At the start of May, The Bear surprised fans with a standalone episode. Titled “Gary”, it took place during a road trip with two of the show’s most pivotal characters: cousins Mikey (Jon Bernthal) and Ritchie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach).
Watching it was a rare treat. At times, it’s sweet, at others, scalpel-sharp. There was no Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) – arguably the show’s main character – in sight. All of which is to say, it was the best The Bear has been in years.
Now, with the fifth and final season finally under way, Carmy is back. But The Bear still has no idea what it wants to do with him – or what it wants his character arc to actually mean.
When it first started, the show felt genuinely revolutionary. The story of Carmy, a high-end chef coming home to Chicago to run his dead brother’s sandwich shop, was TV written on a knife-edge. It was high-octane, stressful and full of people shouting at each other – before it turned around and hit you with a sucker-punch of deep emotion.
Ritchie, played by Ebon Moss- Bachrach, often outshines his cousin Carmy (Photo: FX)
