Not to be confused with Gary "Sweeps" Woods.

"Gary"
The Bear episode
Directed by Christopher Storer
Written by Ebon Moss-Bachrach & Jon Bernthal
Cinematography by Andrew Wehde
Editing by Joanna Naugle
Production code XCMV2026001
Original air date May 5, 2026 (2026-05-05)
Running time 59 minutes
Guest appearances
  • Marin Ireland as Sherri
  • Gillian Jacobs as Tiffany Jerimovich
  • Jon Bernthal as Michael Berzatto
  • Nation Sage Henrikson as cohort/associate
  • T.J. Jagodowski as bar patron
  • Elisha Evans as Alicia at Koney King
  • Richard Gomez as gas station clerk
  • Lisa Beasley
Episode chronology
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—
List of episodes

"Gary" is a special episode of The Bear written by and starring cast members Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal. The episode is a flashback to early 2019, when Tiff is about to give birth to Evie. The action is a Richie and Mikey road trip from Chicago to Gary, Indiana. The episode description distributed by FX Networks states that the main subject of the special is "the two friends' complicated relationship, uncovering new layers of Mikey's mental state while offering crucial insight into the man Richie is when audiences first meet him in season 1—adding emotional context that reframes their story from the very beginning."[1]

The 39th episode of the series, "Gary" was released as a surprise drop on May 5, 2026, on Hulu and FX with next day availability on FXNOW and FX On Demand.[2][3][4]

Plot

Uncle Jimmy has asked Mikey and Richie to deliver a box, contents unknown, to someone in Gary, Indiana, a drive that is only 35 minutes away. Due to superstition, Tiff demands that Richie return by 5:15 p.m. as she believes that that is when she will give birth.

Richie and Mikey joke and banter with playful insults while they listen to the former's mixtape CD of travel songs. When they arrive, the recipient is not ready and decide to spend the next couple of hours having fun. They stop by a hot dog restaurant and chat with the owner, play basketball with the locals, and come up with names for Tiff's baby, settling on Eva after a woman Mikey met.

Richie insists on going into a bar after believing it is "a sign", but Mikey refuses. He is ultimately coaxed into entering by a woman named Sherri. Richie regales numerous stories and has fun with bar games, while Mikey makes a connection with Sherri by playing true or false. Mikey eventually opens up about how his mental health has been affected by his mother, Donna, and relates how she once snapped at him for no reason.

Realizing that it is nearly time, and wanting to get back to Tiff as soon as possible, Richie urges Mikey that they need to go. Before doing so, Mikey gives a speech to the bar goers about Richie being a father and congratulating him, but it quickly becomes insulting with Mikey insisting that Richie is a coward and will abandon his daughter. Richie slaps Mikey as they quietly leave to go deliver the box, revealed to contain plastic pump impellers (they rotate).

As the two leave Gary, Mikey attempts to make it up to Richie by playing his CD, but Richie throws it out the window. The clock shows 5:15 p.m. They cannot cross the tracks and drive home until the regularly scheduled freight train passes by.

In the present, Richie reflects on the trip while in his car, but while crossing the intersection is T-boned by another vehicle.

Timeline

According to the date-time display in Mikey's truck, "Gary" takes place on January 11, 2019. According to the prayer card visible in the pilot, Mikey died by suicide on February 22, 2022.[5]

