The Bear’s Surprise Prequel Episode ‘Gary’: How a Throwaway Line Became a Fan Favorite

In Season 3 of The Bear, Sugar and Richie share a heartfelt moment as she prepares for the arrival of her baby girl. During their conversation, Richie casually mentions that the day before his daughter was born, he was on a trip with Mikey—an outing that reportedly upset his wife. Now, fans can finally see exactly how that trip unfolded, thanks to a surprise prequel episode titled ‘Gary’, which debuted on Hulu this week.

However, according to Ebon Moss-Bachrach, the star and co-writer of the episode, this adventure wasn’t always intended to stand alone. In an interview with TheWrap, Moss-Bachrach revealed that he and series creator Chris Storer had discussed the idea of a significant day shared by Mike and Richie for years. He said,

“Chris [Storer] and I have been talking about, for years … some sort of big momentous day that Mike and Richie had. That was always kind of in the back burner. We never thought about making an episode about it.”

The standalone episode, ‘Gary’, follows Richie (Moss-Bachrach) and Mikey (Jon Bernthal) on a road trip to Gary, Indiana, on an errand for Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt). Set roughly five years before the series premiere of The Bear, the episode was co-written by Moss-Bachrach and Bernthal. The idea for the episode didn’t take shape until they were preparing for Season 4 of the show.

Initially, the actors weren’t focused on connecting the episode to the Season 3 throwaway line. Moss-Bachrach explained,

“I was really interested in showing some of the love between these guys, because we don’t get to see much of Mikey in the show at all, really. And it’s only sort of harrowing kind of moments, for the most part. I’m speaking about ‘Fishes.’”

Moss-Bachrach and Bernthal brainstormed a few ideas and planned to pitch just “a scene or two” to Storer—scenes unrelated to Richie’s past trip. But before they could begin, Storer surprised them.

“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, 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.”

Following that conversation, Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach were thrilled. According to Bernthal,

“We were like two kids” freaking out about the expanded opportunity.

“We sat on my balcony of the hotel, and we literally scribbled it down, and really, that thing that we put together that day in, you know, a couple hours time, that really is the bones of what you see here for ‘Gary,’”

“It was only sort of a ‘yes, and…’ situation, there was nothing like, ‘Eh, that doesn’t really seem right, well, how about this?’”