#syd and carmy ship

[thoughtfulchaos773]

The brainrot isn't solely from the chemistry of Ayo and Jeremy, the writing, acting, directing...

The brainrot- most of it comes from the meta on tumblr. It's 🔥 I can read the analysis for hooouurs.

Thank you for taking the time to write your thoughts.

[laviejaguardia]

personally victimized by this show's soundtrack choices

[yannaryartside]

No thoughts, just Luca looking at Sydney

The second gif, Jesus. The way he touches his mouth…

Like, girl…

[susieandhobbes]

There's something so fun about the idea of Sydney and Richie getting closer in season 3 and Carmy just losing his entire mind because Sydney was his. She was his hire, his business partner, the only person who saw him separate from the history with Mikey. His little mind-meld, sentence-completing, unison-speaking cooking twin and why the fuck is she giving Richie samples for her menu ideas before talking to him?!

And I really don't mean this in a shipping way - the logical end result of the s2 finale is Carmy throwing himself headfirst into work and being like "HELLO SYDNEY I'M READY TO WORK NOW" but there's no way she'll be able to trust him because she basically had that trust shattered repeatedly for 3 months straight. But somehow, in the midst of their friends and family fiasco, Richie, WHO SHE STABBED, had her back? He brought her down from her panic and gave her the encouragement to pull it together and complete service.

Syd obviously has a wonderful relationship with Tina but Richie being really good at Expo, the thing that literally makes Sydney throw up, means they'll have something to work on together next season.

And Carmy will cry maybe idk

[yellowcrowindustry]

You always knew how to push my buttons

You gave me everything and nothing

This mad, mad love makes you come rushing

[mintayrs]

who up thinking about butchfemme sydcarmy

[bobaheadshark]

can we talk about how in the bear s2 Carmy gives syd not just any old chef whites but thom browne designer chef’s whites? not only does it bring together all that interesting sartorial and style stuff about his character from s1 (selling vintage denim for emergency beef etc) but our man had to estimate syd’s measurements or guesstimate them? like what is the level of detail and back of mind knowledge he just keeps on a bunsen burner about his cdc… that shit is startlingly intimate, please…

and the other alternative is they have all the staff’s measurements on file to buy uniforms anyway and he goes to sugar and asks her for syd’s and she’s like “huh why we have the order coming in for everyone already” and he’s like “it’s custom” and she’s like “hmmmm”/okay i’m not gonna press and he’s like “what i just thought it’d be nice”. like sure, jan.

[purpledaisiesthings]

Carmy and Sydney's dynamic is so interesting. I've noticed that Carmy loves to listen to Sydney talk. Like she rants to him alot about things and he agrees a lot with her or reassures her.

If someone told me the plot of the show, I would have thought Carmy was the ranter and Syd was the listener or the one reassuring.

[cosmic-light-fics]

The Girlfriend Montage

I can't shake this moment from my mind and some interpretations of moments like this in this season have gotten me mad, so here's what I've got to say about the girlfriend montage. Carmy telling Richie he's gotta call his girlfriend, then we get splices of scenes containing Carmy making food for Claire, Claire working in the hospital, and for reasons that are highly debated by some but seem completely obvious to others including myself there are scenes of Sydney interjected into the couple's montage.

I have my thoughts as to why Sydney is in the montage but that's not the point I want to linger on, not now at least.

I am going to focus on this part in particular: the one where Sydney is undressing and we see the Three of Swords tattoo.

To me, nothing is unintentional in this show. Nothing is inconsequential. And this small, two second shot of Sydney proves that in more ways than I can think of.

What I can't shake is how freaking similar it is to a scene we will later see in ep. 9. The sex scene with Carmy and Claire. It's an intimate moment. The room is cast in blue hues. It's all close up shots, quick cuts, and we can barely make out who is who and what is where. The moment is completely intimate and sensual in all the ways a romantic sex scene typically is conveyed.

And it matches the picture above nearly identically.

The choice to show the audience Sydney's tattoo bathed in this blue light that they will later use for Carmy and Claire's sex scene, the choice to capture this extreme close up, the choice to include the strap of her bra and a tattoo with an image that symbolizes heartbreak and betrayal, the choice to put one of the most intimate and vulnerable shots of Sydney in this montage meant for a couple is.... pretty indicative of the romantic undertones hidden in Carmy and Sydney's connection. The first time I saw it, I was blown away by how intimate of a shot that was of Sydney. We've never seen her like that - undressing, her skin that is always covered exposed, seeing for the first time that she has a tattoo. Just like we never saw Carmy like that in his sex scene with Claire, him being so intimately exposed.

