Mikey Berzatto
Fictional character, The Bear TV series

Fictional character
Mikey Berzatto
Portrayed byJon Bernthal
In-universe information
Full nameMichael Berzatto
NicknameMikeybear
OccupationEntrepreneur

Michael "Mikey" Berzatto is a fictional character on the FX Network television series The Bear. Mikey, memorably played by Jon Bernthal, left a legacy that made possible the construction of the show's found family, not to mention the Bear restaurant itself. He haunts the narrative. Mikey's suicide was the inciting event that led his younger brother Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) to move back to Chicago and take over the family's misbegotten Original Beef sandwich shop, putting Carmy forever at odds with Mikey's best friend, their play cousin and de facto foster brother Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Mikey appears in roughly one major flashback in each season thus far (namely, and chronologically, "Ceres," "Fishes," "Napkins," and "Groundhogs"), and he is a continuing presence in memory, dialogue, photographs, flashback montages, dream sequences, and voiceovers throughout the series, most notably in "Braciole," "Tomorrow," and "Forever."

Biography

Michael Berzatto, called Mikey, was born November 15, 1979, and shot himself in the head on the State Street Bridge on February 22, 2022. He was 42 years old at the time of his suicide. The loud, lionized, charismatic, and larger-than-life oldest brother of the family, Mikey was first described by Uncle Jimmy in the second episode of the series: "No disrespect...your brother, he was an animal, surrounded by dickheads, and then he lost his mind, and now he put you in a real tough spot."[1] In the season one finale, "Braciole," his best friend Richie reflected on Mikey's suicide and described him as "...so loud and obnoxious and fսckin' hilarious. You know, he was Mikey Bear. I thought...he would pull out of it."[2]

Mikey's rejection of Carmy led Carmy to leave Chicago to become a professional chef in an attempt to work toward his big brother's acceptance.[3] Unbeknownst to Carmy, Mikey was intentionally pushing Carmy away from the family to protect him from their destructive habits and chaos.[4] In an interview with Variety following the release of season two, Bernthal commented, "I think the stuff that we don't know is almost as interesting as the stuff that we do...I only know bits of information and we know, obviously, what Mikey's fate is. Oftentimes, when we really love people and we're aware of our own toxicity, our own hopelessness, and him being in the state that he's in...he feels like this shop and the way that he's run it and everything around him has been this enormous albatross, and he's kind of run into the ground. He's shrouded in hopelessness, and he wants to keep his brother out of it. He wants to keep his brother pure. That might manifest itself sometimes in jealousy and anger."[5]

He seems "kind of dumb," but he's also the man who "turned the Original Beef of Chicagoland into something that mattered to a group of misfits."[6] Following in his mother's footsteps as an addict, Mikey drank to excess, got high, and was dependent on painkillers, which is part of why Carmy, sister Natalie (Abby Elliott), and brother-in-law Pete (Chris Witaske) now attend Al-Anon support group meetings.[7] As we learn in season one, Mikey "apparently liked to drink and party and get into a good bit of trouble with Richie around Chicago."[8] It is implied that Mikey encouraged his best friend and all-purpose deputy Richie to deal small amounts of cocaine out of the back of the restaurant to sustain the business during the COVID-19 pandemic.[9] Exactly what kind of "painkillers" Mike used has not been specified, but his addiction "slowly killed him and fractured his relationships within an already damaged family."[10]

Mikey's first onscreen appearance, in "Ceres," established him as a warm, funny man who acted paternally toward his younger siblings and making a point to involve "cousin" Richie at every turn, telling raucous tales from his younger days, at which "Carmy laughs...though Natalie acts annoyed, it's obvious this is a usual and comforting dynamic."[10] In the season one finale, Richie recovers a note that Mikey left for Carmy. It includes the family's inspirational catchphrase, an "I love you, dude," and the key to a secret bequest that will allow Carmy to live out his long-cherished dream of redeeming their family restaurant, albeit without Mikey at his side.[10] In Bernthal's first appearances as Mikey he had a bit of a nostalgic halo around him, he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2024: "I understood that what Chris Storer needed from that version of Mikey was this larger-than-life, charismatic guy. In the way that we sometimes glorify and romanticize folks that we've lost, we want to see this version of him—his winning smile and ability to take over a room with his energy."[11]

