Oh, whoa!
While we were sleeping, those scamps over at The Bear dropped a surprise prequel episode. Guess that’s how they do it.
The episode is called Gary – and that’s actually what you have to search for on Disney’s streaming platform, because you won’t find it listed under The Bear’s page.
Written by Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal, the chapter is a prequel centred on Richie and Mikey, and is set before the show’s first season. The Bear creator Christopher Storer directed the episode.
The Gary in the title refers to Gary, Indiana, where the two friends travel to for a work trip.
According to Disney, the episode will offer new insights into Mikey and Richie, and their relationship.
Mikey died before the start of the show, and it’s that event which prompts Carmy to move back to Chicago to take over the family’s hot beef sandwiches restaurant. We’ve only seen the character through flashbacks sprinkled throughout the show’s four seasons, so to have an hour spent with Mikey should be illuminating.
And Richie has certainly evolved from the purely bombastic ball of rage into someone with the drive to do good and be good, and Gary promises to give you more of an idea of where Richie comes from.
The upcoming fifth season of The Bear doesn’t have a confirmed date yet but is widely expected to be next month as every other instalment has been released in June.
Recurring star Jamie Lee Curtis has said multiple times that it will be The Bear’s final batch, although no one else has come out to back that up.
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