When editor Joanna Naugle first tackled the “Fishes” episode of The Bear, she said she received a specific instruction from series creator Christopher Storer and music supervisor Josh Senior: “It should feel like a pot of water that
bring to the boil and then boil over at the end.”

That was the emotional origin story of one of the FX comedy’s most ambitious, star-studded and Emmy-nominated episodes. The second-season episode is one of the most nominated single episodes in Emmy history, with separate nominations for directing, writing, editing, costumes, hair and makeup. That’s in addition to best actor nominations for Jon Bernthal, Bob Odenkirk and Jamie Lee Curtis, who all submitted the episode in the guest actor category. The nine nominations come for an episode that revolves entirely around a Christmas dinner that goes horribly wrong, thanks in large part to Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis), the mentally unstable mother of Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sugar (Abby Elliott).

It was important to Naugle that the episode felt “claustrophobic and intense” but also “alive,” as if the viewer was watching this family’s home movies. The editor made sure that music was always playing and that viewers could hear conversations from the next room to add to the sense of chaos. Almost all of the footage shot for “Fishes” ended up in the final cut, save for some improvised scenes by the Fak brothers (Matty Matheson and Ricky Staffieri) and a moment with Michael (Bernthal).

“Every time we come back into the kitchen and are with Donna, it should feel like we’ve turned the intensity and stress up a couple notches,” Naugle said. “That’s a big part of the holiday experience: balancing all of these different emotions, feeling overwhelmed by all of that, and having trouble juggling them all at the same time.”

This fear was reflected in the characters’ appearance, especially in Curtis’ portrayal of Donna. “She tries very hard to keep up appearances,” said Ally Vickers, head of hair. To capture this aura,
Vickers styled Donna’s manicured hair in the spirit of a woman who goes to the hairdresser “monthly or weekly.”

Costume designer Courtney Wheeler chose elegant but worn pieces for Curtis to convey that Donna was “someone who had money at one point, got it fast and lost it fast.” She also made Donna look “a little bit sexy” as a nod to her relationship with Uncle Lee (Bob Odenkirk), a relationship that is a sore spot in this family. Head of makeup department Ignacia Soto-Aguilar used eyeliner and false eyelashes to signal that this is a woman who cares about her appearance.

Once this picture-perfect version of Donna was created, all three teams were careful to make sure her deterioration looked natural. That meant making very minor adjustments. “As the episode progresses, her buttons come down a little bit,” Wheeler said. “You might see a little bra cut. There’s pasta sauce splattering everywhere, she’s all over her shirt.”

The team put just as much effort into designing the other characters in the episode. For example, Soto-Aguilar’s team had a tattoo timeline for Carmy in this episode that flashed back to five years before
most of the second season. White’s makeup was also less red and his hair was a little longer to show that he is a little younger and less stressed. The hair team even dyed Sugar’s hair brown for this episode before dyeing it blonde again a week later. It’s a small decision that shows that Sugar cares about her appearance, just like her mother. On the other hand, Sugar’s bright lip color, which remains perfect throughout the episode, becomes a sign of her distinct emotional state.

“Donna’s makeup is getting worse and worse, just less done,” Soto-Aguilar said. “With Sugar, I made sure her lips stayed the same. It’s almost like she’s trying to cover up what’s going on.”

One of the biggest challenges for everyone involved in “Fishes” was the long list of guest stars, which includes Oliver Platt, Gillian Jacobs, John Mulaney and Sarah Paulson. Wheeler noted that the goal was to
The audience feels like they already know these characters when they appear on screen. “Carmy, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Sugar – the people we know best in the room – become supporting characters,” Naugle said. “You have all these big personalities coming in and they’re famous actors, and they suck up all the oxygen in the room in a great way. With Sugar and Carmy, you’re really shown why they are the way they are.”

Another difficult task was Bernthal’s Michael. “The Bear” begins after Michael’s suicide, and throughout the series, his memory haunts the Berzatto family. While the rest of the family dresses up for the Feast of the Seven Fishes, Wheeler puts Bernthal in Michael’s “good underarmor” to signal his worries.

Originally, “Fishes” was planned to feature a scene in which Michael either takes pills or looks at a pill bottle, but after seeing Bernthal’s “heartbreaking” performance, Naugle decided to cut the scene and take a “more subtle” approach.

“He comes across as a brave, confident, amazing person. But just beneath the surface is a broken person,” Naugle said. “We really tried to find footage of him breaking through the facade a little bit.”

The tension of “Fishes” reaches its peak in the final 20 minutes, as everyone sits down at the dinner table. Between Michael threatening to throw a fork at his mother’s boyfriend and Donna’s breakdown, Naugle knew this one-room scene would be the emotional core of the episode. She took inspiration from another TV dinner scene—the season two premiere of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag”—and focused on reaction shots to
this potentially stagnant scene feels “alive.”

“Everyone in this room has been to a lot of these dinners,” Naugle said. “Everyone is just waiting for something to go wrong. So when you see everyone uncomfortable, it transfers to the audience. Seeing that on the faces of our incredibly talented cast makes it that much more intense.”

This story first appeared in Down to the Wire Comedy Series edition of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

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