Context

  • Moss-Bachrach is the person most responsible for the casting of Jon Bernthal as Mikey; the pair had worked together three times before The Bear. Bernthal was Moss-Bachrach's understudy on an off-Broadway play, Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July, in 2003.[6][7] They later appeared together on season one of The Punisher, a 2017–2019 TV series starring Bernthal as Marvel Comics anti-hero Frank Castle, with Moss-Bachrach playing brainiac hacker Micro.[8] They also costarred in the 2022 independent film Sharp Stick.[9] The pair are costarring together in Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway as of May 2026.[9]
  • Richie previously discussed some of this trip with Sugar in the season 3 episode "Legacy," just before Nat went into labor in "Ice Chips."[10] Tiff went into labor the day after the events of "Gary," and Richie was there for the birth: "The day before, I was with your brother on this trip, and I think...I know she was, like, a bit pissed at me, so I made sure that I was around all day."[10] A shot of Richie and Mikey together in Gary appears in Richie's panic attack during the "It's Magic" montage in "Replicants."
  • Early on the trip, Mikey calls Richie "a donkey that doesn't know what it hauls," and Richie replies by mimicking a donkey braying.[11] Later, they discuss mule kicks, and after his coke buy, Mikey announces, "Hee-haw! We got magic powders." There have been past donkeys on the show, including the Faks dancing to "Dominick the Donkey," and Mikey braying like a donkey at "Fishes," which image and sound repeatedly plays in Carmy's mind during panic attacks.[12]
Broadway, Gary, Indiana c. 1965
  • Gary was a company town haphazardly organized by the Gary Land Company, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. Gary was founded in the first decade of the 20th century, built on what had been a mostly undeveloped swamp, in order to support a massive steelworks with access to rail lines and shipping via the Great Lakes, allowing delivery of raw ore from the iron seams of Minnesota. Dependent on a labor force of Eastern European immigrants and African-Americans come north as part of the Great Migration, U.S. Steel's Gary exploded in population but simultaneously fostered ghettoized colonies of impoverished laborers and their families.[13] Beginning in the 1950s and escalating progressively through the midcentury into the 1980s and beyond, factory towns like Gary, East Saint Louis, and Camden, New Jersey underwent deindustrialization, capital flight, white flight, and ultimately urban blight, visited disproportionately on resident African-American and recent immigrant populations that lacked the wherewithal to relocate to more commercially and socially vibrant communities.[14]
Further information: Gary, Indiana § History

So fire runs in, runs out, runs somewhere else again,
And the bar of steel is a gun, a wheel, a nail, a shovel,
A rudder under the sea, a steering-gear in the sky;
And always dark in the heart and through it,
Smoke and the blood of a man.
Pittsburg, Youngstown, Gary—they make their steel
with men.

— Carl Sandburg, "Smoke and Steel"[13][15]

Production

Writing

"Gary" was co-written by Ebon Moss-Bachrach & Jon Bernthal. The script was originally filed with the Writers Guild of America under the temporary title "TBD 421 aka 411."[16] The pair had long talked about creating a flashback scene of Richie and Mikey to expand on what had been depicted in "Fishes," and they had shared a couple of those ideas with executive producer Christopher Storer. They ended on a conference call about it, Moss-Bachrach told TheWrap, and "Before we could say anything, Chris immediately said, 'Listen, would you guys be open to writing a standalone episode for the show about this day, about a trip?' And it's sort of based on a, in a very loose way, a Western. Where two guys go to a town and drop something off, and time kind of melts away, there's a gal at the bar. You know, that, in a very sort of archetypal kind of way."[17] They included Mikey suggesting Evie's name as a way of "having a continuum, and a lineage" in the family.[18] Moss-Bachrach pointed out to TV Insider that, even though the lifelong friends have nothing but time to talk over the course of that day, "when Michael starts to really reveal and peel back what's going on inside his head, what's going on inside his heart, it's not to Richie," but to a woman he just met, Sherri (Marin Ireland).[18] Moss-Bachrach told USA Today that Mikey's state of mind at the time of "Gary" is that "He doesn't want to revisit the day-to-day. He doesn't want to return to his house full of demons and ghosts," and Richie reminds him of "everything that he's trying to avoid."[19]

Filming

Cinematographer Andrew Wehde posted on Instagram that the episode was "shot on 3perf 35mm Film with PV lenses. My goal was to process the film in a way that felt like a memory, that stood on its own from the look and tone of The Bear."[20] "Fishes" was also shot on film.[21] The show is primarily shot using digital Alexa Mini LF cameras.[22] The show did an intra-episode aspect ratio shift once before, in "Braciole," to establish the contrast between Carmy's cooking-show nightmare and the ongoing action.[23][24]

The episode was filmed "right after season 4."[18] The show shot scenes at Southsides Bar on Cicero Avenue in Alsip, Illinois, in April 2025.[25]

Music

Songs used in the soundtrack for the episode include "Heart of the Sunrise" by Yes, and "Paid in Full" by Eric B. & Rakim.[26][27]