The season two episode "Fishes" exposes a darker side of Mikey.[10] As described by Bernthal, the key to understanding Mikey in "Fishes" is to be found in the two private moments when he's alone in the pantry: "the moment that he's sitting there waiting for [Carmy], suggesting that he's feeling the buzz of the pills that he just took, but more importantly, afterward: They leave him there to sit in that pain, and to show it. That moment was understanding that this dream was never going to happen, this was never going to work because he knew where he was headed. He knew where he was going."[5] Later, at the dinner table, as Uncle Lee (Bob Odenkirk) and Mikey face off, Michael "goes from raging to impish to laughing to near tears all within a few minutes and the frightened and stoney faces of those around the table suggest that this is not an unusual occurrence. It's hard to watch."[10] This erratic, deteriorating, explosive, strung-out Mikey is probably the one Richie and Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) were living with during the last five years before his suicide, while Mikey's refusal to communicate with Carmy during that period kept him ignorant of Mikey's unbalanced state of mind.[10]

Finally, in the Ayo Edebiri-directed "Napkins", the audience is introduced to the highest form of Mikey, the one Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) was thinking of when she told Carmy how she "loved him a lot" in season one's "Braciole".[2] In "Napkins", Mikey encounters a tearful Tina in the dining room of the Original Beef, and after initially trying to get Richie to handle it, he approaches the crying woman himself. The two 40something characters have a vulnerable, funny, honest conversation about the troubles they've known, and their perspective relative to younger people with less experience and less disappointment at their lot in life.[10]

The audience gets to spend time with a healthy, confident Michael Berzatto who can be:[10]

"...an empathetic friend who can recognize the pain in others...when he offers Tina a job on the spot, he doesn't pretend he's doing her a favor. In fact, it seems like she's the one doing him a favor. This is the Mikey that is truly embedded within the walls of The Bear restaurant and The Bear the show. It's kindness, neighborly love, honesty, and non-judgment. Everything in the show and in the restaurant works best when they're operating under the ideals the real Mikey exemplified."[10]

Mikey's suicide by self-inflicted gunshot launched the events of the series.[3] Carmy attended Mikey's funeral momentarily before returning to New York to wrap up his life there before permanently moving back to Chicago, arriving at the Beef in approximately June 2022.[12] The picture on Mikey's funeral card was the Lamb of God, and the Bible verse was Daniel 6:22, which reads in the King James Version as "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt."[13]

In a 2025 interview, Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays Mikey's mom Donna Berzatto suggested that Mikey may have struggled with untreated mental illness from an early age:[14]

"The script is beautiful. I learned that having a kid who you don't know how to help is one of the most powerless experiences as a parent. I personally have a child with special needs. I have a child who has a learning difference. And the powerlessness you feel when you can't actually help them—you can find people who can help them, but you can't. So the part of that scene [in "Tonnato"] that gets me every time is when she talks about Mike. Because clearly Mike had that problem since he was a little boy. And being a parent and not being able to help your kid and not knowing what to do to help them—and finding that alcohol just made it all more palatable and easy—to play a woman who has struggled with that, and then to have the beautiful writing that articulates that exact powerlessness and turmoil, and resulting shame and self-hatred, and then the addiction on top of it—I just thought it was a beautifully constructed."[14]

Of the three Berzatto siblings, only Mikey has "stereotypical" Italian-American features—dark-haired and swarthy, Mikey also bears evidence of a once-broken nose.[15] Both Berzatto brothers are racked; their muscles adding a layer of implied threat to their rage issues. The muscles and the broken nose seemingly suit Chicago, Carl Sandburg's City of Big Shoulders, a place about which Nelson Algren wrote, "Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real."[16]

Mikey has an interest in hockey, based on his story in "Ceres" and the mysteriously stashed hockey stick that appears in season two. According to Richie, Mikey was a fan of the Boston Red Sox. Mikey had a poster of Fenway Park in his office.[17]

