The Bear Season 5 in Limbo After Finale Twist
The Bear season 4 dropped on June 25 with ten new episodes on Hulu — and while the latest chapter in the chaos of Carmy's kitchen just wrapped, fans are already wondering: is this the end?
As of now, FX has not confirmed whether the Emmy-winning series will return for season 5. And while that's not unusual in TV land, the uncertainty this time feels a little more real. According to FX chairman John Landgraf, it all comes down to one thing: creator Christopher Storer.
"We really don't know," Landgraf told Variety in July 2024. "These decisions are really creative decisions. It's about how much more story does Chris have to tell? I mean, obviously, I'm hoping he has more... You just have to follow the creative."
Sounds open-ended — which is great for art, less great for scheduling.
It's also not helping that the main cast has become wildly in-demand since the show blew up. All three leads are booked solid for the foreseeable future:
- Jeremy Allen White is starring as Bruce Springsteen in the biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere
- Ebon Moss-Bachrach is joining the Marvel universe as Ben Grimm (The Thing) in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
- Ayo Edebiri is juggling a Barney movie, a new Apple TV+ rom-com (Prodigies), and a Luca Guadagnino film opposite Julia Roberts (After the Hunt)
It's a packed calendar, and wrangling them back into Carmy's kitchen for another season might be a logistical nightmare. That said, all the core cast are contractually locked in if season 5 goes ahead.
For context, The Bear's third and fourth seasons were filmed back-to-back, with season 4 already greenlit before season 3 even aired. That's not the case this time — no scripts, no greenlight, and no production underway. It's limbo, plain and simple.
Whether The Bear continues will depend entirely on whether Storer wants to keep the story going — and if FX can get the cast back together in one place long enough to shoot it.
Until then, you can stream all four seasons of The Bear now on Hulu.