Release

The episode was not promoted in advance, except for a teaser posted on Instagram on April 30 by Bernthal, depicting himself and Moss-Bachrach in front of a burning field, with the caption "Richie. And. Mikey."[28] The episode drop was announced on Moss-Bachrach's Instagram, with the caption "COUSINS! PRIMOS!! CUGINI!!! Get ready for GARY!!!! We are so excited to finally share this little adventure with Richie and Mikey. Written by me and @jonnybernthal. Directed by the one Christopher Storer. Making this was a dream come true."[29] It was released on Hulu and aired on the FX pay television channel.[30]

Food and drink

  • The boys visit Koney King, a local hot-dog and cheeseburger joint that was founded in 1920.[26][31] They specialize in "Coney dogs, a Midwestern diner classic in which a hot dog is topped with chili, chopped onions, and yellow mustard."[32] Koney King was originally a lunch counter established by a Bulgarian immigrant in an alley west of Broadway on 9th Avenue, and the shop later moved locations but was otherwise carried forward by his descendants into the 21st century.[32] His grandson sold out to local entrepreneur Jimmy Hendricks around 2020.[32]
  • Richie asks at the store if they have tallboys, which are 16 U.S. fl oz (470 ml) beers in aluminum cans.[33] They end up drinking 40s, which are 40 U.S. fl oz (1200 ml) glass bottles of malt liquor.[34] An ale or a lager beer typically has a little more than five percent alcohol by volume whereas malt liquor (which, despite the name, is not a distilled beverage) will generally have a higher alcohol content, of seven percent or more.[35]

Reception

Los Angeles Times TV critic Robert Lloyd described the episode as riveting and a "kind of shaggy dog story, through lighter and darker territory on its way to a droll punchline involving the contents of the box, before it jumps forward into its brief present-day coda."[36] Regarding Moss-Bachrach and Bernthal, "one senses that as writers, they've built themselves a playground to act in; both are phenomenal. The Bear always calls upon its cast to stretch, much as their self-improving characters are. Phoning it in is never an option."[36] Judy Berman of Time deemed it "one of the increasingly uneven hit's best episodes in ages, a standalone that fleshes out a crucial relationship and suggests how much better the show could be with Carmy on the sidelines."[37]

Roxana Hadadi of Vulture described "Gary" as "like nearly every flashback that has featured Mikey since season one practically sanctified the man...another challenging, sometimes-sluggish episode about Mikey's deteriorating mental health and his attacks on the people he loved."[27] But in the course of things the viewer gleans the truth out of the constant lying: "This isn't gangster shit, this isn't a 'mission,' this isn't a meeting with 'clients', as Richie boasted to Tiffany. This is Mikey and Richie being warm bodies for Jimmy, and this is another instance of their friendship shattering," and perhaps the producers are insistently "chastising us for thinking [Mikey's] first 'Let it rip' was a beautiful moment of one brother passing the torch to another."[27]

Belen Edwards of Mashable argued that Sherri was the latest in a series of shallowly supportive empty vessels posing as love interests for Bear characters, Claire first among them, with Jess and Tiff recently having been pushed into the same narrative trap, and "perhaps that's why many viewers are drawn to shipping Carmy and Sydney...The Bear is invested in both of them as characters, rather than just using one as a device to unlock the other. You simply can't say the same of The Bear's other romantic pairings, and the release of 'Gary' further proves that romance is the recipe The Bear has yet to master."[38] Saloni Gajjar of the AV Club thought it was another stand-alone outside of the restaurant that was purpose-built to disappoint viewers invested in the original premise of the show, and "as affecting as Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach's performances are, 'Gary' doubles down on some of The Bear's self-indulgent storytelling impulses: characters yelling at or over each other constantly, lazily written interactions (why in the world is Ireland's Sherri waxing poetic about trees to Mikey?), and a visual aesthetic that has gone from gritty to gimmicky with its close-up shots."[39] The Guardian reviewer wrote, "The Bear still isn't a comedy by any stretch, but the meal made out of a trip of such scant distance is one of the funniest things it has done in years...It bodes well for season five that 'Gary' was released as a standalone episode. When The Bear is at its worst, it loses interest in the restaurant and prefers to meander through endless flashbacks and bottle episodes. Gary may be a sign that The Bear wants to clear the decks and regain its focus."[40] Kevin Fallon of The Daily Beast called it "so freaking bad" because "Sure, it's remarkable how good Moss-Bachrach and Bernthal are at portraying working-class people joshing each other, bickering, and just getting through the day's most mundane tasks, like driving from one city to another, or drinking at a bar. But the reason we don't often see those things in TV shows is because of how epically boring it is...The Bear, for all of its acclaim and all of the discourse it inspired, may be the most precarious show on TV. Its first season was such a powder keg of intensity and stress that it makes sense it exploded the way it did. But maintaining that has, for the show, been a constant balancing act. How much of the screaming anxiety is compelling versus headache-inducing and annoying?"[41] Next Best Picture asserted that "Gary" was an exercise in "effortless naturalism. Nearly every line sounds as though the actors are riffing in real time. If the sequence of Mikey and Richie drunkenly playing basketball with local teenagers were revealed to have been largely improvised, it would not be remotely surprising...In the span of a single hour, the episode deepens not only the baggage embedded in Mikey and Richie's shared history but also Richie's present-day struggles with grief and fatherhood."[42]

