Joanna Calo said Christopher Storer was right to note that Carmy and Syndey shouldn’t get together, but as she put it, “I think what I was getting at was that these relationships are complicated.” Personally, I’ve always seen Carmy and Sydney’s relationship as one that has a tinge of romance, but not the type that actually needs to lead to anything else. When Sydney felt a pang of frustration over Carmy’s new relationship and couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason for it, or Carmy calmed down after thinking of Sydney, that felt familiar to me — and much more nuanced and interesting to watch than yet another fictional couple confessing their love. When the pair share a quiet moment while fixing a table ahead of The Bear’s opening, it’s an equally great moment, one that feels like it veers between platonic partnership, deep friendship, and something like love from second to second.
The series’ co-showrunner seems to express a similar sentiment. She told THR:
“I’ve heard people use the term ‘work wife’ — there are relationships in our lives that have all different meanings, and we sometimes really rush to characterize everything very cleanly and there’s something beautiful about acknowledging how messy our lives really are and just how enmeshed so many of our relationships are.”