Barry

Barry's season 3 finale aired this Sunday, and while I've been a huge fan of the show from the get-go (as well as Bill Hader going back all the way to when I was in high school) the past eight episodes have cemented it as one of my favourite TV series of all time. It's at once the funniest and one of the most frightening shows I've ever watched, with not a single weak link in its main or supporting cast, and it's been awesome to see Hader hone his directorial chops.

Edited by DavidMerrick on Jun 14th 2022 at 1:55:17 PM

The bit where Sally attacked the biker and then killed him is the part where the finale grabbed me and never let go.

I too enjoyed Hader's direction, the bit where it's revealed Barry was hallucinating with the LA suburbs just directly overlapping with a beach is a very nice image that's stuck with me.

I also feel legally obligated to mention the greatest chase sequence in the history of TV from a few episodes back, as well as the entirety of "ronny/lily."

Sarah Goldberg's face acting these last few eps have been tremendous.

If this show has taught me anything, it's how quick you'll find yourself out of a job if you unintentionally end up filming for your bosses your operation getting raided simultaneously by both the cops and rival gangs.

Goldberg's great! I'm so happy she's co-creating her own show! Which is very funny/ironic, given her arc this season.

Neat little cameo by Michael Ironside as well.

Great show. Probably my favorite thing on tv right now. Season 3 definitely went in a (more) messed-up direction.

Great timing to have actually caught up to this series right before the season 4 premiere. I was not expecting Sally to get back to LA that soon. Also, Gene really screwed himself (and maybe the case against Barry) over with that monologue.

The bit with Sally dreaming of the biker she killed playing peekaboo with her on the plane is something out of a horror movie.

With each passing episode this show is more and more like staring straight into a black hole. One of the best television series I've ever seen.

Edited by DavidMerrick on Apr 17th 2023 at 3:00:49 PM

Oh yeah, that was terrifying. I appreciate that they're having the fantasies seamlessly blend into the actually events again. I genuinely thought Barry was hallucinating Sally's visit, just like how the double date at Cousineau's in season 1 felt too dream-like at first.

The sudden cut to Fred Armisen's face outta nowhere in this episode made me guffaw to an embarrassing degree.

Something I admire about this show is how its relatively short length and tight pacing mean that story arcs and developments that would normally take up half a season for most shows are resolved in the span of an episode—most infamously with "ronny/lily" in season 2, but with this episode look how economically they (presumably) wrapped up the Vanity Fair reporter's story in a way that felt true to all the characters involved while still being very, very darkly funny.

Well, uh, THAT was a Wham Episode if there ever was one.

Intrigued that this show deconstructs—hell, basically takes a shotgun to—my favourite trope of Affably Evil with Barry and, now, No Ho Hank. Neither are necessarily malicious or ill-intentioned characters at first, regardless of their respective professions, and make a point of treating most people with courtesy. But the very nature of their work means that their affability counts for jack shit—Barry's no sadist and really, really, really wants to get out of the game, you guys, he means it this time, but he still has a body count that numbers in the dozens; Hank wants to be the nice, friendly boss everybody loves, but the moment his own hide is threatened he's willing to cast everybody aside for himself and Cristobal... however long that lasted afterward.

I'm so excited to see what is going on with this time jump. Starting to get Twin Peaks: The Return finale vibes.

Edited by DavidMerrick on May 1st 2023 at 12:19:28 PM

Hader was so on fire with this time skip. Barry finally gets his fantasy of a family life and portraying himself once again as the hero to someone, but it's just so fundamentally broken. He won't even let his kid play baseball or catch with other kids because it would let John get a little bit away from his domination. The two dinner scenes where Sally swaps sides as the lighting and mood changes just has so much. The little dialogue drops from John picking up on how Sally's behavior doesn't seem right even to him.

This show is so good.

Also Barry's 2030 Best Documentary ad for "Remember the Amazon" is such a depressingly hilarious pitch for what kind of documentaries would be made by then.

I understand it's more than a little divisive, but I have to be honest and say it was one of the greatest episodes of television I've ever seen. Probably helps that Twin Peaks: The Return is my favourite show, and this episode's tone and general sense of disorientation reminds me so much of The Return's finale. I don't think I've ever hated Barry as much as I did when he showed John those lethal baseball injury videos... but also nothing on the show has made me laugh quite as hard.

Speaking of Twin Peaks, David Lynch really, REALLY needs to cast Sarah Goldberg in the lead for one of his projects. She's really embodying the doppelganger performance trope he's been playing around with since he brought Maddy Ferguson onto the original Twin Peaks.

Edited by DavidMerrick on May 11th 2023 at 10:58:34 AM

The surreal horror of Sally isolated with John in the house as her trauma blends with the world around her was legitimately unsettling for those few minutes and I'm going to have to think on this for a while.

also there's probably an interesting point in Sally being uninterested at all in Hollywood after all this, Gene seeing this dramatization machine as sickening yet will let the publicity run its course, and Barry's insistence on getting to mandate the narrative for his own prima donna beliefs.

NoHo Hank going legit with a saccharine sob story to memorialize Cristobal is amazing. Same with Fuches just completely running with the Raven farce as his new identity.

The bit with the shadow man gave me a goddamn anxiety attack. And to think I thought last week's episode was Lynchian.

And yes, I'm absolutely here for Fuches in full Raven mode.

Also, Sisters, the new show co-starring, co-written and co-created by Sarah "Sally Reed" Goldberg, has now dropped on Crave in Canada, IFC in the US and RTÉ One in Ireland. I was dying laughing within the first few minutes.