See also

  • Michael Jackson Childhood Home
  • Basketball in Indiana
  • Menace II Society – Mikey quotes in store
  • 3:10 to Yuma (1957 film) – Richie watches in "Soubise"
  • Pizza puff
  • Interstate 90 in Illinois § Chicago Skyway
  • Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad
  • Ceres (The Bear) § Music
  • Food of The Bear (TV series)
  • Characters of The Bear (TV series)
  • Bibliography of The Bear (TV series)
  • List of The Bear episodes
  • Previous episode: "Goodbye"

References

  1. ^ Blanchet, Brenton (May 5, 2026). "The Bear Fans Get Surprise New Episode Starring Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach". People.com.
  2. ^ Rosenberg, Josh (May 5, 2026). "The Bear Just Dropped a Surprise Episode". Esquire. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
  3. ^ Hailu, Selome (May 5, 2026). "The Bear Surprise: New Episode With Jon Bernthal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach Drops on Hulu". Variety. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
  4. ^ Porter, Rick (May 5, 2026). "The Bear Drops Surprise Prequel Episode 'Gary'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
  5. ^ Storer, Christopher (June 23, 2022). "Mikey funeral prayer card". The Bear (Television production). Season 1. United States: FX Networks. Visible in episode 1 "System" at 2:10. Production code XCBV1001 – via Hulu.
  6. ^ Rankin, Seija (August 22, 2024). "Jon Bernthal's First Scene in The Bear Was Shot in a Producer's Kitchen (Really)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 2, 2026.
  7. ^ vanityfair (March 30, 2026). "Five collaborations deep..." Instagram. Retrieved March 30, 2026.
  8. ^ Williams, Jordan (January 10, 2024). "The Bear's Mikey Actor Created Subtle Reunion For 7-Year-Old Canceled Netflix Show". ScreenRant. Retrieved March 30, 2026.
  9. ^ a b Bergeson, Samantha (June 4, 2025). "Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach to Headline Dog Day Afternoon Broadway Adaptation". IndieWire. Retrieved April 8, 2026.
  10. ^ a b admin (June 27, 2024). "The Bear - S03E07 - Legacy | Transcript". Scraps from the loft. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
  11. ^ Skelton, Jay (May 5, 2026). "The Bear Season 5 Gary Episode Recap – Reel Mockery". Retrieved May 9, 2026.
  12. ^ admin (June 23, 2023). "The Bear - S02E06 - Fishes | Transcript". Scraps from the loft. Retrieved May 9, 2026.
  13. ^ a b Brook, Anthony (April 1975). "Gary, Indiana: Steeltown Extraordinary". Journal of American Studies. 9 (1): 35–53. doi:10.1017/S0021875800010136. ISSN 0021-8758. JSTOR 27553151.
  14. ^ Hurley, Andrew (January 2016). "From Factory Town to Metropolitan Junkyard: Postindustrial Transitions on the Urban Periphery". Environmental History. 21 (1): 3–29. doi:10.1093/envhis/emv112. ISSN 1084-5453. JSTOR 24691539.
  15. ^ Sandburg, Carl (1920). Smoke and Steel. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Howe. p. 7 – via Internet Archive.
  16. ^ "The Bear - WGA Directory". Writers Guild of America West. Retrieved April 26, 2026.
  17. ^ Ortiz, Andi (May 8, 2026). "The Bear: How a Throwaway Line from Season 3 Turned Into a Surprise Episode". TheWrap. Retrieved May 9, 2026.
  18. ^ a b c Darwish, Meaghan (May 8, 2026). "The Bear Stars Break Down Mikey & Richie's Day Out in 'Gary'". TV Insider. Retrieved May 9, 2026.
  19. ^ Jensen, Erin (May 8, 2026). "Jon Bernthal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach on 'Gary' and 'bold' 'Bear' sendoff". USA TODAY. Retrieved May 9, 2026.