I don't know how else to interpret it. Because all of what's stated above is not coincidence. The creators of this show didn't coincidentally put scenes of Sydney into the couple's montage and they definitely didn't mirror the imagery from the picture above to the sex scene in ep. 9 on accident. Just like how they didn't coincidentally have Carmy think of Sydney to calm him down during his panic attack.

[currymanganese]

Matchmaker, Matchmaker,

make me a match!

Find me a find!

Catch me a catch!

@espumado 's fantastic meta on the influence of the horror/noir thriller classic film, The Night of the Hunter on The Bear Season 3 has been rattling around in my brain ever since she shared it; and it prompted me to watch the movie recently. I'd like to encourage folks to check out @espumado's post here if you haven't seen it.

Here are some thoughts I'd like to add concerning a potential parallel between two highlighted romantic relationships in The Night of the Hunter and The Bear thus far -

The marriage of Willa Harper and Harry Powell

And the relationship between Carmy and Claire

There are four features of the relationship between Willa and Harry that are mildly echoed in Carmy and Claire's relationship: external social pressure to accept a romantic partner that Willa and Carmy are not enthusiastic about initially; blatant tip-offs that Willa and Carmy receive that everything is not well in their relationships with the partners that they have been 'set up' with by their loved ones; post-tip-offs, Willa and Carmy's insistent denial of the fact that their partners are less than ideal; and Willa and Carmy's self-loathing and poor sense of self-worth that is reinforced by their larger-than-life familial figures.

External social pressure to accept an undesired partner:

In The Night of The Hunter, a newly widowed young woman, Willa Harper, is badgered repeatedly into marrying Harry Powell (a misogynistic, sociopathic serial killer-thief posing as an itinerant preacher) at the behest of Icey Spoon, a domineering older woman that is equal parts Willa's employer and her, and her children, John and Pearl's, mother and grandmother figure respectively.

Likewise, in The Bear Season 2, Carmy is bombastically pressured into being set up with Claire (whether for a casual fling or serious relationship is unclear) - a former childhood neighbour and acquaintance - by Mikey and Richie, his older brother and his surrogate cousin respectively.

Blatant tip-offs that the relationships are unhealthy:

After marrying Harry Powell, Harry instantly flips from being charming and ingratiating to Willa to being psychologically abusive and refuses to physically consummate the marriage. However, Willa is so cowed by Harry and the will of her mother figure, Icey, and the social approbation of her small, religiously conservative community, that she does nothing when she comes home from work one day and overhears her new 'husband' Harry being verbally, psychologically, emotionally, and physically abusive to her very young daughter, Pearl.

However, in a comparatively mundane indication that all is not well in Carmy's new relationship with Claire, Carmy appears to have his anxiety/panic triggered by being physically intimate with Claire, and/or due to the familial pressure he feels to be with her, which causes him to mentally associate Claire with his dysfunctional family.

Being in denial about their partners:

In a tragic and baffling development, after Willa overhears Harry abusing Pearl, Willa is so deep in denial about Harry's true nature that she meekly fixates on Harry's non-existent virtues even while he prepares to murder her. Harry kills Willa by slitting her throat with a knife, and dumps her body in a nearby river at night, leaving her 9 year old son, John, to fend for himself and his younger sister against their villainous step-father.

Despite showing signs of being anxious around Claire in Season 2 and 3 - his initial refusal to give Claire his number - his laboured breathing with her in his kitchen in Bolognese - his rapidly beating heart when cuddling with Claire in a Season 3 flashback; and Carmy's panic attack the morning after sleeping with Claire in Bolognese, and despite his mental preoccupation with Claire during Season 3, Carmy strangely asserts that Claire is not, "haunting him", as "that would be chaos, and Claire is peace...." Seemingly ignoring the negative emotions that their relationship triggered for him and the additional strain and complications that his time in his relationship with Claire brought to his relationship with Sydney, Richie, and his work-life.

Willa and Carmy's poor sense of self-worth reinforced by loved ones

Willa is an understandably subdued woman after the death of her first husband, Ben Harper, however (as encouraged by the psychologically manipulative Harry Powell) she also blames herself for Ben Harper's death. In her naivete, and self-recrimination over Ben's death, and because of her mother figure, Icey's, overbearing insistence that Willa is a silly woman that cannot take care of herself and her children, Willa rushes into a marriage with the evidently suspicious stranger, "Preacher" Harry Powell; who brainwashes her into believing that he is her path to salvation and redemption for her "misdeeds".

