Mikey Berzatto is a fictional character on the FX Network television series The Bear. 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." 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.
Michael Berzatto, called Mikey, was born November 15, 1979, and shot himself in the head on the State Street Bridge on February 22, 2022. 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] His rejection of Carmy led Carmy to leave Chicago to become a professional chef in an attempt to work toward his big brother's acceptance.[2] Unbeknownst to Carmy, Mikey was intentionally pushing Carmy away from the family to protect him from their destructive habits and chaos.[3] 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."[4] 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, Nat, and Pete now attend Al-Anon support group meetings.[5] 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."[6] 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.[7]
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.[8] Both Berzatto brothers are racked, the 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."[9]
Mikey's suicide launched the events of the series.[2] Carmy attended Mikey's funeral momentarily before returning to New York to wrap up his life there before permanently moving back to Chicago. 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."[10]
Critical reception
Bernthal won a guest star Emmy in 2024 for his work playing Mikey.[11]
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.[12] 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% deserved that Emmy."[13]
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