The inaugural season of The Bear was 8 episodes, and the last two have been 10 episodes. Could the show be gearing up for another episode count increase? Here’s our theory why it just might.
In 2022, The Bear seemingly came out of nowhere and shook the TV world. It has blown up the careers of essentially its entire core cast and dominated the awards scene.
What’s crazy is that in this recent streaming bubble, it’s rare for a show released in 2022 to already have 3 seasons. Well, there’s always Slow Horses, which is currently airing its fourth season with a fifth already shot and a sixth filming.
But compare it to shows like House of the Dragon or Severance, which premiered that same year, and you see a different story. House of the Dragon won’t have a third season until 2026, and Severance won’t even have a second season until January 2025.
It sounds crazy to say, but The Bear might be looking at its final stretch, or at the very least an interesting pivotal moment.
THE THEORY
I think that The Bear will have more than 10 episodes because of some very intriguing filming updates and quotes from the cast.
The first bit of news is that Hulu renewed The Bear for Season 4 while shooting the prior season. Variety said that Season 4 would be shot right after Season 3. This made perfect sense considering the schedule of the actors.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach is now playing Ben Grimm/The Thing in the MCU, so he could have scheduling issues, whether that be The Fantastic Four: First Steps or the Avengers films. Jeremy Allen White also seems very in demand. Ayo Edebiri gets constant work considering how many recent projects she’s been in and how much she has lined up.
So it’s entirely possible all their schedules wouldn’t align again. But that doesn’t seem to be what is happening, or rather that doesn’t seem to be the issue.
They Shot 18 Episodes For Seasons 3 and 4?
So you may be wondering if they did film both seasons back to back? Well, sort of. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays Richie revealed that they shot about 18 episodes of the show this past spring.
We shot about 18 episodes. But everything shifts. In the past, what was one episode on the page has been split into two. I just lose myself in the messiness and chaos of it. I like getting taken by a wave that’s bigger than you thought it was, tumbled around and spit out the other end.
Ebon later clarified further in an interview with Us Weekly that the plan changed and that the original 10-episode Season 3 grew into more than just one season of material.
When we went in to start season 3, we weren’t going in to make seasons 3 and 4. But it swelled, and our episodes got quite big—over an hour. Some of these episodes were splitting [and we] are not making it into two seasons, and now we are going to be making 15 or 16 episodes instead of 10. But we’re gonna do it all at the same time.”.
While the actual number is unclear, they did end up shooting at least half of Season 4. When the cast was asked by Playlist if they had, in fact, shot back to back, this was their response:
FX later confirmed to the site that “Seasons three and four weren’t shot back to back, but some elements were shot in advance”.
The Bear Will Likely Film Again Early Next Year
Jeremy Allen White was asked about when they would start production again.
I’m not sure exactly when. I know it’s not going to be until next year. I imagine sometime early next year, with a similar start date to the last couple of years: February/March time.
It seems likely that their schedules will be open again during those months, so it does beg the question: why exactly did they film that many episodes? As Ebon said, the 10 episodes originally planned gradually became 18, and they split them down.
Here’s the thing—the writers must have initially come up with a storyline of sorts from start to finish for Season 3. So, if it ended up being 18 episodes and Season 4 isn’t finished filming, where does it end?
Think of it like this: they initially created a storyline for Season 3 that developed into something they couldn’t fit into just 10 episodes, so they filmed 18 or somewhere in between. Wouldn’t that mean that what was originally the end of the main storyline for Season 3 would now end at episode 18?
This leads me to my theory: The Bear Season 4 will have more than 10 episodes.
Theory 1: Season 4 is the Final Season
If Season 4 is the final season, it would make perfect sense for there to be more episodes. Many great shows extend their final seasons to fully realize their storylines—The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Better Call Saul all did this.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented. It also makes sense for The Bear, considering the amount of ground they still have to cover with how Season 3 ended.
Why would this show end with just four seasons? That’s a good question, and while it’s hard to say for sure if it does end with Season 4, it will likely be because of the show’s creator and showrunner, Christopher Storer, who may have other projects in mind.
Storer has focused solely on The Bear for the past few years, which makes sense given the fast pace from writing to production to editing. He writes and directs the majority of the episodes while also being the showrunner.
Recently, Storer signed up for more projects, namely directing an ‘The Lincoln Highway’ adaption for Warner Bros., a ‘The Winter Of Frankie Machine’ film for Paramount, and developing another show at FX. It’s unclear if these will happen but Storer is definitely setting himself up for more projects.
It would make sense to bring the cast back for one final, longer season. If they filmed 18 episodes already and stick with only 10 episodes per season, they would barely need to film more, which seems unlikely.
A longer season would allow the storyline to wrap up perfectly, tying up loose ends from Season 3 while concluding the series if needed.
Theory 2 & 3: Split Up Season 4 Into Two Halves & Maybe A Hiatus?
Regardless of if it is a final season or not my guess is that they’ll split the material they filmed earlier this year into two parts. They could air the first part in June again and the final part sometime in the winter.
My theory if Season 4 isn’t the last, it would be a major break for the show after the season. FX has done this with Atlanta before, and shows like Barry from HBO have taken long hiatuses as well.
The cast of Atlanta became massive stars during the show, leading to a long break between seasons—nearly four years between Seasons 2 and 3. This allowed creator and star Donald Glover to pursue other projects before returning to Atlanta. While the hiatus affected momentum, it seemed like what Glover needed at the time.
The same could be true for Christopher Storer. He may not want to end The Bear, but he might want to explore other opportunities for now. The cast would have time to work on other projects, and Storer could direct and produce something else.
Splitting a longer season into parts could extend the air dates into December, shortening what might otherwise be a three-year gap to 2.5 years—still fairly standard for many shows today.
If none of this turns out to be the case, and the cast returns for a full filming schedule, they may be filming the rest of Season 4 and potentially starting on Season 5, which would be an interesting twist. I’d be surprised if they only filmed the remaining 2 or 3 episodes in spring 2024, but it’s impossible to know for sure.
I want to reiterate that this is just a theory, and we don’t have any confirmed information on what they’re planning. I hope FX and The Bear’s cast and crew do what’s best for the show, regardless of the release strategy or episode count.
Check out our The Bear Season 3 review if you haven’t already!
The Bear season 3 starred Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Richard “Richie” Jerimovich, Ayo Edebiri as Sydney Adamu, Lionel Boyce as Marcus Brooks, Liza Colón-Zayas as Tina Marrero, Abby Elliott as Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto, and Matty Matheson as Neil Fak. It is streaming on Hulu.
