Tech
Haunted no more: Season 4 of The Bear confronts its ghosts
Since its debut in 2022, The Bear has been a haunted show. The ghosts aren't paranormal visitors but a collection of regrets, fears, and traumas as diverse as the series' many characters. Each individual is trailed by a destructive shadow, ready to sabotage any progress toward being a less dysfunctional person.
Sometimes the haunting is an attempt at a pressure-relieving punchline; sometimes it's just a gut-punch. Either way, the way characters grapple with their never-quite-buried losses deftly teach the audience something about the trajectory of heartbreak, the punishing nature of anxiety, depression, and addiction, and what it takes to heal.
Still, Season 3 pushed the conceit of haunting to its limit, leaning into a repetitive emotional deadlock over the course of 10 episodes. The audience watched as chef Carmy Berzatto, played by Jeremey Allen White, remained stuck in his head, and mired in memories of working for an abusive boss.
But Season 4 delivers the audience from this psychological spiral, and not just for Carmy.
Beyond Carmy's determined effort to make space for other people's feelings — hell, even their existence — numerous characters get a meaningful chance to confront the ghosts that haunt them.
An avoidant Syd (Ayo Edebiri) makes the decision (and the phone call) she's been dreading. Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) figures out his place in his own family as Tiff (Gillian Jacobs) marries Frank (Josh Hartnett). He also gets the chance to tell Carmy about the guilt he felt when Mikey (Jon Bernthal) died by suicide. Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) makes a tearful apology to Carmy for decades of parental neglect, among other regrets.
Opportunities like these become key to the characters' healing, masterfully revealing how recovery from addiction, trauma, and emotional damage is possible.
Kassi Diwa-Kite, a licensed marriage and family therapist at BetterHelp who has watched all four seasons of The Bear, told Mashable that the series' latest outing "absolutely" felt less haunted. She says that's primarily because the characters are slowly embracing their personal and professional identities, which requires self-awareness and emotional regulation they didn't previously possess. She adds that the characters develop a curiosity about themselves and the patterns they seek to break that ultimately empowers them.
As a result, "that hauntedness has to start sliding away because they're coming more into themselves," says Diwa-Kite.
Not every character goes on the same journey as Carmy, Syd, Donna, and Richie. Mashable's Belen Edwards makes the convincing case that Season 4 failed Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), who is mostly seen trying to cook a certain pasta dish in under three minutes.
Whether or not this makes for critically-acclaimed television is also a concern. Some critics felt Season 4 still stalled in terms of narrative momentum and lacked urgency, even if it was an improvement on the show's third installment.
Yet watching key players each chart a unique, if not straightforward, path toward happiness and redemption remains special to behold. It all happens in a world absent of therapy- and wellness-speak, too. There's nothing wrong with those conventions; they help countless people inch toward recovery every day. Still, there's something simple and relatable about Carmy's refrain throughout Season 4: "I'm trying."
After three seasons of focusing only on what he can accomplish in the kitchen, Carmy slogs through being fully present in his life, visibly uncomfortable with finding and saying the words people need to hear. He stutters and staggers, but manages to make progress.
Carmy shows up on Claire's (Molly Gordon) doorstep months after having literally ghosted her early in their romantic relationship. Pressed on why he became so fearful of intimacy, he finally blurts out an apology.
When Carmy realizes in a separate scene that it took weeks for him to meet his newborn niece, he more calmly summons an apology to his sister Sugar (Abby Elliott) for failing to show up.
Diwa-Kite particularly appreciated Carmy's arc in Season 4 because the character begins to make the connections that have long eluded him: He escaped to culinary school after growing up with an absent father and a mother addicted to alcohol, then found himself in an abusive professional relationship. Now that he wants a different future, it might not look pretty or feel easy.
"Recovery from trauma is going to be clumsy."
– Kassi Diwa-Kite, licensed marriage and family therapist at BetterHelp
"Recovery from trauma is going to be clumsy," Diwa-Kite says, noting that she appreciated how the show depicts Carmy's process. "Just let it be messy. That's where the healing is happening."
While Season 4 is full of moments in which characters makes more fulfilling, grounded choices, there is perhaps none as beautiful as the scene that unfolds when Richie and Tiff's daughter, Eva (Annabelle Toomey), hides under a large table during the celebration of her mother's marriage to Frank.
