What was Gary's deal?

Seemed like he was initially presented as just this total blue-collar laborer dude. But then in the last episode, he comes across more like a writer or college professor?

A little strange that his cleaning up his act, getting off the bottle, and reconciling with his wife, all occurred offscreen. But I guess that's part of the charm in the structure of this miniseries: you often had to sort of peer into the background or around corners to find out what was developing with characters who had been the central focus earlier.

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