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Carmy's need to borrow from Cicero
- Carmy is established as, if not quite a celebrity chef, at least someone who's well known in the world of haute cuisine. So wouldn't he be able to raise money from legitimate investors with an interest in fine dining, rather than having to rely on his borderline Loan Shark uncle?
- He's not relying on Cicero. He's paying back the huge loans that his brother took from Cicero. As for the investors, if he wanted to open a new fine dining restaurant, that's one thing. Asking them to invest in a small sandwich shop in Chicago that's barely scraping by is another.
Richie's daughter's age
- Sydney asks Richie how old his daughter is. He replies, "Five … like Carmy." Does that mean she is much older than five, but he sees her as a small child to look after, like Carmy, or does that mean she is actually five, and he thinks Carmy is childish?
- At that point, Richie had been previously reminiscing about Carmy's childhood, and was likely still thinking about it. Richie definitely thinks of Carmy as "young", especially because he is now in charge, no matter his actual age.
- Alternative, Richie is simply calling Carmy childish.
What was Michael doing with his soup can money?
- When we discover that Michael has been squirreling away huge amounts of cash he's been getting from Cicero, it's treated as though it's a positive moment and a turning point for Carmy. But doesn't this just mean that all Michael did was get a loan and transfer it to Carmy?
- The exact amount is unclear, but it's possible Carmy has enough to pay off Cicero, or be comfortable enough to redo the restaurant to be more successful, or possibly both. Given Cicero's lack of aggression about getting his money back, a large lump sum would probably keep him satisfied for a while.
- Also note, Cicero and Carmy were both puzzled what exactly Michael did with the money, since he obviously hadn't used it to repair The Beef or build his dream restaurant, The Bear. It may be revealed later that he knew he wouldn't have been able to turn The Beef around, and planned to commit suicide, but had to put away enough money for Carmy to build The Bear after he was gone.
Who owns The Bear's property?
- Michael took out a loan for several hundred thousand with Cicero to keep the Beef afloat. But in the second season, we learn that Carmy owns the property that the Beef is located in, so presumably Michael owned the property before him and bequeathed it along with the business. As I recall, Cicero says the property is recently appraised at $700k, way down from its original value of $2 million because it's now in poor repair. But even at that current price, why did Michael need to take out a loan with Cicero to get cash? Why didn't he just take money out of his property? A mortgage would surely have a much lower interest rate than a loan shark loan, even from one in the family.
- Cicero isn't a loan shark, he's a family friend who lent Michael money. Michael probably went the Cicero route specifically because they have that bond and Cicero would likely be more amenable to going easy on Carmy and give him time to find his footing and revitalize the restaurant. A bank wouldn't be as sympathetic and probably would seize the property at the earliest opportunity to sort out the debt.
