Warning! Spoilers for The Bear ahead: Fact or fiction? FX dropped a prequel to The Bear on Tuesday this week with absolutely no warning. It’s a fact. The hour-long episode, titled “Gary,” follows Mikey and Richie on a work-trip prior to season one. In anticipation of the final season coming on June 25, actors Jon Bernthal (Mikey) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Richie), and series director Christopher Storer created this prequel. The narrative is exposed as Richie’s flashback, furthering the deep friendship that’s revisited throughout the show, providing more context into what their lives were like before Mikey’s suicide and how it affected Richie’s character. Despite its chaotic and intense buildup, the standalone episode is a gift to the audience, allowing them to explore the depth and complicated friendship that The Bear initiates from.
What happens in The Bear surprise episode “Gary?”
The episode starts with a landscape, the flames of fire the only color in an otherwise bare environment. The scene, while visually calm and undisturbed by human attention, is juxtaposed with the blaring sound of “Heart of Sunrise,” which not only opens the scene, but repeats at various points throughout the episode. The soul of the episode is based in the friendship between Mikey and Richie. As any pair of friends would recognize, both go on a road trip (granted, only 35 minutes outside of Chicago), listening to burned CDs, making corny jokes, and entertaining each other with fun facts. Richie joins Mikey on the trip, in a seemingly good mood, kissing his pregnant wife goodbye, radiating a positive energy despite Mikey’s clear bitter disposition. The episode is a testament to their signature friendship. As deep as their bond goes, it is buried under their acute struggles with violence and mental health. Despite this, responsibility and respect are the pillars they live and die for.
As the two wait for Uncle Jimmy to reveal their missions, they go to a local bar in Gary, Indiana, meeting a pack of people willing to engage in their antics, drinking until belligerent, snorting cocaine in the bathroom, smoking cigarettes, and playing Fact or Fiction, the crowd rioting with laughter. When Uncle Jimmy finally calls, both Mikey and Richie are intensely intoxicated, the former hurling insults at Richie, prodding at his worst fears. While their day was full of love, imagining baby names for Richie’s soon-to-be-born child, enjoying their day with another, embracing life, it ends with Mikey’s harsh words. “Kid’s gonna hate you, Rich.” The anger surfaces through slapping and spitting, but the tragedy of the episode comes from Mikey’s failure to believe in and support his best friend. The solemn wreck of their friendship, a direct result of their choices, is all they have as even their special delivery proved to be a futile journey.
The audience is returned to the end of season four, revealing that the prequel was Richie reminiscing of a painful memory. The viewers see him sitting in the car, alone, in the driver’s seat this time, unlike in the memory when Mikey was driving. Grief settles in, highlighting the missing person from the scene. Before anything beyond the memory can occur, the car is t-boned, ending in a flash.
What does the ending mean?
The ending is difficult to stomach, as watching love pierced with torment, later shown as regret, is the catalyst that The Bear builds from. Still, this prequel is entirely appropriate in The Bear universe, as the journey of the characters and kitchen is one that explores rebuilding and transformation in the midst of loss, ruin, and deliberate mistakes. While the episode doesn’t show love in a traditional way, dialogue constructed of only insults and profanity, it is a continuation of The Bear’s legacy. The show is seldom pretty, often showing the yelling and internal turmoil that the service industry tries to hide behind closed doors. Yet, everyone knows it exists. Likewise, the prequel shows that a friendship as distressed as Mikey and Richie’s, is a product of immense pain and suffering. The ending is a crucial indication of the meaning of the show. It’s one that forgoes the pretty version to show that rebuilding and starting over come from anguish, and will often hurt, and cause one to reevaluate what’s important to them. But the journey forward is always a better product than what was left in the past. Or at least that’s what we can hope.