EDIT: ugh, sorry, didn't mean to double-post.

Edited by DavidMerrick on May 20th 2023 at 8:54:24 AM

On absolute tenterhooks to see how this show will wrap everything up in half an hour next week. Seems like everyone is set up to collide with each other but then what?!!!

I've got to say, this one contained the only bit of writing on this show that I've found questionable/straight-up bad: Moss just leaves Barry unattended with a knife and several other tools within reach? I can argue that he wasn't expecting Barry to wake up from the drugs so soon, but it kind of runs contrary to the sheer competence the man has demonstrated with every one of his previous scenes.

...though I guess his otherwise very smart daughter didn't expect Barry getting the upper hand, either. Must run in the family.

Anyway, a weak spot in an otherwise great episode that features the absolute Looney Tunes No Ho Hank rocket/chase sequence. I'm so happy they have this show take place in such a patently absurd, Grant Theft Auto-esque universe.

Insane of them to throw in another timeskip entirely and then leave it completely ambiguous what the final thoughts between Sally and John on Barry were.

But the movie portraying Barry is such a great way to square everything. Shout-out to the rampage against the Chechens to save his family and the utterly gratuitous drawn-out death scene for Barry being the complete opposite of how they went as one final dig at Hollywood's sensibilities.

And NoHo Hank's final choice to try and grip the artificial hand of Cristobal as he lay dying. Just beautiful in its end for him.

Not sure what I feel about Fuches just leaving into the void like that. Sure it's a choice that Barry's awful father figure chose to do something kind as his final action and his relatively better father figure chose to murder him but hmm.

I'm glad Sally finally got out and self-actualized at the very least. It wasn't a perfect finale but it held true to its ethos and that made the whole watch worth it.

Edited by Nouct on May 29th 2023 at 5:22:12 AM

I was initially angry and confused at the ending, but it made way sense the more I thought about it. The ending was essentially Gene's worst nightmare come true: Barry's life story was sanitized and he was made a hero, but even worse because now he's suffering for Barry's crimes. I wonder how much John buys it by the end, considering all that Sally told him and him being present for one of the discrepancies.

I found it interesting that Fuches got the best outcome out of all the main characters despite initially being the least sympathetic one, if only because he's the only one who acknowledged his true nature and faced it instead of being in various degrees of denial. Hank was close to getting it but backed down and got himself shot. Sally also acknowledged it but then didn't take any responsibility for it or even tried to speak about Gene's innocence. Barry was constantly in denial and the one time he almost did the right thing was because Tom goaded him into it as an opportunity and only after he lost everything else. And despite Gene's relative innocence, his avoidance of any consequences or even difficult situations at all set up his final fate.

The only thing that genuinely bothered me is how Jim Moss is handled in the final couple of episodes. Despite his competence, his theory about Gene seems flimsy at best. More importantly, I do agree that Barry escaped his house way too easy. It felt too convenient in a way that was distracting.

The ending which revealed they made a movie about Barry where he is portrayed as a heroic guy while is Gene is the bad guy and was working with the Chechens mob from the start was hilarious. I think the movie thing was a Take That! against movies and shows that give real military operators heroic characteristics when in Real Life they weren't like that and were much worse (eg.Chris Kyle in American Sniper is portrayed as a humble guy who didn't like his fame and was liked by his teammates while in Real Life he wasn't humble and love to brag about his accomplishments and lie a lot about things he never did like claiming he shot Looters during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or punching Jesse Ventura which annoyed his teammates).

Still, it was nice finale for the show.

Emmys [1]

Barry is running in comedy (almost feels like category fraud at this point), and is nominated for Outstanding Comedy, Lead Actor for Hader, Supporting Actor for Corrigan and Winkler, Cinematography ("Tricky Legacies"), Directing, Editing, Sound Acting, Sound Mixing, Writing ("wow"), and Stunts. (Sarah Goldberg robbed)

Yeah, as someone who's just entering Season 3 it really feels like the show has a second-half shift from "Black Comedy with some dramatic thriller moments sprinkled in" to "Psychological Thriller with some Black Comedy moments sprinkled in." Don't know that the Emmys classing it as "Comedy" is the right move, but what can you do

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Jul 13th 2023 at 11:20:22 AM

I'd argue it's straight-up horror at points by the season 3 finale!

Can't believe I forgot to comment on the finale until now: I adored it!

Spoilers ensue:

- Barry the character's end is perfect, no notes: I love how sudden it is, how funny it is, how his fleetingly brief moment of reflection and atonement is way too little, way too late; the several seconds of black was mwah *chef's kiss*.

-Never in my life would I have guessed Fuches would have the single most redemptive moment of any character, and yet it felt earned. I can't wait to see his arc unfold on a rewatch knowing where he ends up.

- Likewise, never would've thought Hank's fate would be so sad and poignant.

- Sally's conclusion is ideal for who she is, what she's done, and how she's capable of growing. She's not suddenly, totally selfless, because she's still Sally, but you can tell she's honestly trying to be better in every part of her life.

- Fucking spectacular that Barry doesn't fire a single shot and instead Hank's and Fuches' crews bluntly and stupidly take each other out in the span of seconds.

Lastly, it's very funny to me that the one person to manage to talk Barry down was SY ABLEMAN?!?

So happy, one of my favourite shows ever, I can't wait for Hader's eventual Oscar for direction and for Sarah Goldberg and Anthony Carrigan to blow up.