Gary

Quick flag before anything else: Gary isn’t really a movie. It’s a standalone episode of The Bear, the flashback that follows Richie and Mikey on a road trip to Gary, Indiana, released on its own. Judge it on those terms and it’s a small gem.

Jon Bernthal and Jeremy Allen White get a whole stretch to just be two guys in a car, before the grief and the restaurant and everything The Bear becomes, and the show has always been at its best when it slows down and lets people talk. It’s funny, it aches, and it deepens characters you already thought you knew. If you don’t watch The Bear, none of it will land. If you do, this is the series operating at the top of its game, quietly.