Gary (The Bear) - Review 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

THE surprise drop of Gary, a one-off prequel episode to The Bear, offers that rare treat for fans: a mouth-watering insight into two beloved characters that provides plenty of food for thought.

A two-hander about Cousin Richie and Mikey Berzatto, written by Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal (the actors who play them and are co-starring on Broadway in Dog Day Afternoon), the hour-long episode serves as both road movie and character study that embraces the best traditions of theatre.

Like the main series, it’s a deconstruction of trauma and deteriorating mental health that shows the devastating, destructive and debilitating effects of living with both. Yet it’s also funny as hell too.

The road trip in question finds Richie and Mikey teaming up to deliver a mysterious package to an unknown customer in an unfamiliar city, the Gary (Indiana) of the episode’s title, in the hours before Richie’s wife gives birth.

Initially, the two seem to be having fun in each other’s company: they listen to a mix CD prepared by Richie; they stop off for an impromptu game of basketball with a group of kids, and they enjoy a hotdog at a renowned diner not that far removed from their own (The Beef, before it became The Bear).

But things begin to turn when Richie urges Mikey to join him at a bar, where they mingle with the locals and partake in a game of fact or fiction.

Richie is the lively one, owning the table like the front of house man he prides himself on being. His youthful story of a shit-strewn maths lesson with a teacher he had the hots for is one for the ages: a masterful piece of comic delivery that encourages you to laugh along with him (my 14-year-old son was in stitches).

But while Mikey manages a brief heartfelt interlude with a female drinker, offering a soulful insight into his sustained turmoil, his mood turns when pressed into leaving by Richie.

Fuelled by booze, drugs, self-loathing and jealousy, Mikey aims a speech at Richie that begins brightly before turning vitriolic, virtually stripping Richie of his dignity in front of this bar full of strangers (who are taken aback). It labels Richie a failure and predicts more heartache in his future, taking a potshot at his prospects (or lack thereof) of becoming a good father and husband.

The pain Richie feels from hearing it is etched across his face. The force with which it is delivered is genuinely cringe-inducing. It’s hard to watch.

But this is also The Bear as its very best: raw, stripped down, honest and brutal. It treats mental health and emotions with respect, seldom sugar coating pain or swerving towards contrived happy endings. It’s what makes the triumphs of any character, however fleeting, feel all the more earned and inspiring.

Here, we watch fully knowing the effect it may have had on Richie’s own self-esteem, coupled with the fact that Mikey would also take his own life due to his own feelings of self loathing.

Yet, we can also take some kind of solace in the knowledge that Richie has a decent shot at turning things around: he is a good father, albeit a divorcee. And, professionally, he’s getting it together. Gary serves as a nice companion episode to the sublime Forks; an origin story for that character’s arc.

What Miss-Bachrach does so brilliantly is make you root for his character in spite of his flaws. He’s loud, sometimes obnoxious, prone to poor decisions and self-sabotage. But his heart is in the right place and he just wants to find his place in the world.

Hence, while we suspect from the outset that Richie’s insistence on entering that bar will backfire on him badly (especially given the time constraints he has placed upon the trip given his wife’s impending birth), we probably couldn’t have guessed just how devastating the decision would become.

Indeed, the journey we witness is one that Richie has previously referenced in the episode Ice Chips. It left its mark.

Bernthal, meanwhile, is similarly mercurial here: going for broke in depicting the torment and ugliness of his continued spiral into poor mental health. This episode comes after Three Fishes, that memorable Christmas dinner episode in which he takes centre stage, but it continues to show both the force of nature that made Mikey so revered and beloved by his family and friends pre-suicide, as well as the self-loathing and subsequently self-destructive elements that contributed to his demise.

Gary is a complex journey, delivered with all the ferocity and edge of a stage play. It pulls you into a false sense of security before hitting you with an emotional gut punch that takes some shaking off.

Indeed, having floored you with that bar scene, the episode even doubles down with a last minute coda that brings things to present day and subjects Richie to a car crash, the consequences of which are likely to form the basis for the fifth and now final season of The Bear itself.

It’s a genuine cliffhanger that whets the appetite for that final season; while placing the life of another beloved character very much in the balance.

Gary, like The Bear at its best, is a powerful, moving and utterly unforgettable experience featuring two brilliant actors on peak form. 

See also: The Bear (Season 4) - Review

The Bear: Season 4 (Bears episode) - Review