BoOtLeG RaNdOmNeSs

Not just cooking, because he understands technical requirements, of course, but he learns to slow cook and baby food for days because he knows that Syd grew up with her mom doing that.

Like, going to bed and the joy of waking up to the smell of something home cooked and made with love and care.

He tastes it along the way and thinks about Syd and how he’s making something not in a timed challenge, but it takes hours of devotion for this kind of love.

He doesn’t always get it right because the flavors turn different and his fine-dining tricks don’t work here.

But it pays off when Syd tells him that it’s perfect.

I've seen a lot of pitchfork and torches concerning Donna's arc and I want to chat about it....

I think the show isn’t asking has donna earned forgiveness or redemption, it’s asking can a person who has caused profound harm become honest abou ti? Which are different questions.  Donna’s arc in season 4 and especially in her conversation with her children doesn’t erase decades of emotional abuse. Her children still carry the consequences.

Carmy has panic attacks, Natalie lives in a constant state of hypervigilance, mikey’s dead, and Richie, even though he’s not her bio child was shaped by that chaotic family system as well.  The trauma remains.

I think what does change Is Donna. I think for the first time, she stops defending herself. People with severe emotional dysregulation, whether related to a borderline personality disorder, substance use, trauma etc often spend years trapped in shame. Shame can paradoxically make accountability harder because admitting wrongdoing feels mentally traumatic and impossible. Instead, people rationalize, deny, blame, or make themselves the victim.  Which, if you’ve watched since fishes…classic Donna.

As the show progresses, Donna starts to do something that is very difficult. She starts to tolerate the shame. She acknowledges that she hurt her children without demanding that they make her feel better, which is a significant shift in the stages of change. If we remember season 4 where she apologized for the harm she caused Carmen. The silence between them was proof of that change. If we compare it to the fishes episode where she was blaming and accusing Carmy of not loving her etc.

I’ve worked with a lot of people in recovery. I’ve worked with a lot of donnas and even adult children of someone like donna.  Recovery is measured by whether the person has accepted responsibility with excuses. Allowed other people to be angry. Respected boundaries. Grieved the harm they had caused. Chose different behaviors moving forward.

Those are simply the markers of change, not proof that damage is undone.

We extend grace to Carmy because we’ve watched his internal suffering. We know why he shuts people out. We understand his anxiety. His perfectionism. His trauma. Yet Carmy also hurt people repeatedly.

So, the same question would apply: does Carmy deserve redemption? I mean the answer is obvious but it’s easier to say yes because carmy’s pain is witnessed from the inside while we’ve mostly experienced Donna through her children’s perspective. Empathy naturally follows pov. We get Carmy’s nervous system because the camera lives with him. We don’t spend nearly as much time inside Donna’s head.

That doesn’t mean Donna deserves automatic forgiveness. Forgiveness belongs entirely to her children, and they may never choose it. Reconciliation isn’t owed to someone simply because they’ve changed. But redemption, in the moral sense, isn’t something another person grants. It’s something a person pursues through sustained accountability.

That’s why I don’t see Donna as redeemed, so much as beginning redemption. She’s finlally walking the path rather than asking everyone else to pretend nothing happened.

I think the bear has resisted simplistic, moral categories. It doesn’t divide characters into good or bad people instead, it asks how trauma moves through families. Donna passed her pain to her children. Carmy, in turn, begins passing his pain to the people who love and work with him. The cycle only breaks when someone becomes willing to look honestly at themselves.

To be up front: I have never found myself able to extend grace or have much empathy for abusive parents. And I'm really not saying this as a moral superiority stand, I know I'm deeply bias in this topic, so I think that's something to evaluate. Not even this fictional parents have complex emotional issues or elements of their personality that they later outgrew, most of the time I’ll be rooting for the kids (victims) to decide to heal on their own. The book ‘kids of emotionally immature parents’ was my guide in my own process with a parent like this.

Your comparison between Donna and Carmy did made me think on how I see Donnas “tantrums” vs Carm’s “tantrums.” is easy to see Carmen as a scared child reacting to a stressful environment expecting to be attacked. While I saw Donna as someone enforcing her power for her own sake. I guess that's also me projecting my own parent into Donna. She is a lot different. But, as the show established, Donna was also a scared child once. And even if that's not justification, as you said, that's how trauma lives on. But also, Carmen was always established as compassionate and willing to help others in his most sober moments. While Donna was established (and still is) coded as a bigot in many ways. But again, this is not so much about morality. Is guess it was easier for me to imagine Donna inside this box where she never learned to consider other’s feelings.

Sometimes when I write about this show, I can feel my own resentment giving me a very white/black perspective. Even if I do believe kids don't owe their parents any grace, your post and evaluation of the situation did address all my concerns about how all of it was depicted. It made me realize I was kinda missing the forest for the trees.

I do deeply appreciate this part:

Carmy has panic attacks, Natalie lives in a constant state of hypervigilance, mikey’s dead.

Because yes, that's very present still. That's what they are living trought right now. That's the context in which any grace has to be given for Donna. And the show only opens the door to it, as you said.

