‘The Bear’: All the New and Returning Guest Stars in Season 4

Throughout Season 4, a feud is teased between Natalie (Abby Elliott) and her former best friend Francine Fak aka Francie, sister of Neil and Teddy Fak (Matty Matheson and Ricky Staffieri, respectively). Every time her name comes up in conversation, Natalie grits her teeth and says, “She knows what she did.” Francie finally appears for the first time at Tiff’s (Gillian Jacobs) wedding, where she’s played by Brie Larson. She and Natalie erupt into a shouting match every time they’re near each other — through the noise, the “betrayal” Natalie keeps citing is never made fully clear, but we do hear her accuse Francie of being “drunk as shit” as Francie defends herself, saying, “It was raining. What did you want me to do? The bus was leaving,” and reminding Natalie that “there were no cell phones” back then. Ted offhandedly comments that Natalie and Francie once hooked up, which they take a suspiciously long time to deny as Natalie’s husband, Pete (Chris Witaske), reacts in disbelief.

Danielle Deadwyler guest stars as Chantel, an old friend of Sydney’s, in the fourth episode of Season 4. The episode gives a glimpse into Sydney’s social life — or lack thereof — outside of the restaurant, and was co-written by Edebiri herself alongside Lionel Boyce, who plays Marcus, though he doesn’t appear in this particular episode.

Sydney’s day off from The Bear aligns with Chantel’s day off from the hair salon where she works, so she goes to Chantel’s house to get her hair braided for free. It’s clear that Sydney’s work at the restaurant has kept her from seeing any of her loved ones for a long time. Chantel has a lot of gossip about mutual friends to catch Sydney up on, and chides her for not being around more. At the end of the episode, when Sydney says she’d like to meet up in a few weeks, Chantel rolls her eyes and says she doesn’t expect to hear from Sydney for another six months. But Sydney promises it’ll be sooner than that this time, and she seems to mean it.

The episode also features Arion King as TJ, Chantel’s teenage daughter, who Sydney spends most of the day with when Chantel runs out to buy more braiding hair. As Sydney takes TJ to the grocery store and brings her back home to make her some food, the two give each other advice: Sydney talks TJ through some tension she’s having with friends at school, and TJ lets Sydney vent about her difficult choice between staying at The Bear or leaving to work at Adam Shapiro’s new restaurant.

Ebraheim has been successfully running The Beef, the sandwich window at the back of The Bear, since the restaurant opened. He enters Season 4 fixating on the idea of “creating opportunity” and expanding on his wins, so he gets in touch with a business mentor named Albert, played by Rob Reiner. The two agree to meet every day for three weeks to help Ebra put together a proposal to improve things at The Bear.

Kate Berlant gives a three-minute long monologue at the beginning of Episode 5, playing the sister of an addict who shares her experience at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting Carmy is attending. She tells a story about her brother, who asked to stay at her apartment while she was out of town and promised that he’d been sober for six months and would take care of her plants. “He’s my brother, and I love him. I wanna kill him, and love him and kill him again. I choose to believe him,” she says, before explaining that she came home to naked strangers on her couch and drugs and alcohol strewn about, though the plants had been watered. Carmy listens to her story and offers a sad smile.

Alpana Singh is a master sommelier and the restaurateur behind Alpana in Chicago. In the second episode of Season 4, Sydney sends Gary aka Sweeps to meet Singh and learn more about wine so that he can offer better pairings at The Bear. Donnie Madia is the restaurateur behind Chicago’s One Off Hospitality Group and also lends a helping hand at The Bear in Episode 2, telling Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and the front-of-house staff that although he still struggles see through restaurant critics’ disguises, there are a few calling cards: They tend to make reservations under different names each visit, or bring a celebrity guest to push attention off of themselves. More importantly, though, “It’s almost better that you don’t know who they are, because you need to treat every guest that walks through your door like they’re the chosen one.”

