Children (The Bear)

Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) helps Marcus (Lionel Boyce) in clearing out his mother's house. Chef Will Guidara, co-founder of Eleven Madison Park, where Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) once worked in New York, shares a news article reporting that Chef Terry has announced the closure of Ever after a dozen years.

To help the restaurant, Cicero (Oliver Platt) brings in a friend, Nicholas "The Computer" Marshall (Brian Koppelman), an accountant, to check on the costs and offer some possible cuts. The Computer suggests reducing the amount of meals while also adding one more day to the restaurant's schedule. He and Cicero also state that another possible way to cut costs is to fire Marcus, as the restaurant does not really need a pastry chef. Natalie (Abby Elliott) immediately shuts down the suggestion.

With just one hour before the Chicago Tribune reporter shows up to photograph the restaurant for the review, the team must quickly organize. Fak (Matty Matheson) and Theodore (Ricky Staffieri) are joined by their brother Sammy (John Cena) as they buff the floors. Sammy gets into an argument with Theodore for stealing his SD cards, and Richie tries to get the brothers under control. When the photographer arrives, the staff struggle to prepare a duck dish mentioned in the review, whose ingredients they do not have on hand due to the daily menu changes. Carmy goes to the basement, where he opens a box containing a notebook. It includes photos of Donna and Michael, Donna, and a baby Sugar, and a close up of young Carmy watching curiously.

The preceding episode, "Violet," took place during the first week of July 2023. There has been a leap forward to the last week of July or thereabouts, because Will Guidara texts Carmy, "Funeral dinner next week," and the Ever funeral dinner is held on Sunday, August 6, 2023.

• The song "Dream Little One, Dream" is from the 1955 black-and-white American-rural-gothic horror film Night of the Hunter.^[1] The Criterion Collection describes The Night of the Hunter as a "horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale."^[2] The film was directed by Charles Laughton and stars Robert Mitchum as a murderer masquerading as preacher, in an attempt to rob children of a hidden trove of cash.^[3] Mitchum's character, ex-con Preacher Harry Powell, has LOVE and HATE tattooed above his knuckles,^[3] not unlike Carmy's SOU tattoo.^[4][5][a] Laughton's film "sides...totally with the little ones."^[7] Film critic Pauline Kael argued that it is "one of the most frightening movies ever made."^[7] The film opens with a warning about treachery.^[1]

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."^[1]

• Carmy, the executive chef of the Berzatto family restaurant and sandwich window, is in the dumpster flattening boxes. "Break down all boxes" was on his list of non-negotiables, which, per Vulture, "is why it's hilarious that throughout this season, no one breaks down any boxes before putting them in the Dumpster except for Sydney. It's almost as if Neil and Teddy Fak never bothered to read the list of non-negotiables at all."^[8] Carmy is muttering to himself, disgruntled, while he performs this task, leaving the A.V. Club recapper to comment, "This guy truly is both God and Satan to his own Job."^[9]
• The real Will Guidara both runs a fleet of New York City restaurants and is a season three co-producer of The Bear, co-credited with story on episode three, "Doors."^[10] The in-universe version of Will Guidara is a friend and former colleague of Carmy's and he thus texts him with the news that Chef Terry is retiring and closing Ever.^[10] Guidara and his wife Christina Tosi also appear as themselves in the season-three finale, "Forever."^[10]
• As half-explained by Natalie, lightning crotch is just what it sounds like: a symptom of pregnancy in which the baby headbutting the cervix triggers shooting pains through the vagina.^[11][12]

In May 2024, Hulu confirmed that the fifth episode of the season would be titled "Children", and was to be written and directed by series creator Christopher Storer.^[13] It was Storer's 12th writing credit and 16th directing credit.^[14]

The episode features a guest appearance by John Cena, who plays Sammy Fak.^[15] According to Matty Matheson, "He was a pro. Showed up, didn't even look at a script, just was fully prepared. Genuinely very inspiring, like, that's how I want to show up on another set."^[16]

During her conversation with Marcus on the steps of his mom's house, Sydney is wearing a Haiks denim jacket with a "contrast collar,"^[17] paired with her white Carhartt overalls last seen in "Beef."^[18]

The Fak brothers talk about their family history of setting up "fake LLCs" (shell companies) in the espresso vestibule.^[19] Their espresso machine is a "two-group Rosito Bisani Synchro, a semi-automatic espresso machine."^[19] The Bear serves coffee by local Chicago roaster Milli by Metric.^[19][20]

According to cinematographer Andrew Wehde, the opening scenes were shot with intent of conveying Natalie Berzatto's internal emotional state to the viewer: "You start off with Sugar in the church, and you have that beautiful light coming from behind her, which goes to her waking up and the silhouette in the kitchen and all the blue. It's like we're doing these vignettes of their inner lives."^[21]

