i get that they called the special/bonus episode 'gary' because they were in gary, indiana, but as a certified gary "sweeps" woods fan, i feel a little offended that they named an episode gary and it wasn't about my friend sweeps.
General overview of my thoughts: I thought it was good. The shots were beautiful and the episode confirmed some beliefs or theories that the fandom has had about Mikey for a while now. The episode itself felt very much in line with The Bear and reminded me of episodes like Fishes.
Now into the nitty gritty.
I absolutely loved the reused shot of the field with smoke poring out of the ground. As someone who lives outside of America it instantly reminded me of the ghost towns that I have heard about over there where the town used to be a mining town but was abandoned because fires broke out in the mines. From what I briefly remember a lot of those towns still have fires blazing away to this day (Happy to be fact checked on this). This gave me as an international watcher much needed context for the town itself, though from a quick google search it appears it is a ghost town but it wasn't a mining town, instead it was a steel hub. I think this shot is also great context for where Mikey's brain is at, or his internal world, during the episode.
I really have to give props to the writers (Ebon and Jon) and their acting. I believe they did an excellent job of portraying what someone with both a drug addiction and a history of abuse actual looks like. The way Jon embodies Mikey in this episode made me extremely uncomfortable because it is exactly how someone I'm related to behaves. I was on the edge of my seat with tension all through the episode with Mikey, because as someone with first hand experience I could tell that scene in the bar was coming.
The set up of where Mikey is at in the beginning of the episode tipped me off that this was a "bad" day in colloquial terms. A day where he just woke up on the wrong side of his addictions, but this was made so much worse by the road trip for him. From my experience, taking him out of his city, his routines would already set him off a little but then adding on to that the stillness of the whole trip, the constant waiting and nothing happening is like setting up a fuse to a powder keg. As Carmy mentioned about waiting for shoes to drop, this stillness, the absence of chaos for people who grew up in domestically violent households tends to make them feel the weight of that shoe so much more than any sort of relief or comfort. And for people like Mikey who end up repeating the behaviours of abusers instead of learning from them, they tend to reach the conclusion after they have felt the weight of that shoe not dropping for too long, that they should be the shoe that drops instead. And I could barely watch when he dropped it, it made me so uncomfortable with how accurate it felt. And then the car ride afterward made me feel so bad for Richie, dude deserves so many god damn hugs.
As much as I appreciate the accuracy of the portrayal in this episode of what it actually looks like when someone is absolutely struggling with drug addiction, mental health and a history with abuse and how I do think accurate media representation is needed, I also felt concerned. Mostly for how the general public will react to it. Those who have not experienced or done the work to recognise what abuse is. In my personal opinion most people can only handle the sanitised version of a drug addict or abuse victim, let alone a character that is both and not sanitised in the least. Most people like and can sympathise with Mikey in the show because of the way the show has him shown in the perspectives of the other characters, mainly Carmy. The brief mentions of how he really was or what he did seems to kinda just fly over their heads.
So I asked my coworker who likes the show because he thinks it's the "funny fast paced cooking show" about his thoughts. He didn't even know the episode was out and only watched it after I gave him the heads up. His conclusion was pretty much what I feared. He didn't like the episode, was generally very confused about the plot of it and thought it was a "second screen" episode that you need to just have on in the background since nothing really happens during it (You cannot believe how hard it was for me to bite my tongue and be polite about that comment!). I asked for some more thoughts on the episode and he thought it was weird that there was no cooking at all in the episode, and he thought the scene in the bar with Mikey was a complete character assassination. Finally, he was less excited about the next season because of it and was kind of put off by the show now. It was a pretty sad conversation.
I wonder if this is why the episode was delayed until now and not released with the previous season even though it was originally supposed to be apart of it. Did they think the general audience would be turned off by the show? Did they think people would lose too much sympathy for Mikey?
However, I do think that releasing the episode in this way can also harm them in different ways with audience expectation. I found myself thinking, unfortunately, after the episode finished "That's it?". With some distance and thoughts I can say I really enjoyed the episode but due to the long wait time and then sudden drop, I found myself having some weird expectation that something massive would happen in this episode, something that would change our expectations for the final season (The ending cliffhanger didn't even make me feel that way). However, I now realise it is like an epilogue chapter in a book. It's a story that confirms things for the part of the audience that was paying attention and makes sure that those that weren't are finally in the know.
All in all, I'm glad we got the episode. As someone who tends to be in fandoms with metas and theories, I'm looking forward to everybody's thoughts on this episode. So far I've loved the ones I've read. I'm still looking forward to the next, final season, even if I do feel quite hesitant that they can wrap up everything they need to in a satisfying way while still doing justice to the characters.
Haven’t locked into The Bear content for a few months (tried to write some bear fics but never finished anything 😭) and then see a random new episode has been released.
