Richie Is the Unexpected Queer Masc Energy I Didn’t Know I Needed

I didn’t set out to become emotionally attached to Richie from The Bear. Season 1 Richie was loud, chaotic, aggressively straight-coded in the worst possible way. He was the embodiment of men who yell “it’s not that deep” while actively spiralling about a football game. I assumed he’d be the character I tolerated — maybe even rooted against a little. I was wrong. So wrong. Devastatingly wrong. I’m happy to admit it.

Because in Season 2, Richie does something radical. He softens. He listens. He wears suits. He sings Taylor Swift. And by the end of episode 7 (“Forks”), I was sitting in the emotional wreckage of my assumptions — sobbing, possibly unshowered, and whispering, “Wait… is Richie giving masc queer redemption arc?”

The shift doesn’t happen all at once. It’s slow. Earned. Painfully tender. Richie, this ex-bro with a bulletproof ego and a track record of emotional explosions, is dropped into fine dining service bootcamp. It should break him. Instead, it cracks him open.

We watch him go from “What the f*** is this?” to folding napkins with reverence. We see him learning to read people, anticipate needs, show care. We see him perform emotional labour — and not resent it.

There’s a moment, mid-montage, where he’s in the car belting “Love Story” by Taylor Swift, in his sleek little suit, driving through the Chicago streets like a man reborn in a very specific gay dream sequence. And honestly? I’ve never seen straight masculinity look so lovingly queer-coded.

Let’s talk about the suit. Richie doesn’t just wear it — he steps into it like armour made of self-worth. Crisp. Tailored. It’s the kind of transformation montage that would play in a sapphic coming-of-age film, except instead of falling in love with a girl, Richie falls in love with doing better. And that? That’s queer-coded as hell.

Because we know what it is to perform. To costume ourselves. To try on new selves until something feels right.

The reason Richie’s arc hits so hard, especially if you're queer and masc-presenting, is because it's not about a grand gesture. It's about the micro shifts. The way you learn to show up differently. The way you realise caretaking isn’t weakness, it’s power. His arc says: you can be loud and still be loving. You can be flawed and still be evolving. You can scream at the world and still want to be gentle in it.

Richie Season 2 is masculinity unlearning itself in real time. It’s “no homo” slowly morphing into deeply homoerotic acts of care. It’s calling people “cousin” while arranging flatware like a Virgo in heat.

Look, I don’t know what the writers intended. Maybe they just wanted to give Richie a redemption arc. But what they gave us instead was a quietly radical portrayal of masculine tenderness, growth and emotional intelligence wrapped in a sharp suit. And if that’s not queer-coded excellence, I don’t know what is.

I started watching The Bear for Carmy. I stayed for the pan-seared grief, the anxiety, and the miso-glazed character studies. But I emotionally imprinted on Richie — the man who made vulnerability look cool and proved that being soft is a skill, not a liability.

Richie, babe…
You are the fork.