Jon Bernthal is the O.G. guest star of “The Bear,” having shown up in Season 1 to break hearts as Mikey Berzatto, Carmy and Natalie’s older brother who died by suicide before the series began. In Season 4, he serves as the opening act. The premiere episode begins with a flashback where Mikey tells Carmy, who is simmering a pot of red sauce, that his attempt to get into the rental car business didn’t pan out. By the sound of their conversation, it’s just the latest in a string of business attempts that have gone south for him. Mikey expects Carmy to criticize him for the failed venture, but instead, Carmy points out that Mikey doesn’t “give a shit” about rental cars anyway, and says they should try opening a restaurant together instead. “Look. Every one of our good memories, they happened in restaurants, right?” he says. At this point in time, Carmy has already left Chicago to start his culinary career at more prestigious restaurants than the what would eventually become The Beef, and the fact that Carmy still wants to work with him after all of his accomplishments makes Mikey take the suggestion seriously. He has a twinkle in his eye as the scene ends, and as we know, he does eventually put his little brother’s words into action.

Gillian Jacobs — who is the partner of “The Bear” creator Chris Storer — returns as Richie’s ex-wife, Tiff, and gets married to Frank, played by Josh Hartnett, in Season 4. The wedding is a high-pressure event for everyone: Tiff is estranged from her biological family, so the Berzattos and their social sphere are all she has; Frank is struggling to feel confident as stepdad to Eva (Annabelle Toomey); Richie feels threatened by the fact that Eva likes Frank; Carmy is nervous to see Claire and downright terrified to see his mother; Natalie is enraged that Francie has been invited; etc.

After years of estrangement due to alcoholism and a severe parenting style, Donna made her way back into Natalie’s life during Season 3, when she took her to the hospital to give birth. In Season 4, she attempts to make amends with Carmy. At Tiff and Frank’s wedding, they reunite for the first time. It’s awkward, but both are trying, and nothing explosive happens. Later in the season, Natalie sends Carmy to Donna’s house for an errand, and the two sit down for a long, emotional conversation about their ups and (mostly) downs over the years. (Last year, Curtis won a guest actress in a comedy Emmy for playing Donna for “Fishes.”)

After first appearing in “Fishes,” John Mulaney, Sarah Paulson and Bob Odenkirk return for Tiff and Frank’s wedding in Season 4. Mulaney plays cousin Stevie — who is not really a cousin, but married into the Berzatto family via Michelle (Paulson), who may or may not be a blood relative herself. It seems Stevie and Michelle have divorced, though, because they aren’t ever together that night: Stevie counsels Frank on what it’s like to join the chaotic Berzatto circle as an outsider, and Michelle has a private heart-to-heart with Tiff to console her about her estranged family before leaving the party early. Stevie also makes an offhand comment about how Michelle “left,” but he doesn’t dwell on it, instead divulging how much he loves the chaos of the family.

Odenkirk plays Uncle Lee, a family friend and Donna’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, who has an awkward conversation with Carmy about Mikey, sharing that the two had gotten close ahead of Mikey’s death. Lee reminds Carmy that Mikey spoke of him often and was proud of him, and tells him to consider the ways he might be similar to his mother, who he says is doing better lately.

The Computer, sometimes affectionately known as Uncle Computer, is Uncle Jimmy’s (Oliver Platt) business associate who manages numbers for him. He shows up at The Bear with hard truths about how the restaurant is doing financially, and is generally pessimistic about their ability to get out of debt.

After Marcus tells Carmy that he needs more “firepower” to get pastries finished efficiently, Carmy decides to bring Luca to The Bear. Luca first appeared in the Season 2 episode “Honeydew,” when Carmy and Sydney sent Marcus to Copenhagen to learn from Luca, and though The Bear can’t actually afford a second pastry chef, Luca is old friends with Carmy and helps out as a stage — aka an unpaid apprentice — out of goodwill. Throughout Season 4, he gives Marcus advice on his awkward and strained relationship with his dad and coaches Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) on using the pressure-filled environment of the kitchen to hone her skills and speed.

Sydney’s dad, Emmanuel, is the only real constant in Sydney’s life, since things are always chaotic at The Bear and she struggles to maintain friendships outside of the restaurant. Multiple times throughout Season 4, Emmanuel leaves Sydney voicemails, worried about how little he’s heard from her. Later in the season, she starts to realize she’s been neglecting their relationship and becomes determined to make it right.

Though “The Bear” has featured many real-life chefs who play themselves, actor Adam Shapiro plays a fictional chef who bears his name. Adam used to be the chef de cuisine at Ever, but after Terry (Olivia Colman) retired and closed the restaurant in Season 3, Adam decided to start his own restaurant and offer Sydney the job of head chef. She spends much of Season 4 dodging his calls or having short, non-committal phone conversations with him.