The restaurant review, which Carmy and the team had been waiting on for most of the season, held an outsized weight here, because Cicero had told Carmy that he would have to pull funding if they got even one less-than-glowing write-up.
Thankfully for fans, a title card at the end of the episode said that the story will be continued – and now, Tina star Liza Colón-Zayas, has weighed in on what the future might hold for the characters.
Speaking exclusively with RadioTimes.com, Colón-Zayas said: “The future is very fragile. You know, we’re white knuckling it, but that’s also very real, right? Especially now, the state of everything, but especially the restaurant industry. It’s not a walk in the park. I’m nervous too.”
Asked how long she could see the show running for, Colón-Zayas added: “I would love to see the show potentially continue for at least another five years!
“But only if that’s… there’s that line that Richie had in the beginning, like, ‘It is a delicate ecosystem’. And I think that as long as that is inspired and nurtured then we’ll have the magic that we have. So that’s more important. Five more seasons, please!”
Colón-Zayas’s Tina played a key role in season 3, with the sixth episode, Napkins, telling the story of how she ended up meeting Mikey and working at The Original Beef of Chicagoland. It also showed us more of Tina’s home life than ever before, introducing us to her husband and son, with her husband being played by Colón-Zayas’s real-life husband David Zayas.
Asked how she first reacted when reading the script for that episode, Colón-Zayas said: “I cried. I didn’t expect to get my own episode. They just nailed us, me and my husband’s life. That’s my real husband in real life and they just got our energy. It was incredible to feel seen, and I think necessary for viewers to understand more fully Tina’s armour, what she’s fighting for.”
Colón-Zayas also revealed that it “wasn’t always the case” that her husband would star in the show, and explained how that casting came about.
She said: “He came to set one day and Christopher Storer’s a big fan of his, and he was like, ‘Do you think you’d want to be on the show?’. I was like, ‘Yeah, I think he’s a big fan of the show!’. And then it went from there.”
The Bear season 3 is available to stream in the UK on Disney Plus – sign up to Disney Plus for £4.99 a month or £79.90 a year now.
