This story contains NO SPOILERS for The Bear Season 5, which is available to stream now with a Hulu subscription.The Bear has officially served up its final meal, dropping all eight of its Season 5 episodes on the 2026 TV schedule at once. At the end of Season 4, we saw Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) walk away from the restaurant, leaving it in the hands of Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Sugar (Abby Elliott). With no money, however, the future appears bleak, so is the comedy-drama able to provide an ending that will leave audiences full and satisfied? A look at the reviews and Rotten Tomatoes score is giving me early-season flashbacks.How The Bear Season 5’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Compares To Past SeasonsLongtime fans of The Bear will be excited to know that the fifth and final season is rated a Certified Fresh 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, as of this writing. The Chicago-set series hasn’t seen numbers that high since its first two seasons, which received 100% and 99%, respectively.I’d agree with the general consensus that The Bear was at its best in the beginning, when it quickly became one of FX and Hulu’s best original shows and started raking in all of those Emmy Awards. Seeing the stressful back-of-house operation may have been anxiety-inducing, but that energy was missed in the decidedly slower-paced third and fourth seasons. The RT scores reflected that, too, with Season 3 earning 89% from critics, and Season 4 dropping to 84% (the audience scores were even less forgiving, rating them 54% and 68%, respectively). If a 97% rating on Season 5 is an indication of a return to form in its final 8 episodes, sign me up! So what are the critics saying, anyway?Reviews Say The Bear Season 5 Is A ‘Classic Recipe Done Very, Very Well’The Bear Season 5 reviews came out before critics saw Episode 8, “The Original Beef of Chicagoland," but Clint Worthington of RogerEbert practically had his fill by the end of the penultimate episode, “Caramel” (and that’s not a bad thing). The critic notes how the focus had become too much on the guest stars, the needle drops, the Faks, etc. Season 5, however, feels as scaled back as the restaurant’s budget, en route to a satisfying finale. He writes:Season 5 feels like a stripped-down, back-to-basics iteration of the show, and that’s to its immense credit. It’s two episodes shorter than previous seasons; gone are the needle drops and the subplots that stretch far beyond the restaurant, to say nothing of the lumbering pace those more aimless seasons engendered. The entire final season takes place over one stressful, nail-biting day, the most important moment in the restaurant’s life. It’s game time, do-or-die, the moment of truth. It’s time for The Bear, and ‘The Bear,’ to stick the landing. And, though this review comes without the benefit of seeing the season’s final episode, all signs point to success.Victoria Luxford of NME rates the final season 4 out of 5 stars, calling it a “bingeable buffet,” freed by the absence of an overarching storyline, which allows our food heroes’ stories room to breathe over the course of a single day. It’s “funny, gripping and jaggedly sentimental,” Luxford says, writing:The exact fate of The Bear will be discovered by viewers when the final episode arrives, but the fifth and final season is a suitable send-off to these unlikely comrades. It might not reach the boiling temperatures of the show at its peak, but it’s a satisfying final course.Benji Wilson of The Telegraph’s review of The Bear Season 5 gives it a perfect 5 out of 5 stars, writing that this season is “chaos incarnate,” sticking the landing by going back to what made us love the show in the first place. The critic writes:I’d say they’ve done it. Here are the characters you’ve come to love in the situation in which you’ve come to love them. No monologues or bottle episodes or dialogue-free mood-board vignettes; no celebrity chefs popping up because they can… just a classic recipe done very, very well.These Rotten Tomatoes’ scores — especially combined with the critics’ feedback — have me flashing back to the chaotic intensity of The Bear’s peak seasons, and I can’t wait to jump into the final one. All eight episodes are available to stream now on Hulu.If you haven’t checked out The Bear’s bonus episode “Gary,” an hour-long flashback starring Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who also co-wrote the episode, I implore you to do that before diving into Season 5. It’s not necessary in order to follow Season 5’s plot, but it is incredible and should not be skipped.Then, you can dive into these last episodes that feel like they'll give a perfect goodbye to this beloved show.