Songs featured on the soundtrack of the episode include "Dream Little One, Dream" by Walter Schumann and Charles Laughton, "Purple Heather" by Van Morrison, the Eddie Vedder cover of "Save It for Later," and "Mixed Emotions" by the Rolling Stones.^[22]

• Range called "Dream Little One, Dream" one of the season's best needle drops, commenting, "Beyond highlighting The Bear's deeply cinematic DNA, the main title from Charles Laughton's seminal gothic noir, The Night of the Hunter, touches on the frayed family dynamics at the show's heart. The eerie nursery rhyme zeroes in on an expecting Natalie, whose fraught relationship with her mother and anxieties about her own impending motherhood feel just as precarious as Robert Mitchum's child-hunting charlatan from Laughton's masterwork."^[23]
• The live-at-the-Troubador version of "Purple Heather" on It's Too Late to Stop Now runs while Carmy works on a dish, dead exhausted it seems.^[24][25]
• The instrumentals of "Save It for Later" loop when Richie and Jess are talking on the phone, and continue over Marcus and Tina working on dishes.^[24]
• "Mixed Emotions" was also used in The Bear's two-minute trailer for season three.^[26][b]

• Carmy is working on something garnished with a baby turnip, served over a béarnaise sauce.^[28] Syd is underwhelmed by the sauce, which she finds "like 2014 or something".^[28]
• She shares that her dad gets the same thing every time he goes to a steakhouse, drawing a contrast between a mint reduction and a mint geleé, which seems to help clarify Carmy's thinking.^[28]
• The restaurant is serving gnocchi with beef cheeks that day.^[29]

Jenna Scherer of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "B–" grade and wrote, "I've gone on record as a hardcore stan of the Fak bros. This season in particular, Neil and Ted have been adding much-needed belly laughs to even the most serious, somber episodes. But in this installment—and I really hate to say it—I officially hit the upper limit of my Fak tolerance."^[9]

Marah Eakin of Vulture gave the episode a 2 star out of 5 rating and wrote, "When you see Carmy digging through a box of photos in the basement labeled “DD,” you just know something's coming soon in the pipeline."^[30] A.J. Daulerio of Decider wrote, "This show is fully capable and, at times, excellent at showing the dark tunnels grief can create. And it's not just grief for the dead—it's the grief for the living that can feel the most impossible, the most volatile."^[31] Brady Langmann of Esquire wrote, "I'm not ready for Sydney to split from Carmy. Really, all I want is to see season 1 of Matter of Fak drop before the next episodes of The Bear."^[32]

Critics reacted negatively to John Cena's guest appearance. The Washington Post considered his appearance "distracting" arguing that "Wrestling fans like me will always be distracted by seeing the 16-time world champion on the screen, particularly when his character is so very, very Cena-like",^[33] while Ben Travers of IndieWire wrote, "Cena is just...too polished for this clan of charmingly schlubby Chicagoans."^[34] Vulture wrote, "there was never a moment when he was onscreen in this episode that I believed that was Sammy Fak."^[30] The A.V. Club wrote, "he's got great chemistry with his costars. But the vibe is all wrong, and not just because he doesn't look like a Fak boy. It seems like Storer was so eager to write for Cena that he accidentally let Sammy completely dominate the episode."^[9] Alan Sepinwall wrote, "When past episodes brought in notable guest stars like Bob Odenkirk or John Mulaney, they instantly felt like people in this world; Cena's the first one to play as stunt casting."^[35]

In 2024, The Hollywood Reporter placed "Children" at 11 on a ranked list of 28 episodes produced to that point, in part due to its successful introduction of Koppelman as the Computer.^[36] Screen Rant ranked "Children" 22nd out of the 28 episodes produced through the end of season three.^[37]

In 2025, Vulture ranked "Children" as 36th-best out of 38 episodes of The Bear, commenting, "The Bear has almost always been able to make great use of its guest stars, from recurring figures like Jon Bernthal and Jamie Lee Curtis to occasional surprise players like Bob Odenkirk and Brie Larson. The lone exception is what it did with John Cena in season three's 'Children.'"^[38]

• Lamb of God – Title for Jesus
• Good Shepherd – Epithet of Jesus
• Parable of the Lost Sheep – Parable of Jesus
• Trinity – Christian doctrine that God exists in three persons
• Sacred heart of Christ, often depicted bleeding
• Heart of the virgin Mary, often depicted bleeding
• List of The Bear episodes
• The Bear season three
• Previous episode: "Violet"
• Next episode: "Napkins"