There is also this:

Recovery is measured by whether the person has accepted responsibility with excuses. Allowed other people to be angry. Respected boundaries. Grieved the harm they had caused. Chose different behaviors moving forward.

I think this is where my main issue still resides: that I would had preferred a momentary separation between Donna and her children, even with the promise and hope of change in the horizon. To be fair, the series takes the time to show her children trying to “keep a safe distance” from her. But just for me to actually believe she was putting the well-being on her children before her own (specially as she is aware or beggining to be aware of her actions) I would loved to see her respect those boundaries. To approach the reconciliation in their terms only. Is difficult for me not to assume she is still using her kids as self regulation, including reconciling with them.

But I love how you worded all of this, how whatever grace is extended to Donna is gonna depend solely on her children. I guess them jumping to forgive her without any distance made me believe (watching it for the first time) that they forgave her and included her in their life under a sense of their own “responsibility” towards her. When Carmy said “I'm sorry I wasn't here” it felt like he felt like he failed her still. Like he did something wrong when he was actively running away from her. And I would have loved the show to give Carmen the space to heal away from her specially cause I don't think they his suicide ideation were given a more cathartic focus, considering mikey's suicide is what started the show and the dramatic question of this story. Thought I guess they wanted Carmy to heal that deep sense of unworthiness with Sydney and his team instead of with Donna. Which is also deeply realistic to me. A relationship with Donna (or the lack of it) is not meant to heal them. The team and the creation of new things, the love, that's what is helping them heal.

I also really agree with what you said about the importance of boundaries. Recovery isn't just about insight; it's about consistently respecting the boundaries of the people you've harmed. If someone wanted more distance between Donna and her children before any reconciliation, I think that's a completely valid reading of the story.

What I love is that you landed on what I think the show is ultimately saying: Donna's healing doesn't erase what happened, and it doesn't heal her children. Carmy's healing comes through building something different, with Sydney, the restaurant, and the family he chooses to create. Whether Donna is allowed into that future is entirely up to her children, and that's where their agency finally begins.

She leaves. He doesn’t want her to. He doesn’t pressure her to come back, but promises a lot of stuff.

That was the first indication to me he’s not horrible.

Like, he gets what he did with his own family thrown back in his face in S1.

“If that’s what you’ve got for me, that’s what I’ve got for you.”

The Molly Ringwald cameo in S1 and her saying she was her husband’s accomplice and made it worse (like Donna admits she did), but also it’s foreshadowing.

But Syd lets him fully crash out in S3 and protects Tina and she also says she’s not his babysitter. She holds out and doesn’t sign the partnership agreement.

This will all pass Carmy by if he doesn’t change his behavior. So he changes his behavior because he sees how Syd navigated it and she should be in control.

The idea that his family can do these AA meetings to death (the show makes it clear Lee sees right through it in Bears).

Donna having a written list of all her crimes is of a very certainly white Christian shaming variety of therapy.

She makes a list of her flaws and shames and never asks Carmy how he feels when she does it he’s just shown having to receive it.

Donna also gets uncomfortable with Syd trying to relate to her about loving restaurants.

Donna is not a safe person.

Where I see it differently is with Donna. I don't think her story is meant to replace Syd's role or suggest she's suddenly become a safe person. I don't think those are the same dynamic at all.

Donna's storyline is about recovery. Carmy's storyline is about healing.

One thing i'll push back on is this: "Donna having a written list of all her crimes is of a very certain white Christian shaming variety of therapy."

A written inventory of harms isn't uniquely "white Christian." It's a recognizable part of recovery traditions like AA (Yes. I know what the foundations of AA is based in but not all meetings are christian based...most aren't in this modern times), and similar reflective exercises exist in many evidence-based therapeutic approaches. Whether someone likes AA, is a separate discussion, but the practice of writing down harms and taking inventory isn't inherently religious or shame-based. it's intended to move a person from denial toward responsibility, provided it leads to genuine accountability rather than self-flagellation.

The list Donna makes immediately reminded me of recovery work. Whether it's AA, trauma treatment, or other forms of therapy, taking a moral inventory and identifying the people you've harmed is a real intervention. It's not the end of accountability, and it's certainly not the same thing as making amends.

In fact, one of the principles of recovery is that amends are made in ways that don't cause further harm. Walking up to someone and unloading your guilt isn't necessarily an amends.

I also don't think the show is asking us to see Donna as emotionally safe. She's clearly not. Even in recovery, she's awkward, dysregulated at times, and still struggles to connect. The scene with Sydney actually reinforces that for me. Donna isn't magically healed.

What I think the show is trying to show is something different: a woman who has finally stopped denying what she did and is beginning to face it.

As a therapist, one of the most common things I hear from adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional parents is, "I just wanted my parent to acknowledge what happened." Not because that fixes everything, but because accountability matters when it comes to healing.

Syd is the person teaching Carmy how healthy attachment works in the present. Donna is the person finally looking at the damage she caused in the past. Those aren't competing stories, they're different parts of the same family's journey.