  20. ^ Wehde, Andrew (May 7, 2026). "A Beautiful and intimate glimpse..." Instagram.
  21. ^ Stiernberg, Bonnie. "The Christmas Episode of The Bear Is an Instant Classic". InsideHook. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  22. ^ Bedard, Mike (August 23, 2024). "How The Bear Cinematography Creates Controlled Kitchen Chaos". Backstage. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  23. ^ D'Agostino, Nate (July 18, 2022). "Biggest Unanswered Questions From The Bear Season 1". Looper. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  24. ^ McNamara, Lisa (August 29, 2022). "Made in Frame: Editors of The Bear Reveal How the Sausage is Made". Frame.io Insider. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  25. ^ Aslip Chamber of Commerce (April 5, 2025). "Any fans of the TV show the Bear?". Facebook.
  26. ^ a b Adams, Sam (May 5, 2026). "The Bear's Surprise New Episode Is a Reminder of When the Show Was Good". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  27. ^ a b c Hadadi, Roxana (May 5, 2026). "The Bear Recap: Bro Trip". Vulture. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  28. ^ jonnybernthal (April 30, 2026). "Richie. And. Mikey". Instagram. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
  29. ^ Dixon, Marcus James (May 5, 2026). "The Bear submits guest stars Jon Bernthal and Marin Ireland at 2026 Emmys for surprise 'Gary' episode". Gold Derby. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  30. ^ "Listings | TheFutonCritic.com". The Futon Critic.
  31. ^ koney_king (May 5, 2025). "Big news from Koney King! 🎉". Instagram. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  32. ^ a b c Pete, Joseph S. (February 24, 2021). "Koney King serves up a Detroit favorite". Food. The Times. Vol. 112, no. 206 & 105. Munster, Indiana. p. C6. OCLC 42819936. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  33. ^ Iseman, Courtney. "Must Every Craft Beer Come in a 16-Ounce Can?". PUNCH. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  34. ^ Gordon, Will (August 9, 2018). "Drinking the Bottom Shelf: 40s of Malt Liquor". Serious Eats.
  35. ^ Logan, B. K.; Case, G. A.; Distefano, S. (November 1999). "Alcohol content of beer and malt beverages: forensic consideration". Journal of Forensic Sciences. 44 (6): 1292–1295. doi:10.1520/JFS14603J. ISSN 0022-1198. PMID 10744486.
  36. ^ a b Lloyd, Robert (May 5, 2026). "Commentary: 'Gary' is a riveting snapshot of Mikey and Richie before the events of 'The Bear'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  37. ^ Berman, Judy (May 5, 2026). "Standalone Episode 'Gary' Proves The Bear Is Best Without Carmy". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  38. ^ Edwards, Belen (May 5, 2026). "'The Bear's one-dimensional love interests have got to go". Mashable. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  39. ^ Gajjar, Saloni (May 5, 2026). ""Gary" gives in to The Bear's worst tendencies". AV Club. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  40. ^ Heritage, Stuart (May 6, 2026). "The best show on TV again (for one glorious scene): The Bear's surprise new prequel". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved May 6, 2026.
  41. ^ Fallon, Kevin (May 6, 2026). "The Secret Episode of The Bear Is So Freaking Bad". The Daily Beast. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  42. ^ Lago, Giovanni (May 6, 2026). "'Gary' Is a Powerful Reminder of Why The Bear Became One of Television's Best Shows". Next Best Picture. Retrieved May 8, 2026.

Further reading