‘The Bear’ Episode 6: A Guide to All Those Wild Cameos

If you thought The Bear was only going to fill you up with juicy Italian beef subs, just wait until your mind gets overstuffed with the absurd number of cameos. In its hour-long sixth episode, Season 2 of the FX on Hulu series flashes back to Christmas a few years before the show actually takes place—and we learn that the Berzattos happen to have an incredible number of A-List stars in their family tree.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead for Episode 6 of The Bear, “Fishes.”)

Before I get into who they are in the family or how great all their performances are, let me just list out the big names The Bear brings us: Sarah Paulson, John Mulaney, Bob Odenkirk, Gillian Jacobs, and, to top it all off, Academy Award winner Jamie Lee Curtis. How’s that for a roster of cameos? We already heard that Odenkirk would be playing a guest role on the show, but the rest are huge surprises.

Now, the tricky part is figuring out who’s who. It would be difficult enough to meet all these people at once in a normal show, but we’re dealing with The Bear, which is a whole different kind of fast-paced beast. Moving at a million miles a minute, the whole family slams through the door on Christmas, greeted by yelps, whoops, welcomes, and grumbles, all in a competing cacophony of Chicago accents. Chicagoans are famous for saying things like “DAAA Bears,” which makes even more sense here, where the Berzatto family call each other “bears.” There’s the football team “DAAA Bears,” then there’s the Italian American family “DAAA Bears,” too.

Let’s start with what we already know. Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) is back, and everyone’s trying to do business with him at the family gathering. He’s the rich uncle of the family, the guy who later steps in to help Carmy fund The Bear (the restaurant replacing The Original Beef) in Season 2.

We also know the three siblings: Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Natalie aka Sugar (Abby Elliott), and the eldest, Mike (Jon Bernthal). In the show’s present-day timeline, Mike isn’t around. He died by suicide, leading Carmy to take over the restaurant. But in this flashback episode, Mike is there, managing The Original Beef while Carmy works in fine dining in New York. Sugar is dating Pete (Chris Witaske), the boyfriend who everyone hates because he makes faux pas like bringing tuna casserole to Christmas dinner, where Mama Berzatto makes everything.

Mama Berzatto, who goes by both “Donna” and “The Bear,” is played by Curtis in the way of Catherine O’Hara—which is to say her blonde hair is perfectly curled and her energy is off the charts. We only see Donna outside of the kitchen in two moments over the entire episode. Things start to make sense, when it comes to Carmy and his frantic organization (or rather, disorganization) of the restaurant.

Then there’s family friend (the fake “cousin”) Richie, who is married to Tiff (Jacobs). This is the first time we see Tiff in The Bear, as Richie is divorced from her in Season 1. In this episode, Richie and Tiff are just beginning to fight. Tiff is currently pregnant with their daughter, Eva, and the pair make up while they bond over what she’ll be like.

We already knew Richie was a fake “cousin” to Carmy, but Tiff’s presence confused me a bit here: Is she a biological cousin of the Berzatto family? It seems no, as Richie tries to clear things up with Neil Fak (Matty Matheson), another family friend.

“How are you related to them again?” Neil asks.

“Through friendship,” Richie responds.

“Like us!” Neil says, referring to him and his brother, Theodore (Ricky Staffieri).

“No, not like you,” Richie responds.

The Faks are at dinner too. While we’ve met Neil, an employee of The Bear, we haven’t met his brother yet. While we never learn if they’re actually twins, Neil and Theodore sport matching outfits—green flannels with red hoodies—so I’d like to think they are.

The weirdest pairing, however, is cousin Michelle (Paulson) and her partner Stevie (Mulaney). Their relation to the family—is Michelle the daughter of Jimmy or Lee (Odenkirk)?—is unclear. Michelle and oddball Stevie live in New York together, where she runs a few restaurants. She invites Carmy to stay with her while he pursues his dreams of working in New York. Seems the pair don’t visit one another, even though they apparently live in the same city.

The real question I have is: Who thought Mulaney and Paulson would make a good couple? This makes absolutely no sense. And yet, somehow, they have impeccable chemistry. Consider me impressed, but also, still a little confused.

That leaves Odenkirk, who seems to be the man of the house, but is just an Uncle. Uncle Lee. The one everyone hates. The one who was only invited out of family obligation. Lee complains about everything, makes a fool out of Mikey, and is rude to his sister Donna (presuming he’s related to her, and is not Carmy, Mike, and Sugar’s father)—even after she makes him the course of the seven fishes. Don’t ask what that is. It’s literally just a big meal with seven different types of fish, a Berzatto family tradition.

There you have it! Those are the Berzattos, and now you don’t have to keep pausing and rewinding to figure out how everyone is related. Though there are a million new faces at once, The Bear does a wonderful job of making sure these folks aren’t a distraction—they only contribute to the big family energy.

Midwesterners have a reputation for being nice and friendly, but that’s not always the case. By bringing in these larger-than-life personalities, The Bear does a marvelous job of illustrating the loud, frenzied, everyone’s-talking-over-each-other nature of holidays at home, particularly in the Midwest, but also, especially in the Chicagoland area. If the dinner isn’t just right, it’ll be tossed onto the gray sleet outside. And if family members don’t behave, all hell will break loose. That may stink for the Berzattos, but it’s a win for us viewers, who get to be a fly on the wall in this exciting Christmas bonanza.

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