Honeydew opens with obnoxious hammering and drilling. It’s seven weeks to opening, and the Original Beef is a mess. The construction schedule on the wall is filled with ominous messages like “Asbestos? Grease traps!” and “Stop using credit card.” Invoices are due, some overdue. The health inspector is coming, staff must take food safety courses, and somebody needs to call Tony.
Carmen and Sugar are locked in combat with this nightmare, hydra-like to-do list. The most daunting obstacle is not the construction, but rather paperwork and the bureaucratic maze they must navigate before The Bear can open.
Amidst this destruction, Sugar reveals her secret pregnancy to Carmen and accidentally to everyone else when a wall providing privacy collapses. (Richie: “I fuckin’ knew it!”)
The chaos of these first moments contrasts with the rest of the episode, which is peaceful, even zen. Instead of the relentless construction noise, we get a pleasant rendition of Holiday Road as Marcus emerges from Copenhagen’s obscenely clean subway. We swap the crack house aesthetic of The Original Beef with a sterile, library-like setting of the unnamed Copenhagen restaurant at which Marcus stages. Copenhagen itself is a charming European paradise where everything is in its place and appears to have been that way for centuries.
Before leaving for Copenhagen, Marcus visits his mother, who’s in home hospice care with a breathing tube in her neck. It’s unclear how lucid she is, but Marcus tells her about the hero’s quest he’s been given: to travel to Copenhagen, stage at a renowned restaurant, and then return after creating three desserts for The Bear. When Marcus kisses her goodbye, he notes her salty taste. A guy who notices people’s flavor is destined to be a chef. Or a cannibal. (Maybe season three takes an unexpected turn? Marcus, your meat pies are delicious!)
Marcus’s roommate, Chester, takes him to the airport. Marcus is crushing on Sydney, but he needs to take another look at Chester. Not only does Chester take him to the airport and walk him to the ticket counter (!!!), thereby showing up every boyfriend/husband ever, he also gives Marcus helpful travel advice (airplane mode is real and don’t talk about Ikea in Denmark). On top of this, he’s learned a few Danish words so that when Marcus returns, they will still be connected (?!). And even before Marcus asks, he’s already made plans to check on his mother on the way to work every morning. Yo, Marcus! You need to lock this good man down. Sydney will not love you like this. No one will love you like this.
Copenhagen is wonderfully European with its tree-lined parks, innumerable copper statues, rivers lined with gently bobbing boats, cyclists by the dozen, and cobblestone streets. Marcus’s Copenhagen is curiously empty of people. He seems to have the city mostly to himself.
At the fancy restaurant, which appears to be Noma, Marcus gets a crash course in desserts from Chef Luca (Will Poulter), who came up in the cooking world with Carmen. A sign hangs over a door, reminding us that “every second counts,” but there are very few time pressures in this kitchen. Showing only minor impatience, Luca allows Marcus the time to make mistakes as he learns to make elaborate desserts. Marcus uses tweezers to insert nut slivers into pudding, splatters melted chocolate on a plate before erecting a multicolored jelly tower, forms an egg-shaped quenelle with a spoon, and blooms Shiso gelee.
Even away from the restaurant, Marcus is studying desserts. He brings boxes of pastries to his houseboat and reverse engineers them, entering meticulous notes into his dessert dossier.
Luca warms to Marcus, and while portioning dough, they talk about their pasts and what brought them to cooking. Here, we get Marcus’s backstory. He played Division Three football as an outside linebacker, which paid for school but didn’t prepare him for anything else. He worked at a phone company for five years and then at McDonalds. Four years ago, his mother got sick, so Marcus needed a better job, and he began baking bread at The Original Beef. He also has a younger brother we haven’t seen.
Luca imparts secrets to becoming a great chef. First, make a lot of mistakes and learn from them. (Marcus: “That’s the secret? Just fuck up?”) Second, find a better chef and just try to keep up. Luca had done this with Carmen, to whom he had been Scottie Pippen to his Michael Jordan. By trying to keep up with him, Luca became a better chef than he had imagined possible. Third, technique and skill are important, but ultimately, inspiration matters more. Marcus welcomes this advice since he approaches cooking like an artist and lacks a formal culinary education.
Marcus asks if Luca’s 14 years of cooking have been worth it, and Luca admits he doesn’t know. This is the final secret of cooking he reveals to Marcus. Cooking at the highest levels, at the best restaurants, is not enough to sustain you; it can be lonely. In a world where every second counts, you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, away from family and friends. In Marcus’s brief time in Copenhagen, he interacts with almost no one. He doesn’t meet Marie, the owner of the houseboat where he is staying, or any staff at the restaurant, which should be teeming with other chefs and servers. Marcus doesn’t interact with locals. We see him sitting alone on riverside benches or taking solitary walks across bridges and through parks. He doesn’t even see Coco, the houseboat cat for whom he leaves out fresh water every day. (Marcus: “I don’t think there actually is a fucking cat.”)
It’s not until Marcus chances upon a drunk Dane trapped under a fence pleading for “hjaelp!” that he realizes the extent of his isolation. When the Dane gratefully embraces Marcus, he realizes no one has hugged or even touched him during his time in Copenhagen. Marcus Facetimes Fak and Sydney and leaves voicemails for his mom, but this is not nearly enough. Marcus needs to be surrounded by loved ones like Chester, his mother, and the staff of The Bear. He needs to connect with people. He can’t live like an ascetic monk-chef.
Where is this honeydew referenced in the episode’s title? I would guess it’s that green puck Marcus is roasting with a blowtorch in the final scene. Does honeydew taste good like that? Does it pair with caviar and the green quenelle? Beats me. The important thing is that at the start of the episode, Marcus didn’t have the technical ability or confidence to make this dessert. This final scene confirms his transformation into a capable chef.
Observations I couldn’t shoehorn anywhere:
While interviewing kitchen staff, Sydney talks to the guy who ends up sneaking off mid-shift to enjoy a little meth in the final episode. He’s noticeably twitchy, but Sydney hires him on the spot, betraying the first rule of HR: don’t hire tweakers.
The episode’s funniest line comes when Sydney comments on Marcus’s reverence for Coach K: “Why are you saying his name like it’s Martin Luther King Jr. He’s like a college basketball coach.”
On Carmen and Sugar’s to-do list at the beginning of the episode, “Terry,” a reference to Chef Terry, is circled. Although Richie isn’t sent off to stage at her restaurant until episode 7, Carmen’s plans are already in motion.
Carmen asks Sugar if she’s okay twice before she admits her secret pregnancy to him. Apparently, in this episode, it’s fine to ask people if they’re okay repeatedly. In episode 6, Fishes, these words trigger the matriarch of the family (Jamie Lee Curtis!), sending her into a final, astounding meltdown.