Carmy's monologues to Al-anon and to Tina/ himself in the walk-in - as overheard by Claire - reveal that Carmy is self-loathing and considers himself a: "psycho"; someone unworthy of love; a loner; a man of few to no true friends; and his dreams also expose that Carmy questions whether his brother/father-figure, Mikey ever really loved him or not, and that he also suffers from survivor's guilt. This poor sense of self-worth does not appear to have been helped by Mikey's refusal to let Carmy work with him, prior to his death, when Mikey was self-isolating and descending further into addiction; and Carmy's negative self-concept is further promoted due to his mother's abuse, and his family friends e.g. Tiff & Richie/brother's attestations that he is, "a mopey little fuck" and/or "weird", and like his mother, Donna.

_____________

This post is already stretching on to be rather long, and these similarities between the aforementioned relationships and Willa and Carmy's personalities and actions may be coincidental/ unintended, but I do find them interesting to note, and I would like to point out a few final thoughts concerning Harry and Claire's motivations for pursuing relationships with Willa and Carmy respectively, and their personalities:

It should be noted, that despite being an influential and now-much lauded classic film, as a modern viewer, The Night of The Hunter is aggressively misogynistic; the women and girls in the film are either depicted as: gossipy, simpering, naive, easily manipulated, or domineering or mean-spirited, and in the lone exception to this rule, a positive mother figure that takes in John and Pearl at the end of the movie still expositions that, "women are foolish." However, it must be said that the quality of character of the men in this movie doesn't fare much better in turn, and Harry Powell is a misogynistic menace of a man that paradoxically is implied to lust after the very women he hates, and who he projects onto and dismisses as, "wanton temptresses", yet, in a case of deeply entrenched sexual repression, he refuses sex and sexual contact with women despite being found desirable and attractive by them.

Having said all of this, I find it funny that Claire seems to be everything Harry Powell would hate in a woman; she is intelligent, a medical doctor; presumably financially secure under her own merits as a doctor; she is confident and sexually forward; she is the one that pursued her interest in Carmy and not the other way around, which flies in the face of parochial heteronormative traditions about M/F romantic relationships; Claire does not desire to become a doctor out of (a traditionally maternal and feminine instinct) to show care and concern, or to "fix things" so much as she becomes a doctor out of a fascination with the intricacies of pain / the workings of the human body, and is somewhat unaffected by her almost killing one of her patients in her care due to misreading her chart; and lastly Claire breaks things off with Carmy instead of, "standing by her man", after overhearing his meltdown in the walk-in.

However, inversely, it must also be said that while Harry Powell's motivations for pursuing marriage to Willa before killing her is as clear as day, he wanted to marry her and kill her because he learnt that her first husband stole and hid a large sum of money with Willa's children, and "Preacher" Powell coveted the stolen money for himself; yet Claire's motives for staunchly pursuing Carmy as a romantic partner - besides Mikey, Richie and the Fak's encouragement, and Carmy and Claire's alleged former childhood/adolescent crushes on each other, and sexual attraction - is a little more nebulous.

What does she see in him really?

And, unlike Harry Powell, based on the impact Claire has had on Carmy's life thus far, after pursuing him romantically with Neil Fak's help, is Claire an anti-villain?

Thank you for reading if you've read all this - and on a personal note, I will be on here less frequently for the foreseeable future as I will be heading off to film school to study film production soon.

If any of what I've written above catches your interest, please do feel free to check out the following observation posts - and the reblog add-ons too! if you haven't read them:

Why'd the crew at The Bear ignore Syd's question about Marcus, to talk about Claire? by @moodyeucalyptus

Sublimation and Intellectual Orgasms by @mitocamdria

The Bear - Sleight of Hand Movie Posters by @ago0112

The Bear Season 3 & Meta Filmmaking by @thoughtfulchaos773

Natalie and Night of the Hunter by @espumado

Carmy and Claire: Guilt by @brokenwinebox

Claire: Ominous or Naive by @brokenwinebox

Richie and the viewer by @whenmemorydies

Richie's Journey is not over by myself.

Fourth Wall being broken by @brokenwinebox

Claire and The Faks: A Lovable Alpha Bitch and her henchmen? by myself.

