The final season of “The Bear” is now streaming and, amid all the chaos, Paul Rudd is among the final batch of A-list cameos. Well, kind of — there’s a cardboard cutout of him. But it marks his third appearance in the series, and one final nod to fans before the show ends.
In Episode 1, titled “Soda”, the Bear is dealing with a torrential downpour, which leads to a burst pipe in the restaurant and results in awful flooding. The prelude to the pipe bursting? The Faks are in a supply room, where they’re faced with a cardboard cutout of Rudd, who ominously-but-joyously (It’s Paul Rudd, after all) stares them down.
They refer to him as “Paul Rubb,” which is a nod to his last appearance back in Season 2. In the opening sequence of the season, we briefly see a headshot of Rudd, signed as “Paul Rubb.” Many assumed that was an Easter egg to fans, confirming Rudd’s original appearance, back in Season 1, which was an uncredited voice role. Well, “The Bear” star Matty Matheson is ready to go on record about it.
“Paul Rudd, he’s the voice in Ballbreaker too, the video game,” he told TheWrap.
And thus, one of the show’s longest running mysteries, however slight it was, is solved.
Yes, way back in Season 1 of “The Bear,” fans were introduced to “Ballbreaker,” a fictional video game similar to “Mortal Kombat” that had a strikingly familiar voice behind it. In the episode, Neil Fak (Matheson) hallucinates a brief conversation with a character, and many clocked it immediately as Rudd. But, as we mentioned, it was never credited.
“Yeah, I believe that is Rudd. Rudd and Chris [Storer] are homies,” Matheson explained. “And I think it’s just like, we all love Paul. I’m a huge fan of his — I think everyone in the world’s a fan of Paul. He’s like, the greatest.”
“But yeah, it’s just a funny little thing. Chris loves throwing those things in there, and he loves paying tribute, you know?” he continued. “‘The Bear’ wears our influences on our sleeves. You see the books, you see the movies we reference, you see the things that we love, that have defined us. We love paying tribute. We love saying ‘We love you.’”
“The Bear” Season 5 is now streaming on Hulu.
The post ‘The Bear’: How Paul Rudd Got Into One Last Episode Before the Show Ended appeared first on TheWrap.
