‘The Bear’ Stars Ayo Edebiri and Lionel Boyce on Sydney Getting Humbled by an 11-Year-Old and Viewers’ ‘Unconscious Assumptions’ About Danielle Deadwyler’s Character: ‘She’s Not a Single Mom’

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Worms,” Episode 4 of “The Bear” Season 4.

Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney Adamu is, in many ways, the heart of “The Bear” — and of The Bear, the restaurant the show revolves around. It may have been Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) spot first, but even he seems to agree, telling Sydney in the Season 4 finale, “You’re the Bear.” 

So it was a welcome change of pace when, earlier in the season, the show focused an episode solely on Sydney for the first time. “Worms,” the fourth episode of Season 4, sees Sydney get her braids redone by her cousin, Chantel (guest star Danielle Deadwyler) on her day off. “Worms” was written by Edebiri and her co-star Lionel Boyce — who doesn’t appear in the episode, but plays Marcus in the show — and helmed by guest director Janicza Bravo. The three worked together to create what Edebiri calls “a cool new entryway” into her character.

While editing the pieces of Season 4 that had been shot in tandem with Season 3, series creator Christopher Storer called Edebiri to let her know that it looked like there was space to add in a Sydney-focused detour, so she pitched him on the idea of a chaotic, day-long hair appointment that peeks into the character’s life outside the restaurant. Storer handed her the reins as writer, and she began brainstorming with Boyce before inviting him to join her in a more official capacity.

“I knew that the episode had to be really Black, and feel really lived-in and South Side,” Edebiri says. For help with choosing locations, they leaned on some of their Chicago native colleagues, such as Corey Hendrix, who plays Gary aka Sweeps. “We’re like, ‘Corey, do you think it’s more Bronzeville? Or do you think it’s more Englewood or Chatham? We’re talking about the looming gentrification, so we want it to be close to a shop that’s nice and shiny — maybe that’s East Garfield. Is it a two-flat or three-flat home?’”

Hendrix helped with dialogue too, like when Chantel voices her reluctance to eat at The Beef: “That’s in the north, right? You know their beefs be different. Put some cheese on it!” she says. “That was something that Corey said to me in Season 1, and it’s always stuck in my mind,” Edebiri says.

Edebiri and Boyce also looked to Black TV shows for tonal references. “We talked about the ‘Barbershop’ episode of ‘Atlanta,’ which is one of our favorite episodes of TV,” Edebiri says. The episode follows Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) as he’s forced to accompany his barber on a series of ridiculous errands before getting his hair cut. “It’s the idea of a wild goose chase. And in my own experiences, when my hair is done, whoever can do it the best and the fastest is probably an anti-vaxxer, or I have to watch their kids, or I’m driving an hour out and she’s also doing something else. There always is some element of surrealism and comedy when that’s happening.”

“The Bear,” of course, doesn’t go to the outlandish places that “Atlanta” does, but the effect is similar, revealing who Sydney is in her personal life, as well as how she’s processing the restaurant’s messiness and the choice she needs to make between staying at The Bear or accepting her alluring job offer from Shapiro (Adam Shapiro).

“We get to see her in a space where she’s speaking differently than how she normally speaks,” Edebiri says. “There’s a comfort in being with people who are removed from the [restaurant].” As an actor, she says she isn’t usually one to spend time dreaming up backstories for the roles she plays, “but her cousin makes fun of her, like, ‘You have a hard time with change.’ I was like, ‘Oh, this is character work that I don’t normally do.’”

And while Sydney is more relaxed at Chantel’s house than she is at work, there’s still a level of pressure on her: Midway through the appointment, Chantel realizes she’s out of braiding hair and runs out to buy some more, leaving Sydney alone with her tweenage daughter, TJ (Arion King). “Sydney’s canonically bad with kids,” Edebiri says with a laugh. Indeed, after Chantel leaves, Sydney’s discomfort and TJ’s bluntness make things hilariously awkward.

“We both were thinking about how we were as children,” Boyce says about writing TJ’s dialogue. “We were much more observant than we seemed. You can be completely aware and see things for what they are — but still, you’re a child who wants to run outside, tempted by the simplest things on Earth.”

Of course, the tension falls away once the topic of food arises. When TJ expresses hunger, Sydney takes it as an opportunity to connect. Slowly, on a walk to the grocery store, the two begin to open up to each other. 

