‘The Bear’s Jon Bernthal & Ebon Moss-Bachrach Break Down Their Road to ‘Gary’ (VIDEO)

The Bear‘s fifth and final season looms on the horizon, but FX took fans back in time for a special one-off prequel story revolving around Mikey Berzatto (Jon Bernthal) and his best friend Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they embark on a work trip in the surprise episode, “Gary.” Warning: Spoilers for The Bear‘s special episode “Gary” ahead!

Just as Mikey and Richie’s friendship takes center stage in the hour-long adventure, this marks another step in Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach’s creative collaboration as the pair wrote the installment. Together, the duo has worked together on several projects, previously starring in The Punisher before they found their way onto The Bear, and are currently headlining Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway.

In terms of taking their creative partnership in this new direction with writing the script for “Gary,” Moss-Bachrach shares, “What really sparked the fire for this was just a desire to see more of what Mikey and Richie’s relationship was like. You know, Mikey casts such a long shadow… from the very first episode of The Bear, and I just was so interested in spending more time with him, and seeing what the relationship is and what the special brotherhood between Mikey and Richie that has rocked Richie from the beginning.”

FX

“I wanted to explore the joy and the love of that friendship, and see some of the high points and then obviously some of the pretty uglier parts,” Moss-Bachrach adds. As viewers experience in the episode, which follows Mikey and Richie on a road trip from Chicago to Gary, Indiana, they’re meant to deliver a box for Jimmy (Oliver Platt), but find themselves drifting to different spots throughout the day, playing a pick-up game of basketball and striking up some fun at a local bar, until Mikey’s mood shifts, letting the mask covering his mental health struggles slip.

What follows is an intense exchange as Mikey suggests Richie will be a bad father to the daughter he’s expecting with the majorly pregnant Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs). “What we wanted was this sort of day that starts out one way and goes kind sideways,” Bernthal shares. “That was always the intention, and… this window into like what Mikey’s going through, he really spells it out with Sherri in the bathroom.”

Sherri (Marin Ireland) is a woman Mikey meets at the bar in Gary, and as Bernthal puts it, “[Mikey] really describes how his mind works, what makes him sort of beautiful and what makes him really ugly, and what makes life kind of impossible.” Ultimately, his openness with Sherri leads to the negative moment with Richie as they gear up to leave the bar, “It’s a hard road to travel. We knew it would be difficult, but that’s what we set out to do,” Bernthal adds.

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And Moss-Bachrach points out, “I find it pretty revealing that these two friends spend the entire day together, they’re in the car, they’re spending all this time together, but when Michael starts to really reveal and peel back what’s going on inside his head, what’s going on inside his heart, it’s not to Richie, but it’s to a stranger.”

The episode was filmed right after Season 4, but as fans who saw the ending of “Gary” know, it’s likely to play a role in the fifth and final season of The Bear, as Richie was seen getting side-swiped in his car at a rainy intersection. “I think where it’s been placed is really smart,” Moss-Bachrach says of where “Gary” feeds into the main story of The Bear. “I don’t know if it’s by design or just because of so many different variables, but I think you’ll end up in a perfect [spot] with gem-like precision.”

While the episode depicts a day that’s been referenced on The Bear in past seasons, Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach made sure to put their stamp on their characters’ lore, particularly when it comes to the backstory of Richie’s daughter’s name, which is seemingly inspired by a suggestion from Mikey. “It was authored,” Moss-Bachrach reveals of the Eva name origin. “We thought that that was a beautiful way of having a continuum and a lineage and certainly like, a nod to his friend, a way to pay tribute to his fallen brother. So that’s very much by design.”

Tune in to see how Richie and Mikey’s onscreen story ends as The Bear‘s fifth and final season approaches, and catch Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach’s full interview in the video above.

The Bear, Season 5 Premiere, Thursday, June 25, 9/8c, Hulu and FX