The Bear season 2 gifted us one of the best episodes of television in recent memory: the special standalone edition "Forks," which saw rough-around-the-edges Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) stage at "the best restaurant in the world" and get the personal enlightenment he needed to become the high-minded maître d' that he is now. The Bear season 3 wonderfully continues that tradition of spotlighting one of the show's colorful supporting characters in their own solo installment, this time focused on veteran line cook Tina Marrero, played by Liza Colón-Zayas. and directed by our very own Ayo Edebiri in her directorial debut.
Like the past few episodes of The Bear, "Napkins" finds us waking up in the wee hours with our main character, but there's no time for Tina to lie in with her anxieties: as Kool & the Gang's "Get Down on It" grooves on, she's leaving sweet notes in her son's lunchbox, getting the crockpot simmering for dinner later and preparing for another day at the office. (At the time of the episode, which is set in 2018, Tina had been working at a desk job at a local confectioners' company for the past 15 years.)
The landlord is majorly raising their rent, which concerns her, but her husband David — a building doorman who's long overdue for a promotion — assures her that they'll be fine. (If you caught that natural warmth between the couple, it's because David is played by Colón-Zayas's real-life spouse, actor David Zayas, who TV fans will remember from Oz and Dexter.)
However, Tina has reason to be worried. As truffles and bonbons whiz by on conveyor belts, Tina is informed she and several other workers at the confectionary are being laid off (a loss made even more tragic by the fact they sent her off with baggies of chocolate-covered pretzels as a parting gift). She doesn't immediately tell David she got let go when she returns home that evening, but later in bed, when she's wide awake with worry, she confesses and declares she'll get a new job the next day.
That's easier said than done, Tina soon finds out. As she goes around to local businesses to drop off her resume in person, she's embarrassingly told by a much younger employee to "apply on LinkedIn, it's easier." She goes to business seminars that end up just being fronts for expensive memberships and subscriptions. As the unemployed weeks stretch on, she expands her job hunt from office manager roles and administrative types of gigs to department store shifts, paralegal positions, hell, even babysitting. "I'm not this way," Tina desperately tells her husband, who picks up a side gig with a moving company to keep the family afloat. "I like working, I like routine."
But the hits keep coming. At a promising interview for an admin job, Tina is informed they can't hire her because she doesn't have a Bachelor's degree; never mind that Tina has crushed the exact same responsibilities for 15 years without a college diploma.
An open interview at a big, scary Chicago skyscraper proves to be Tina's breaking point. When the aloof receptionist indifferently tells her the interview was cancelled and the position filled, tears fill Tina's eyes and expletives fill her mouth. To make matters soul-crushingly worse, her train home is delayed half an hour — girlfriend cannot catch a break. She wipes her tears and spots a place where she can kill time for a bit: you guessed it, The Beef.
Yes, we're instantly thrust back into the wondrous, meat-sweat chaos that was The Beef. No longer well-tailored, Richie is back in his ratty baseball shirts. Neil Fak (Matty Matheson) is there, too, being his usual loud and boisterous self at the arcade games. The sandwich counter is a mess of ketchup bottles, non-stop order receipts and cigarette-smoking customers. And, given that this is 2018, Mikey Berzatto (Jon Bernthal) is also alive and well, busy restocking the napkin dispensers and yelling back at his workers.
In the middle of the mayhem, though, we already see inklings of Richie's later dedication to service and detail: he gives Tina — or "mamacita," as he calls her — a cup of black coffee and an Italian beef, on him. As she sits in the dining area to tuck into the free sandwich, she begins to cry, which does not go unnoticed by The Beef's owner. "Sandwich really that bad?" Mikey jokes, before he sits down with the down-and-out woman and bonds with her over their respective crappy days.
For his part, the restaurant's toilet is "possessed," the delivery guy changed their terms and The Beef needs more workers to keep operations going. She tells him about her unlucky job hunt and financial troubles. In a call back from an earlier episode but, Mikey proudly shows off a photo his younger bro snapped while working at Noma.
Tina reveals she's jealous of that youthful drive. "When I'm applying for all these jobs, they're all kids," she says. It's the worst but it's also beautiful, she muses, their hunger. "Maybe I lost that in myself. Like, I get anxious to pay the rent, pay for groceries, the real sh**... I would give anything to be one of them motherf***ers."
You can see where this is all going from a mile away, but that doesn't make watching it any less satisfying: recognizing her desire and determination to work, Mikey reveals he needs a new line cook. He warns her that the gig won't be pretty — you'll go home smelling like meat and "there's so much yelling" — but the fun of it all will balance out the bad. There's a connection between the two characters, whether it's that they're similarly aged or come from working-class backgrounds or know what it means to really hustle. He leaves her with her sandwich to think about it.
Later at home, David asks her about how it went — he's talking about that failed interview but, going by The Beef apron that Tina has tucked into her bag, she's not lying when she says it went well.
All 10 episodes of The Bear season 3 are now available to stream on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus in the UK.
