Commentary: 'Gary' is a riveting snapshot of Mikey and Richie before the events of 'The Bear'

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“The Bear,” now in the space between its fourth and fifth seasons, has released a surprise episode on Hulu, “Gary,” that functions as a prequel until, in its final seconds, it turns into something else.Exactly what, time will tell, but this final snippet comes after Season 4 and possibly before the start of Season 5.

The full “Bear” cast is credited at the end, though none appear apart from Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who wrote the episode and star as best friends and “cousins” Mikey and Richie, and Gillian Jacobs as Richie’s then-wife, Tiffany.Call it Season 4.5.It’s not uncommon in British television to post single episodes between seasons that may advance an ongoing story or just be something to run at Christmas.

(“Doctor Who” has made a practice of it.) They also remind viewers, in the long wait between seasons, that a series is not over.Indeed, I had to go to the internet to find out whether a fifth season of “The Bear” was on the cards, that the end of Season 4 — as Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) left the restaurant to Sidney (Ayo Edebiri) and Richie, much as Mikey, who died by suicide, had left it to him — was not the end of the series.

(Some say the next season will be its last.)We’re a few years before the start of the series proper.The Gary of the title is the distressed rust belt city of Gary, Ind., so near to and so far from Chicago, where Mikey and Richie are headed on an errand for cousin Jimmy (Oliver Platt), delivering a box whose contents neither knows.

Richie, riding shotgun, is excited, referring to the trip as “a mission,” noting when they cross the state line, and reading “fun facts” about Gary from his phone.He’s burned a CD for the occasion.

(As road trips go, it’s a short one, the trip from Chicago to Gary being about the same as from downtown L.A.to Long Beach, but the implication is that Richie has ...