given her actual background in comedy. Let Sydney be happy! Why is everyone so miserable?! I think they should all quit the Bear, to be honest. It doesn’t seem healthy.

EH: But it could be, as Sydney keeps saying. It’s like the Maggie Smith poem says: “This place could be beautiful, right?” But, yeah. Maybe while Carmy is out doing his “Eat, Pray, Love” journey, the rest of the gang will get it together.

SR: I hope so. “The Bear” has leaned more and more each season into the idea of artistry as a tortured practice, but some of the best art comes from joy. Isn’t that the whole point of their restaurant? Richie created fake snow just to please a young customer from California, for Pete’s sake. I want these characters to create fake snow for one another. There’s room in the budget.

EH: And possibly get to finally be the restaurant that Sydney envisioned back in Season 1. “It doesn’t have to be a place where the food is s---ty or everybody acts s---ty.”