“There’s nothing more humbling than spending an afternoon with a kid,” Edebiri says. So they tried to mirror that idea in the food eaten on screen, with Sydney cooking up a nicer version of Hamburger Helper. “I like that as the show has moved into the fine dining space, we’re having a moment where you see more humble food again — but Sydney is gonna try to elevate it a little with bread crumbs and fresh herbs. It just feels like something that would happen. You end up stuck with a kid, and you want to make something that an 11-year-old could eat, but also you’re in a food desert. But also you don’t think of that as a food desert, because that’s where you live.”

Along the way, TJ begins to confide in Sydney about some drama with her friends at school, and Sydney realizes TJ may have some good perspective on the choice ahead of her at work. At the end of their time together, TJ tells her she should do whatever she wants, but doesn’t conceal her confusion at why Sydney would choose to work somewhere so dysfunctional. Sydney takes that advice to heart, and calls Shapiro about getting started on paperwork later that day.

“We wanted to see Syd make a decision in this episode, even if it’s the wrong decision,” Boyce says. Later in the season, Sydney changes her mind and opts to stay at The Bear, but Boyce and Edebiri wanted to add complexity to that choice. “It’s interesting to have her backtrack. We were trying to show that what Shapiro is presenting is ultimately really good. This person means well, even if they’re sometimes off the mark. It’s just about the people you’re working with.”

It’s also about the people you’re talking with. “Watching the chemistry read, she was very firm,” Boyce says of King’s audition for the role. “She flipped this dynamic where Sydney was always the backbone in the kitchen.” 

As director, Bravo agrees. “TJ was a representation of Syd, and they form a closeness. They see themselves in each other.” That’s why TJ’s decisiveness ends up being exactly what Sydney needs to finally make a move.

There’s something undeniably funny about watching someone so young dole out viable life advice, and when Chantel finally gets back home, it becomes clear where TJ gets it from. Chantel gossips with Sydney about mutual friends and pokes at Sydney’s job on the North Side of Chicago with gusto, making their relationship feel deep and lived-in.

Speaking about casting Deadwyler, Bravo says, “I had run into her a few months before, and I found her to be so, so funny. I asked, ‘Why are you always playing the mother of a dead child?’ That’s obviously not true, but she’s often playing a woman in grief. She was like, ‘I know! I’m funny! Nobody wants me to be funny!’ So I wanted to do something with her where she got to be more out there and wacky.”

With Chantel, Edebiri found it especially rewarding to write a character that “you don’t see a lot, to the point where, when people are looking for references, they don’t know where to look to see a middle class Black mother. I even read a review where somebody referred to her as a single mom, and she’s not a single mom. She’s fully married. She has a ring on her finger. She mentions her husband, Christian. It’s people’s unconscious assumptions, thinking, ‘Ah, this is what the lesson is’ — before the episode’s even done.”

If there is a lesson in “Worms,” it comes as Chantel’s smile falls away when she finishes braiding Sydney’s hair, telling Sydney not to be a stranger. It’s clear that Sydney hasn’t seen Chantel and TJ in a long time, and that she’s been neglecting her personal relationships for a long time while throwing herself into her work. When Sydney says they’ll see each other soon, Chantel pushes back, her joy only returning when Sydney insists on setting up a hang, and tells her to invite their mutual friend Mary.

“Barbers and beauticians, they really are connectors. It’s like food — it’s another form of taking care of people,” Boyce says about Chantel’s line of work. “Because they have such a close relationship, she knows how Syd is feeling, so she’s going to push her. Because she can, as a family member. She’s like, ‘Come hang out. I can push you because I’ve known you for so long.’”

But will Sydney actually keep their plans? 

“No,” Bravo says, “but I think they both know that. Chantel will always answer the phone. She will always be there. But Sydney is in this period of being unable to do both things. She can barely show up for herself, right? I wanted to be generous to both of them, and treat that moment like it could really happen, but at the back of my mind, I felt like it probably wouldn’t.”

Edebiri and Boyce see it differently.

“I do think she’s gonna follow through with the hang, because the group chat got made,” Edebiri says. “If the group chat didn’t get made and there wasn’t accountability, then maybe no hang. But I think she’s gonna do it.”

“I have faith in Syd,” Boyce says. “By the end, you see Syd open up. Like, ‘I want to connect with people, and it’s OK to let people in in that way.’”