Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Bear Season 4.Season 4 of the hit kitchen drama The Bear has dropped on Hulu and Disney+. While it covered a lot of ground and explored interesting character arcs, the show failed to fully explain what happened to one of the show’s most likable players. The audience kept waiting to see how the Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) storyline would resolve, but the showrunners left us hanging. After calling Rob Reiner in to make a perfect cameo as Albert Schnurr, an opportunistic business expansion consultant, they never explored how the last vestige of The Original Beef of Chicagoland could become an offshoot mini-franchise of its own. After being mostly a backstory as a line cook and Tina’s (Lisa Cólon-Zayas) kitchen buddy throughout the first three seasons, Ebraheim’s and his pickup window, where he and his colorful oddball employees sold beef sandwiches for lunch, played a much bigger role in Season 4, and deserved to be given a full and adequate end result. It should be one of the first themes that is revisited if there is a Season 5 of The Bear.
Ebraheim Has a Shrewd Business Mind, But Needs Advice On How to Grow
His beef sandwich line and delivery app/robot “Charlie” were the only things keeping The Bear afloat, and nobody gave him his proper due. He is a brilliant businessman who has crunched every number down to the penny in preparation. All he is asking for is the opportunity to do his own thing, yet he is so tied up with helping the Berzattos keep the restaurant in the black that he is being cheated of achieving his own dreams. Ebraheim is a very affable and likable character, and as a viewer, you become completely invested in his promising story.
There is a plan laid out in Episode 9, “Tonnato”, after he makes a handshake deal with Albert, who takes it to Nicholas “The Computer” Marshall (Brian Koppelman), but there is no resolution as it is just a part of a sweeping montage that is intended to give a brief update. In the subsequent episode 10 finale of Season 4, the story never gets back to where things stand, just as the audience is getting really interested in what is going to become of Ebraheim’s dream. And the progress had been clicking along at a wonderfully quick pace throughout the season. Albert’s “Think small to get big” advice seemed to be a mindset that Ebra could work with, and that his knuckleheaded co-workers could understand.
The Ebraheim Storyline Provided Light-Hearted Humor With an Interesting Premise
Seeing Ebraheim and his band of foul-mouthed original The Beef misfit employees who work the window is so much fun. Chi-Chi (Christopher Zucchero) and Chuckie (Paulie James) are constantly giving everyone the business, but Ebraheim is so laser-focused and able to rise above all the banal tomfoolery. He never takes his eye off the bigger picture and the brass ring of owning his own business. Being a Somali immigrant, the idea of him coming to America and being able to take the hallmark of Mikey Berzatto’s (Jon Bernthal) staple beef sandwich and parlay the popularity of it into a new group of stores is inspiring and reflective of the American dream fully realized.
If there is a Season 5, we should fully expect to revisit this storyline to see if he achieves his entrepreneurial goals. After three seasons of leaving him as a recurring character largely in the background, Christopher Storer and the showrunners finally gave him a solid arc. Leaving it up in the air is one of the most disappointing parts of Season 4. And the way it was done only compounded the disappointment of the viewers who were completely invested in Ebraheim’s subplot. They took it right up to The Computer, a man who has Uncle Jimmy ‘Cicero” Kalinowski”s (Oliver Platt) ear and would likely be involved in bankrolling the operation, but, aside from handshake between Albert and Computer (which should be interpreted as a positive step in the process) we never get full closure on it.
The Bear is currently available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ in the U.S.
