The Bear's Fifth And Final Season Has Dropped – What Critics Think So Far

Amy GloverMon, June 29, 2026 at 10:31 AM UTC

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JOCE/Bauer-Griffin / GC Images

The Bear season five – its final one – launched on Disney+ on Friday, 26 June.

It comes months after a standalone flashback episode, Gary, aired.

Disney+ has released all eight episodes at once, so you can stream right through the the show’s finale if you want to.

“Season 5 picks up right after Sydney, Richie, and Natalie (Sugar) learn that Carmy has quit the food industry, leaving the restaurant to them. The new partners must come together for a service that, they hope, earns them a Michelin star,” the streamer said.

Here’s what critics have to say so far (TV ones, not the Michelin kind):

1) The Guardian (4/5)

“The Bear’s kitchen is still chaotic, but it is also now a place of community and compassion. If there is a happy ending, the gang have earned it – and so have viewers who have stuck with a show whose refusal to water down its own peculiar flavour (mostly) paid off in the end.”

2) NME (4/5)

“The exact fate of The Bear will be discovered by viewers when the final episode arrives, but the fifth and final season is a suitable send-off to these unlikely comrades. It might not reach the boiling temperatures of the show at its peak, but it’s a satisfying final course.”

3)The Hollywood Reporter

“It never felt like a fifth and final season would require many answers to big questions or resolutions to narrative mysteries.

“It’s surprising, then, that the seventh episode of the fifth season, directed by creator Christopher Storer and written by Storer and Nicole Kohut, feels like such a satisfying and conclusive series finale for the Emmy-winning show.”

4) The Telegraph(5/5)

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“Here are the characters you’ve come to love in the situation in which you’ve come to love them. No monologues or bottle episodes or dialogue-free mood-board vignettes; no celebrity chefs popping up because they can… just a classic recipe done very, very well. Carmy had it right all along: only subtract.”

5) The Standard(3/5)

“Whether Storer has managed to pull off a satisfying or emotionally cathartic pay-off will be one thing; whether he should have called “time” at the kitchen earlier is more likely to be the lingering leftovers of this once-brilliant series.”

6) IndieWire (B+)

“Save for a minor mystery here and a pacing hiccup there, Season 5 arranges a steady, concentrated build toward the revelations we crave, packed with plenty of moving moments and without breaking from its day-in-the-life plot.”

7) Mashable

“Unfortunately, The Bear takes its final season as a chance to throw everything at the wall, and its sound and fury often overpower the simpler joys of the season... Every episode begins with the rumble of thunder to remind us of the chaos raging within the Bear. Trust us, we know!”

8) The Financial Times(3/5)

“The Bear’s unevenness is maddening, because when it hits its stride, it has warmth, empathy and wit to spare. It demands that you care about this masochistic bunch of misfits, not least the volatile, fragile Cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), whose journey here seems the most complete.”

Additional Thumbnail credits: Disney+

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”