Claire and Sydney by @brokenwinebox

Mikey and Claire as a reverse engineered haunt - an add-on to @espumado's post on the fantastical elements of season 3 by @whenmemorydies and @thoughtfulchaos773

Scene Lighting, Blocking and Dialogue Callbacks between Claire and The Berzattos by myself

Crack theory but...Claire as Lilith, Carmy as Adam, and Sydney as Eve? or why I think Claire and the Faks could possibly shape up to be shocking, exciting, funny, and even wonderful characters by myself

Mikey and Sydney paper parallels: Sydney as the light of Carmy's life by @miredball

Sydney as Our Mother of Victory by @gongziyus

Moments on Fillm: Carmy's Vital Signs by @moments-on-film (you may want to pay particular attention to moment's amazing breakdown of JAW's physical acting in his scenes opposite Molly Gordon as Claire)

Sydcarmy and Amelie parallels by @gongziyus

Sydcarmy and breaking down walls by @bbythurs

Is the Claw Clip Carmy's Bear Claw? by @vacationship

Claire: Clear As Mud add-on to a post on the meaning of Claire's full name by @whenmemorydies

The Night of The Hunter movie details and trope breakdown on TV Tropes

also tagging @yannaryartside @tvfantic87 @angelica4equity @devisrina @ambeauty @bioloyg @post-woke @caiusmarciuscoriolanus @imliterallyjustablackgirl @pureseasalt @chansoooo1-blog @amieraisposting @outmakingmoonshine @anaustenheroine @augustmonsooning @mkayartist @hwere @gardenianoire @mod-doodles @myloveismineallmine @turbulenthandholding @anxietycroissant @inalltheirgorgeouscolors @laryssamedeirss @justabovewater20 @prowitchazel @unlikelyjapan @afrofairysblog in case you're interested!

[early-twentysomething]

ARE U KIDDING ME

[iriswestallenn]

Someone needs to talk to Jeremy Allen White then

Someone should tell Jeremy Allen White to stop having Carmy stare at Syd like that. I don't know what to tell yall! I really do not. You cannot deny the chemistry. You cannot make me believe they didn't purposefully write the MOLLY GORDON (such a good actress not in this though lmao) as a cardboard cutout manic pixie dream of a girlfriend for Carmy. You cannot tell me Carmy and Claire are any sort of endgame just because they were each others childhood crushes. They wrote an ER nurse as if she bakes cookies all day. Why is she always in such a good mood and always there to lift Carmy up? Get this out my face lmao

Carmy thought of Syd while having a panic attack because the thought of her brought him back down. Are you serious? Carmy has a sex scene in the same episode him and Syd are underneath a table just talking and there is more chemistry in that scene- I'm losing my mind. The choreography during the one take table scene is more gentle and romantic than what we saw with him and Claire in that bed- I'm LOSING IT!

I've just seen a lot of tweets and posts that are like "no they need to be platonic. go to netflix for ships like this not the bear" and I'm like huh? Talk to Jeremy Allen White and Ayo then. The little touches on her back he does for NO REASON. Tell them to tone it down cause I'M certainly not seeing anything that isn't there. The characters are communicating better than they were season 1. You know what that is? Growth. Them signing sorry to each other? HELLO??? "I wouldn't even wanna do it without you." I CANNOT BREATHE!!!

Like oh I'm sorry y'all are choosing not to see what's right in front of you lmao a very sad life to live I guess idk. But also who cares? Let people ship what they want and stop trying to talk about platonic ships as if we are not being bombarded with so much fucking tv and film. The platonic ships are out there for you babes, let me have this hot romantic one in peace. Let me do that.

[footedhickory]

I have never watched an episode of The Bear.

I have no idea what is going on.

But if Sydney and Carmy don’t end up together I will fucking riot.

[blackerthings]

Syd: "I just need your focus like you need mine. I don't wanna share it I'm sorry."

Carmy: "You deserve my full focus, and I'm sorry. My attention shouldn't be split. It shouldn't have to be shared. I understand."

Syd: "You could do this without me."

Carmy: "I couldn't do this without you. I wouldn't even want to do it without you. You make me better at this."

Syd: "You make me better at this."

Syd: "And what if I just like... completely melt. Like I just fuck up and fail.

Carmy: "I won't let you." "You're not alone, Syd."

Syd: "Neither are you."

[thebearincorrectquotes]

Natalie: You deserve a reward for putting up with me.

Pete: [Smiles] You are my reward.

Carmy: You deserve a reward for putting up with me.

Sydney: Yeah, you’re a real bitch sometimes.

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.