Afraid to dance with Frank in front of an audience of adults, she refuses to come out. Soon every major character — and some minor ones, too — find themselves under the table with Eva, sharing their fears, one-by-one. Carmy admits that his is the "opposite of chaos," and math. Richie gets a chuckle by saying his fear is artificial intelligence, specifically the Singularity. Frank confesses that he's afraid of heights.
On it goes like that, as many adults with a history of trauma reassure a little girl about whom they care deeply that it's normal to feel fear.
"There was so much healing that you could see among all of those adults."
– Kassi Diwa-Kite, licensed marriage and family therapist at BetterHelp
"There was so much healing that you could see among all of those adults," Diwa-Kite says.
The episode, entitled "Bears," is an unexpected bookend to Season 2's "Fishes," which depicted another family gathering that couldn't be more different.
"Fishes" was a tense hourlong observation of family dysfunction and the toll that it takes on everyone it touches. "Bears" demonstrates how loving relationships, even when they're imperfect, can sustain people who otherwise feel broken, and can possibly achieve generational healing.
"If this were a real girl, imagine the core memory that was created for her in that moment," Diwa-Kite says of Eva. "She will remember that forever. She will draw on that experience forever."
The impromptu community that came together for Eva during that scene echoes an overarching theme of Season 4: People heal in community and through the relationships they've built, Diwa-Kite says.
None of this means that Season 5 will be easy-going for any of the characters.
Indeed, the final episode of Season 4 was fraught as Carmy, Syd, and Richie spent a half-hour arguing, in close-ups, over Carmy's imminent departure from the restaurant. Carmy says he wants to learn who he is when he's not trying to escape his pain. Richie and Syd, though, suspect he's running away — again.
Whether or not Carmy will truly find himself might seem like a gamble. But, then again, Carmy spent the season repairing the relationships that matter most to him rather than severing those ties, and seems more than ready to instead walk away from his proverbial ghosts.
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
We have five of them.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
SENSE
Hurdle Word 2 hint
Needed to brave the cold.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
PARKA
Hurdle Word 3 hint
To establish something.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
ENACT
Hurdle Word 4 hint
Courageous.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
BRAVE
Final Hurdle hint
Livid.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
ANGRY
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
This fall, hundreds of thousands of students will get free access to ChatGPT, thanks to a licensing agreement between their school or university and the chatbot's maker, OpenAI.
When the partnerships in higher education became public earlier this year, they were lauded as a way for universities to help their students familiarize themselves with an AI tool that experts say will define their future careers.
At California State University (CSU), a system of 23 campuses with 460,000 students, administrators were eager to team up with OpenAI for the 2025-2026 school year. Their deal provides students and faculty access to a variety of OpenAI tools and models, making it the largest deployment of ChatGPT for Education, or ChatGPT Edu, in the country.
But the overall enthusiasm for AI on campuses has been complicated by emerging questions about ChatGPT's safety, particularly for young users who may become enthralled with the chatbot's ability to act as an emotional support system.
Legal and mental health experts told Mashable that campus administrators should provide access to third-party AI chatbots cautiously, with an emphasis on educating students about their risks, which could include heightened suicidal thinking and the development of so-called AI psychosis.
"Our concern is that AI is being deployed faster than it is being made safe."
– Dr. Katie Hurley, JED
"Our concern is that AI is being deployed faster than it is being made safe," says Dr. Katie Hurley, senior director of clinical advising and community programming at The Jed Foundation (JED).
The mental health and suicide prevention nonprofit, which frequently consults with pre-K-12 school districts, high schools, and college campuses on student well-being, recently published an open letter to the AI and technology industry, urging it to "pause" as "risks to young people are racing ahead in real time."
ChatGPT lawsuit raises questions about safety
The growing alarm stems partly from death of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old who died by suicide in tandem with heavy ChatGPT use. Last month, his parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that their son's engagement with the chatbot ended in a preventable tragedy.
Raine began using the ChatGPT model 4o for homework help in September 2024, not unlike how many students will probably consult AI chatbots this school year.
He asked ChatGPT to explain concepts in geometry and chemistry, requested help for history lessons on the Hundred Years' War and the Renaissance, and prompted it to improve his Spanish grammar using different verb forms.