Critical reception

Bernthal has received critical acclaim for his performance as Mikey and won a guest star Primetime Emmy Award in 2024.[18]

In large part due to Bernthal's performance, which has been called "unfailingly riveting," Mikey haunts the narrative and is "the most important" figure in the assembly of the family as it exists in the series.[19] BuzzFeed commented on Bernthal's Mikey in 2025, writing, "'I'll take "TV characters who make me WEEP' for $500, Alex. The Walking Dead actor is beyond perfect as Mikey, Carmy and Sugar's older brother who died before the start of the series. His energy is so warm and sincere that I genuinely forget he's acting. Including him in flashbacks was such a smart choice, and it makes his death hit even harder. Bernthal 1000 percent deserved that Emmy."[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ "s01e02 - Hands script".
  2. ^ a b "s01e08 - Braciole script".
  3. ^ a b Sharma, Dhruv (June 23, 2023). "The Bear's Family Tree Explained: All 11 Berzatto Family Members". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
  4. ^ Persaud, Christine (August 3, 2025). "A Guide to the Berzatto Family in 'The Bear,' Because Who Can Keep Track of That Mess?". MovieWeb. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
  5. ^ a b Longeretta, Emily (June 28, 2023). "'The Bear': Jon Bernthal Breaks Down 'F—ing Tense' Dinner Scene With Bob Odenkirk, That Improvised Table Flip and Mikey's 'Ugliness'". Variety. Retrieved 2025-12-16.
  6. ^ Bojalad, Alec (June 27, 2024). "The Bear Doesn't Work Without Jon Bernthal as Mikey Berzatto". Den of Geek. Retrieved 2025-09-22.
  7. ^ McNamara, Mary (June 28, 2024). "'The Bear' isn't about the pressures of fine dining. It's about the damage alcoholism inflicts". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
  8. ^ Eakin, Marah (June 27, 2025). "Every Single Episode of The Bear, Ranked". Vulture. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  9. ^ admin (October 6, 2022). "The Bear - S01E05 - Sheridan - Transcript". Scraps from the loft. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Moser, Zach (November 15, 2024). "Why Jon Bernthal's Mikey Is The Glue That Holds The Bear Together". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2026-01-13.
  11. ^ Rankin, Seija (August 22, 2024). "Jon Bernthal's First Scene in 'The Bear' Was Shot in a Producer's Kitchen (Really)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2026-01-03.
  12. ^ admin (October 6, 2022). "The Bear - S01E01 - System | Transcript". Scraps from the loft. Retrieved 2026-01-13.
  13. ^ "Bible Gateway passage: Daniel 6:22 - King James Version". Bible Gateway. Retrieved 2025-10-01.
  14. ^ a b King-Schreifels, Jake (June 27, 2025). "Jamie Lee Curtis on Her Big Moment in 'The Bear' Season 4". TIME. Retrieved 2025-12-06.
  15. ^ Grazia Serra (2024), p. 121.
  16. ^ Cannariato, Nicholas (July 26, 2023). "What 'The Bear' Gets Right About Chicago". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
  17. ^ admin (June 23, 2023). "The Bear - S02E01 - Beef | Transcript". Scraps from the loft. Retrieved 2026-01-03.
  18. ^ "The Bear's Jon Bernthal Wins His First Emmy for Guest Actor in a Comedy Series". People.com. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  19. ^ Mattson, Kelcie (June 30, 2024). "'The Bear's Most Important Character Only Appears Once a Season". Collider. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  20. ^ Martinez, Kelly (September 1, 2025). "Ranking All Of "The Bear" Guest Stars For Every Season". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2025-10-10.

Sources

  • Grazia Serra, Alessandra Olga (May 2024). "The Bear: New (stereotypical) representations of Italian Americans in contemporary television series". Forum Italicum: A Journal of Italian Studies. 58 (1): 114–124. doi:10.1177/00145858231223974. ISSN 0014-5858.
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