‘The Bear’: How Season 2 Explains Those Tomato Cans Filled With Money

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for FX’s The Bear Season 2, Episode 1, “Beef.”]

The Bear is back and answering one of Season 1’s biggest lingering questions in the Season 2 premiere episode, “Beef.”

As viewers may recall, the finale installment from the FX show’s freshman run saw promising young chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) uncover wads of cash hidden within several tomato cans stocked in the storage room. He was pushed to open the cans after uncovering his brother Michael’s (Jon Bernthal) final letter to him, which included a recipe for spaghetti and the motivational words, “Let it rip!”

Carmy certainly let it rip as he and his team at the Beef opened up the cans and collected the cash, but viewers never really knew where it came from, only that Mike stashed it away and designated it in his books as “KBL.”

(Credit: FX/Hulu)

In the Season 2 premiere episode, viewers finally understand how Mike’s parting gift came to be as Carmy descends the stairs into the restaurant’s basement for a conversation with cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). On the shelves, we catch a glimpse of the canning equipment Mike must have used to open the tomatoes and reseal them with the money inside.

As for “KBL,” an explanation comes when Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Nat (Abby Elliott), and Carmy sit down with “Uncle Jimmy” (Oliver Platt) to discuss investment in their new restaurant, The Bear. In Season 1, Jimmy mentioned that he’d loaned Mike $250,000 and that it had gone missing. Realizing that the money belonged to Jimmy, Carmy and the gang wanted to proposition him to invest it in their business along with a little extra cash.

Seeking an answer to the KBL mystery of it all, Carmy asks Jimmy what it means. “Kalinowski, me. Berzatto, you. Layne, Lee,” Jimmy responds.

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“Lee? Who’s Lee?” Carmy asks, wondering about the third person involved. “Uncle Lee Layne,” Nat chimes in.

“Oof. That’s not our uncle,” Carmy points out. Nat’s quick to also point out to her brother, “Yeah, well, Richie’s not your cousin.”

As the season carries on, we later learn who Lee is, but to say so now would be too big of a spoiler. Either way, the KBL and tomato can mystery has been solved, letting fans focus on more important matters as Season 2 unfolds. Don’t miss it for yourself; catch The Bear‘s second season as it streams in full on Hulu. And let us know your thoughts about the solved tomato can mystery below.

FX’s The Bear, Season 2, Streaming now, Hulu