Did you notice these things about The Bear Season 5's soundtrack?
(not) TOO MANY COOKS
OMG there are many reasons to adore how The Bear’s S5 finale not only nailed the landing but blasted off the launch pad into another plane of existence, but core to it all — and a “character in its own right” as they say — is the soundtrack.
Beyond the general praise, there’s a deeper level of genius. While the score is commonly being solely misattributed to Hans Zimmer since only his name prominently appears in the end credits as a producer, it’s Christian Lundberg who’s the composer for this marathon sojourn.
After going thru S5’s episodes and wondering why some are so short, it soon becomes evident that a constant sonic thread flows near-continuously for 7/8 of ‘em. It’s like one piece of music rides the whole shebang. This is paralleled by what feels like the longest montage EVER in a show (with brief breaks and callback flashbacks in-between), amidst a cornucopia of dazzling food visuals and Murphy’s Law in optimal-overdrive.
This was by design:
Set almost entirely over a single, pressure-filled day of service at the restaurant, the season demanded music that could sustain relentless tension while honouring the emotional weight of a finale.
There’s a synthy F#-minor melody that begins ever-so-subtlely, and swells onwards and upwards. Pad washes flicker in and out like the gorgeous bokehed cinematography. Sometimes it takes different contours: decelerating into a fadeout, or getting bluesy with a folk violin coupled with a downtempo beat, or even chugging with bass-dropped power guitar riffs (@ 6:41) that aren’t too far-off from some of the earlier metal/rock moments in the show (“New Noise!”), then mirrored in symphonic staccato strings on their own (@ 7:17), followed by guitar magic (@ 7:38). With the strings thickening up in due course, it’s like it eventually escalates to where it throws everything including the kitchen sink into an in increasingly-dense mix.
This isn’t TOO MANY COOKS but it serves as aural metaphor for the ensemble of the right amount of (yes) chefs in the kitchen, engineering magic together. These motifs are also mirrored by some of the end credits (the ones where dialog and rain doesn’t continue to play), which makes such dramatic progression even more prominent. Some of them even hint at peak moments to be encountered in later episodes — compare the end credit music:
S5E02 — ambient contemplation
S5E03 — we’re off to the races…
S5E04 — more of the same
S5E05 — add big snares on every 2nd and 4th beat, and twangs!
S05E06 — folksy downtempo!
S05E07 — more of that comedown
(I reckon the only thing that would’ve made it more goshdarned satisfying would be if they pitchchanged the corpo FX logo at the very to match keys, instead of clashing. I digress.)
By the penultimate seventh episode, everything is firing on all cylinders like the food itself, taken to a divine state of ecstasy I’ve heard in few other visual accompaniments — I could point to the Clint Mansell climax of “The Fountain” (and in turn, its cheeky homage in Paranorman, look it up), but that’s too brief. This insidious and deceptively simple melody earworms its way into your being, a reliable presence, disappearing when it needs to… before finding the spotlight again. Like the scarcity of food on the show resulting in smaller portions and stretching things to last longer, there’s a curious economy with the soundtrack, and consolidated restraint before it breaks out, one time after another. What’s wild is that in theory, it should be overly repetitive as the same cues are played over and over, and yet… it feels so fresh, and by some doggone Pavlovian reflex, I came to associate it with the vitality of —
EVERY SECOND COUNTS
So, did you notice what this is all building on?
In an earlier season episode called “Forks”, Tangerine Dream’s “Diamond Diary” from the Thief soundtrack plays, not the only Michael Mann tip in the series (even by proxy, I point you to a certain wifi password). The track’s structure even parallels The Bear’s formula, building to a pulse-pounding boil. If you listen to more of the Thief soundtrack, you’ll recognize many shared stylistic elements that reinforce the aforementioned, traveling from nocturnal calm to stress-maximizing anxiety. It’s also an extrapolation of another concept, a Reznor + Ross piece that stretched across the whole Season 3 opener.
This gonna be wild but hear me out: you know what else this Bearian masterpiece sounds like? Turns out it’s the beloved Mass Effect galaxy map music aka “Uncharted Worlds” (a half-step up in G-minor), which is also a tribute to Tangerine Dream. Only, instead of element zero, The Bear’s take is chock-full of tonnato and tossed eggs, anxiety cranked up to 11 I mean 12, and making things damn well happen when entropy compounds against you. But as the characters on the show represent, you don’t cave in, you demonstrate the four essential legs of human success* — (1) curiosity, (2) persistence, (3) adaptability, and (4) self-awareness — and keep pushing together.
Thus I gesture towards this being the prime pedigree of what we get in S5 — lush sequenced arps buttressed by hypnotic escalation and a similar palette. It’s like the showmakers discussed, “We want our very own Tangerine Dream across the whole season!” It’s like they knew it wasn’t going to feel complete without it, especially since its look is also indebted to Mann’s following eye. For whatever creative reasons, the previous seasons’ composers and vocal song needle-drop were changed in favor of what Zimmer, Lundberg, & Co. delivered in abundance — it at once feels familiar yet is also a radically transformed approach to how The Bear closes out, paradoxically both comfort food (ha!) and a daring move by the time we see the last of our remarkable family onscreen. YES CHEF!
Special thanks to Jane, my earlier boss who inspired me and got me into The Bear. Like Chef Terry’s incredibly compassionate (and non-abusive) gift for teambuilding and paving bridges atop conflicts, she helped me grow. Which is of course a central theme of the show.
* Richie’s character arc is one of the finest ever, and he had to execute on all four in order to become the man he is by the end.
If you’re wondering why Elsie Fisher’s Cheese is the header image, it’s ‘cuz like the music, she’s crucial as the surprise new element who adds weight and cohesion to the final season — her character is a lynchpin for expanding the business, and it’s implied she’s a crypto and equity trader-investor who enjoys vaping. Plus, Elsie is known for another iconic sight-sound pairing.