LOS ANGELES — “The Bear” showrunner Christopher Storer announced that Season 4 of the hit FX series will shift focus from high-stakes kitchen drama to a quieter, more insidious reality of chronic, all consuming joint pain and foot problems, confirmed sources.
“We’ve done the anxiety, the chaos, the substance abuse,” Storer said. “What we haven’t gotten into is the restaurant industry’s deep love affair with arch supports and compression socks. This season, we’re spotlighting back problems, plantar fasciitis — the true evil that no one is talking about. This is going to be the greatest test for Carmy. To maintain realism, Season 4 will feature episodes centered around Carmy’s worsening physical condition, including one that contains zero dialogue and is just him trying and failing to get out of bed and scrolling through Amazon reviews of Dr. Scholl’s and Hoka’s while taking pulls off of a bottle of ibuprofen.”
Lead actor Jeremy Allen White, who plays Carmy, prepared vigorously for the upcoming season.
“It was brutal,” said White. “I talked to line cooks and sous chefs who’ve been in agony for years. One guy said he hasn’t felt his left foot for a decade. There’s this scene where I’m just opening packages, trying on orthotics, and wincing. That was a real challenge as an actor — getting the wince just right. You know? I just tried to think of what it was like to be 35 with no real skills and knowing it’s too late to do something else. Like how FUCKED you are in this industry. Heh, I mean could you imagine?”
Early test audience scores were, at best, polarized.
“I loved the first few seasons — the yelling and the family tension,” said Juston Carley of Oneonta, NY. “But this? This was just… feet. Forty minutes of close-ups of the cooks rubbing their feet and groaning. Long sequences of them staring into the void, and muttering ‘Jesus Christ’ while stretching their hamstrings against a prep table. Other times just soaking their feet in epsom salts. Like, what did I just watch? I felt like I was in the room for something I wasn’t meant to see. I’ve had nightmares for weeks. I’m just not into this much feet, man”
As of press time, the season reportedly gained some notable fans, namely Quentin Tarantino, who is said to have watched one episode called “Arch Support” over a hundred times for absolutely no reason whatsoever.