Dr. Claire Dunlap, called Claire Bear, was a
medical resident when she was introduced in the
season two episode "
Pasta" and has become "one of the show's most divisive characters."
Richie (
Ebon Moss-Bachrach) told Claire's friend and roommate
Kelly (
Mitra Jouhari) at the soft launch of the restaurant that he and Claire "grew up together." Carmy knows Claire's cousins Big Denny and Mac. (Denny is dead.) Richie and
Mikey (
Jon Bernthal) knew that Carmy had a crush on Claire in high school, based on finding sketches of her in Carmy's notebooks, and they "used to give [him] shit about it."
Cousin Stevie (
John Mulaney) told Carmy that Claire, who was back then still in
medical school, that "this woman teaches
CPR to
differently abled college kids." A relationship between the Carmy and Claire develops over the course of season two, after a chance encounter in the freezer section of a supermarket brings them back into each other's orbit. Carmy initially withholds himself, telling her his phone number but changing the last digit, but, as retold in a study of The Bear's cinematic urbanism, "Offering a respite and a distraction from the restaurant, Carmen's romance with Claire develops outside this space...Their relationship is further complicated by Carmen's entire family's awareness of his years-long infatuation with Claire. Other characters' knowing looks combined with the claustrophobic chaos of the restaurant renovation chase Carmen and Claire on a car journey out of the city, followed by an adventure at a house party. The episode teases what Carmen's life would be like if he detached himself from the memories as he misrepresents himself to the other guests at the party. However, the bittersweet relationship is doomed from the start. Their few scenes together are sequestered to the semi-darkness of Carmen's flat, previously a site of exhaustion and nightmares." Claire attended the May 2023 soft launch of the Bear restaurant at the invitation of Carmy, with Kelly as her plus one. After service was over, she was told Carmy had gotten locked inside the walk-in fridge, which had a broken door handle. She entered the kitchen just in time to overhear a Carmy rant intended for
Tina (
Liza Colón-Zayas), and she said she was sorry to hear that and walked away, giving Richie a forlorn goodbye kiss on the way out of the kitchen. Carmy then
ghosted Claire (never called or texted). As one BuzzFeed writer put it in the lead-up to season four, "Claire Bear, you better not forgive Carmy until he comes correct with an apology. After Carmy destroy[ed] their relationship with an accidental freezer room confession in season 2, Claire kind of fades to the background in
season 3. However, we last saw her working at the hospital and being visited by Neil and [Ted] Fak, who try to convince her to get back with Carmy. Give it a rest guys!" When interviewed after the release of season three, Ebon Moss-Bachrach suggested that Claire ought to leave the relationship in the past: "I would tell Claire to probably distance herself...Like, he has no personal life, and he lives and dies for the restaurant. He doesn't really seem like boyfriend material to me?" In September 2023, in the season four episode "
Scallop," an after-midnight, front-step apology led to an apparent rapprochement. Substream magazine suggested that the apology might have been too little too late to restore the romance: "It was never going to be that easy for Carmy and Claire to come back togethermonths had gone by before he apologized. Even then, Carmy takes a long time actually to say the words." Claire was working at the same hospital where Sydney's dad
Emmanuel Adamu (
Robert Townsend) was treated for a
first-degree heart block in season four. She listened while Syd (
Ayo Edebiri) poured her heart out about her dad and her life circumstances generally. Following the release of season four, a Collider columnist wrote, "
The Bear has been pushing Carmy and Claire's romance from her very first appearance, even though the relationship just doesn't have the spark that many of
The Bear's other potential romantic pairings do. All that Carmy and Claire have going for them is off-camera history. On-camera, though, their conversations all feel surface-level, and the deeper moments of confession from Carmy don't feel earned...Carmy's relationship with Claire seems to represent the past, while his relationship with Sydney represents the future." Miscelana magazine felt differently, arguing that the distance between Carmy and Claire stalls the narrative progression: "Claire, the sweet and idealized love of Carmy’s life, isn't in a rush to jump back into the melodrama. And the show respects that: Claire stays away. But her absence lingers. Their relationship, even in silence, was the emotional counterbalance to the chaos." == Development ==