What happened to Donna Berzatto on Christmas?
"The Bear," a captivating series that’s quickly turning heads, offered viewers a hauntingly raw and impactful episode in Season 2, Episode 6, aptly named "Fishes". Set amidst the chaos of an Italian family’s Christmas Eve dinner, "Fishes" presents a turbulent tapestry of familial relationships, entrenched traditions, and escalating tensions. One particular relationship and tradition — that between Carmy Berzatto, our protagonist, and his mother, Donna Berzatto — is especially poignant. It’s centered around the preparation of the traditional Italian "Seven Fishes" holiday meal, a laborious annual endeavor that seems to serve as Donna's undoing.
At the heart of the Berzatto family's Christmas Eve tradition is the painstakingly prepared "Seven Fishes" dinner. The meal is a symbol of Donna's Herculean efforts to keep her family together, functioning as both a tether that binds the Berzatto clan and a ticking time bomb that amplifies their dysfunctions. In her zealous efforts to uphold this tradition, Donna teeters on the precipice of mental and emotional exhaustion, her struggle amplified by her alcohol addiction and the looming specter of a question asked repeatedly by her daughter, Sugar — "Are you OK?" The question, innocent on the surface, serves as a trigger, a catalyst for emotional and literal disaster.
The weight of tradition, the labor of love that goes into the "Seven Fishes" dinner, is an essential part of Donna's identity. Yet it’s also her downfall. The preparation of the Christmas Eve feast, a recurring event in Donna's life, becomes an annual rite of descent into madness. It’s a testament to the pressures she experiences as a matriarch burdened by the dysfunctional dynamics of her family. The toll is visible in her escalating erratic behavior, climaxing with the literal dismantling of the family home when she drives through the living room.
Why does this annual ritual of preparing the Christmas Eve meal drive Donna insane? To understand this, we need to delve deeper into the symbolism of the "Seven Fishes" tradition. Each fish represents a facet of Donna's relationship with her family — the love, the sacrifice, the responsibility, the fear, the frustration, the bitterness, and the despair. The annual preparation is not just a culinary exercise, but an emotional ordeal — an attempt to mend broken connections, to soothe old wounds, and to keep the fraying fabric of her family intact.
With each passing year, the strain of this endeavor becomes more apparent, pushing Donna closer to the edge. The question "Are you OK?" asked repeatedly by her daughter becomes an ironic reflection of her steadily declining emotional state. Donna's desperation to hold onto her family, to enforce a sense of unity through tradition, results in a negative feedback loop that drives her to her breaking point.
It's interesting to see how the series explores Donna's personal trajectory through the seemingly innocuous act of preparing a holiday meal. Through the lense of the "Seven Fishes" preparation, we see Donna as a tragic figure — a mother trying her best to keep her family together despite the cost to her own mental health. It's a heartbreaking commentary on how traditions, meant to bind families together, can sometimes become a burden that drives them apart.
What "Fishes" presents is a complex interplay between tradition, family, and mental health, deeply entrenched in the pressures of fulfilling societal roles. Donna's meltdown is a powerful reminder of the human cost of maintaining appearances and upholding traditions. It prompts us to question whether the adherence to such traditions is worth the strain they place on our mental health. After all, what's a tradition worth if it becomes a trigger for disaster rather than a source of joy and unity?
In the end, "Fishes" leaves us with a profound question: Can we break free from these harmful cycles? Can we redefine our traditions and our relationships to be more understanding, more supportive, and more forgiving? Perhaps, future episodes of "The Bear" will help us find the answer.