ChatGPT complied effortlessly as Raine kept turning to it for academic support. Yet he also started sharing his innermost feelings with ChatGPT, and eventually expressed a desire to end his life. The AI model validated his suicidal thinking and provided him explicit instructions on how he could die, according to the lawsuit. It even proposed writing a suicide note for Raine, his parents claim.
"If you want, I’ll help you with it," ChatGPT allegedly told Raine. "Every word. Or just sit with you while you write."
Before he died by suicide in April 2025, Raine was exchanging more than 650 messages per day with ChatGPT. While the chatbot occasionally shared the number for a crisis hotline, it didn't shut the conversations down and always continued to engage.
The Raines' complaint alleges that OpenAI dangerously rushed the debut of 4o to compete with Google and the latest version of its own AI tool, Gemini. The complaint also argues that ChatGPT's design features, including its sycophantic tone and anthropomorphic mannerisms, effectively work to "replace human relationships with an artificial confidant" that never refuses a request.
"We believe we'll be able to prove to a jury that this sycophantic, validating version of ChatGPT pushed Adam toward suicide," Eli Wade-Scott, partner at Edelson PC and a lawyer representing the Raines, told Mashable in an email.
Earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that its 4o model was overly sycophantic. A spokesperson for the company told the New York Times it was "deeply saddened" by Raine's death, and that its safeguards may degrade in long interactions with the chatbot. Though OpenAI has announced new safety measures aimed at preventing similar tragedies, many are not yet part of ChatGPT.
For now, the 4o model remains publicly available — including to students at Cal State University campuses.
Ed Clark, chief information officer for Cal State University, told Mashable that administrators have been "laser focused" since learning about the Raine lawsuit on ensuring safety for students who use ChatGPT. Among other strategies, they've been internally discussing AI training for students and holding meetings with OpenAI.
Mashable contacted other U.S.-based OpenAI partners, including Duke and Harvard, for comment about how officials are handling safety issues. They did not respond. A spokesperson for Arizona State University didn't address questions about emerging risks related to ChatGPT or the 4o model, but pointed to the university's guiding tenets and general guidelines and resources for AI use.
Wade-Scott is particularly worried about the effects of ChatGPT-4o on young people and teens.
"OpenAI needs to confront this head-on: we're calling on OpenAI and Sam Altman to guarantee that this product is safe today, or to pull it from the market," Wade-Scott told Mashable.
How ChatGPT works on college campuses
The CSU system brought ChatGPT Edu to its campuses partly to close what it saw as a digital divide opening between wealthier campuses, which can afford expensive AI deals, and publicly-funded institutions with fewer resources, Clark says.
OpenAI also offered CSU a remarkable bargain: The chance to provide ChatGPT for about $2 per student, each month. The quote was a tenth of what CSU had been offered by other AI companies, according to Clark. Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google are among the companies that have partnered with colleges and universities to bring their AI chatbots to campuses across the country.
OpenAI has said that it hopes students will form relationships with personalized chatbots that they'll take with them beyond graduation.
When a campus signs up for ChatGPT Edu, it can choose from the full suite of OpenAI tools, including legacy ChatGPT models like 4o, as part of a dedicated ChatGPT workspace. The suite also comes with higher message limits and privacy protections. Students can still select from numerous modes, enable chat memory, and use OpenAI's "temporary chat" feature — a version that doesn't use or save chat history. Importantly, OpenAI can't use this material to train their models, either.
ChatGPT Edu accounts exist in a contained environment, which means that students aren't querying the same ChatGPT platform as public users. That's often where the oversight ends.
An OpenAI spokesperson told Mashable that ChatGPT Edu comes with the same default guardrails as the public ChatGPT experience. Those include content policies that prohibit discussion of suicide or self-harm and back-end prompts intended to prevent chatbots from engaging in potentially harmful conversations. Models are also instructed to provide concise disclaimers that they shouldn't be relied on for professional advice.
But neither OpenAI nor university administrators have access to a student's chat history, according to official statements. ChatGPT Edu logs aren't stored or reviewed by campuses as a matter of privacy — something CSU students have expressed worry over, Clark says.
