Untitled

In "Violet" Adam Shapiro approaches Syd at the train station, he tells her he shouldn't tell her this but he snuck into the Bear. Syd notes that he did this without connecting to Carmy, which we later understand is kind of weird because they worked together at Ever for a long time.

And then he praises what he describes as Syd's scallop, while kind of talking shit about Carmy at the same time. OK.

The scallop appears on the expo tickets the weeks of June 7 and June 22. So he was there one of those weeks. And he makes no overtures to Carmy about his new restaurant between then and late July when he first seeks out Sydney.

And we can't see it from the cloud of non-information we are getting, but Adam is almost certainly accosting Sydney right when he gets advance notice of Chef Terry's retirement, before it becomes public.

let me give a snapshot of my current life.

I work for a husband and wife ec team. when i met one of my roommates, i assumed her boyfriend lived here. to the point that during orientation with HR they said oh you've met [boyfriend], my other roommate's boyfriend works for the company and buys groceries for the house and insists on cooking for us and we know we can all have food whenever, when chefs ask servers to get my coffee order for me it's someone that knows me well enough to make it perfectly. i've asked for my order once and now it's solidified through the ranks and is presented when i get a certain look on my face, and by someone i live with or someone who knows who i live with. what else? uh my first day of work the chef i worked with knew exactly who i lived with, in which suite of the house, where i'd worked before and had a lot of my preferences already established. i can leave knives at work and someone will go sharpen them for me. i work with a couple that is a very dynamic duo and often guides my work and helps me get through the day. a couple i knew from a couple kitchens ago keeps in touch and is helping me with a certification.

Where does their day begin? Carmy making this woman breakfast after they continued "talking" into tomorrow after "Goodbye."

But as is his literal job in the narrative, the Obstacle (as Ebon Moss-Bacharach once explained), Richie calls before they can leave for work together. He needs someone to pick him up from the hospital bc he got hit by a van in the rain. So the show can plausibly begin the morning after on a topic other than "Sydney & Carmy" bc "Richie could have died!!!" is the more important crisis.

Season 1, episode 2 starts with a scene of Carmy and Chef Fields and some hapless baby chef with a broken sauce, all in New York City. The cookware is fancy copper stuff. It's clean and high-strung and gourmet. Carmy is being psychologically tortured but you can see that the work is very high level. He is a chef prince in New York City.

Cut to: Appalling sandwich shop in Chicago. Everything is still chaos and filth.

Cut to: The gang is cleaning the kitchen after service.

Sydney is cleaning the range hood, which is probably a greasy sticky mess that hasn't been cleaned in years. You can see that her arm is aching from reaching up for a long period of time.

The first lines in this scene are an exchange between Syd and Carm.

Sydney: Chef, do you want me to strain that oil for you?

Carmy: No, no, I got it. Thank you, Chef.

I have never worked in a kitchen but I worked in movie theater once and cleaning the butter machine was the worst job. You feel like you'll never be clean after cleaning up rancid oil and grease. It's just sticky and a pain in the ass.

She is fully volunteering for a couple of the worst cleaning jobs in that kitchen. She's not delegating to Richie or Sweeps or Manny or Angel. She's putting herself at the top of the signup sheet. To be fair she is still staging but she's the only other trained chef in the restaurant besides Carmy.

But when she volunteers, he, chef prince of New York City and apparently unequivocally one of the best and most acclaimed chefs in the country if not the world, immediately responds "no baby don't worry about it I'll do that for you, you're too pretty for such things" 😂

She will do anything for his horrible restaurant.

He will do anything to make her happy.