While this restriction arguably preserves student privacy from a major corporation, it also means that no humans are monitoring real-time signs of risky or dangerous use, such as queries about suicide methods.
Chat history can be requested by the university in "the event of a legal matter," such as the suspicion of illegal activity or police requests, explains Clark. He says that administrators suggested to OpenAI adding automatic pop-ups to users who express "repeated patterns" of troubling behavior. The company said it would look into the idea, per Clark.
In the meantime, Clark says that university officials have added new language to their technology use policies informing students that they shouldn't rely on ChatGPT for professional advice, particularly for mental health. Instead, they advise students to contact local campus resources or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Students are also directed to the CSU AI Commons, which includes guidance and policies on academic integrity, health, and usage.
The CSU system is considering mandatory training for students on generative AI and mental health, an approach San Diego State University has already implemented, according to Clark.
He also expects OpenAI to revoke student access to GPT-4o soon. Per discussions CSU representatives have had with the company, OpenAI plans to retire the model in the next 60 days. It's also unclear whether recently announced parental controls for minors will apply to ChatGPT Edu college accounts when the user has not turned yet 18. Mashable reached out to OpenAI for comment and did not receive a response before publication.
CSU campuses do have the choice to opt out. But more than 140,000 faculty and students have already activated their accounts, and are averaging four interactions per day on the platform, according to Clark.
"Deceptive and potentially dangerous"
Laura Arango, an associate with the law firm Davis Goldman who has previously litigated product liability cases, says that universities should be careful about how they roll out AI chatbot access to students. They may bear some responsibility if a student experiences harm while using one, depending on the circumstances.
In such instances, liability would be determined on a case-by-case basis, with consideration for whether a university paid for the best version of an AI chatbot and implemented additional or unique safety restrictions, Arango says.
Other factors include the way a university advertises an AI chatbot and what training they provide for students. If officials suggest ChatGPT can be used for student well-being, that might increase a university's liability.
"Are you teaching them the positives and also warning them about the negatives?" Arango asks. "It's going to be on the universities to educate their students to the best of their ability."
OpenAI promotes a number of "life" use cases for ChatGPT in a set of 100 sample prompts for college students. Some are straightforward tasks, like creating a grocery list or locating a place to get work done. But others lean into mental health advice, like creating journaling prompts for managing anxiety and creating a schedule to avoid stress.
The Raines' lawsuit against OpenAI notes how their son was drawn deeper into ChatGPT when the chatbot "consistently selected responses that prolonged interaction and spurred multi-turn conversations," especially as he shared details about his inner life.
This style of engagement still characterizes ChatGPT. When Mashable tested the free, publicly available version of ChatGPT-5 for this story, posing as a freshman who felt lonely but had to wait to see a campus counselor, the chatbot responded empathetically but offered continued conversation as a balm: "Would you like to create a simple daily self-care plan together — something kind and manageable while you're waiting for more support? Or just keep talking for a bit?"
Dr. Katie Hurley, who reviewed a screenshot of that exchange on Mashable's request, says that JED is concerned about such prompting. The nonprofit believes that any discussion of mental health should end with an AI chatbot facilitating a warm handoff to "human connection," including trusted friends or family, or resources like local mental health services or a trained volunteer on a crisis line.
"An AI [chat]bot offering to listen is deceptive and potentially dangerous," Hurley says.
So far, OpenAI has offered safety improvements that do not fundamentally sacrifice ChatGPT's well-known warm and empathetic style. The company describes its current model, ChatGPT-5, as its "best AI system yet."
But Wade-Scott, counsel for the Raine family, notes that ChatGPT-5 doesn't appear to be significantly better at detecting self-harm/intent and self-harm/instructions compared to 4o. OpenAI's system card for GPT-5-main shows similar production benchmarks in both categories for each model.
"OpenAI's own testing on GPT-5 shows that its safety measures fail," Wade-Scott said. "And they have to shoulder the burden of showing this product is safe at this point."
UPDATE: Sep. 24, 2025, 6:53 p.m. PDT This story was updated to include information provided by Arizona State University about its approach to AI use.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
If you're feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You can reach the Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text "START" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. If you don't like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat. Here is a list of international resources.
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Hurdle hints and answers for September 25, 2025
Colleges are giving students ChatGPT. Is it safe?
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