Barry recap: Finding the ugliest version of yourself
NoHo Hank faces Toro, Barry cuts a deal, Sally goes full Cousineau, and the guys who are going to kill Barry have a podcast
TV Reviews Barry
The opening shot of tonight’s episode of Barry sees a gangster riding atop a truck filled with sand locked to the center of the frame. He rides without a care in the world, as if floating to his destination while holding a military-grade assault rifle that’s as common as apple pie here in the United States of America. The truck pulls into NoHo Hank’s compound, spraying high-quality sand to rapturous applause. The glee Barry takes in presenting a violent world through an optimistic and casual lens has always been a primary component of the show and its comedy. Still, the ease with which these violent, nefarious actors move through the world makes Barry such a bittersweet, sometimes scary watch. It’s unpleasant confronting how normalized violence is and it’s even more unpleasant siding with its perpetrators.
At its heart, Barry is a show about people who, deep down, embrace the ugliest sides of themselves while maintaining that they’re still good people. Even NoHo Hank believes, at the end of the day, he’s a heavy chiller with a good attitude. He’s a good friend—who betrayed the Chechens on Barry’s behalf numerous times—a sharp dresser, and willing to be emotionally available to those around him. However, for all the work he’s done on stage, Barry refuses such vulnerability. He wants people to acknowledge he’s good without putting in any work.
Hank and Barry’s phone call at the end of the episode shows their separation. Working with a conflicted and regretful Fuches, Hank puts a hit on Barry. To phrase it like the interrogators, he’s in a friend fight with Barry and brings in the Toro (played by Guillermo Del Toro) to take him out. Toro, too, keeps the game going, telling Hank that his two best guys on the job. Don’t worry, though. This won’t interrupt their podcasting schedule since they record on Thursdays. Only in Barry can a top assassin be so visible (or not so visible as you’d have to pull over and click a link to see any pictures) as to have a top-rated gadget podcast. Maybe it’s true. Everyone has a podcast these days.
Yet, while the gangsters openly trade in the media, the actors run from exposure and find themselves acting like gangsters. After his big one-man show last week, Gene Cousineau and his agent Tom (the spectacular Fred Melamed, who is just an ace in the hole for this show) meet with DA Buckner (Charles Parnell) in a scene even more loaded with great lines than the one previous. Much to Cousineau’s dismay, Buckner informs them that the FBI has cut a deal with Barry, but the acting teacher has nothing to worry about so long as he keeps his mouth shut. Well, he’s screwed. Despite owning a prop gun given to him by Rip Torn, Cousineau decides to go into hiding because of the one-man show he gave Lon O’Neil last week—a revelation so shocking Tom careens into oncoming traffic upon hearing about it.
Strangely, the car crash signals a shift the in the episode. Throughout “you’re charming,” characters undergo various role reversals, starting with Barry’s first meeting with the FBI. This scene is primarily expository, but it reveals how much Sally’s admission that Barry makes her feel safe affects Barry. Nevertheless, Barry is now in Cousineau’s position, working with the police to save himself. Hader, who continues to deliver an unpredictable and wholly complete character through Berkman, looks filled with purpose as he remembers what she said. But, of course, we get the opposite when he visits with Lon when Barry’s explosive anger counters whatever paternalism he holds over Sally. After the Thief collage last season, Hader is still living in James Caan mode, ready to pop at a moment’s notice. Moreover, we get the two sides of Barry, the one who’s pleased with himself because he has a mission, and the other who will kill Gene Cousineau for not keeping his fucking mouth shut.
But Barry’s not the only one getting tough. Sally is teaching Cousineau’s “Hit Your Marks And Say Your Lines” acting classes and acting a lot like her old mentor. In her first attempt at running the class, she pulls together a crew that looks like a dollar-store version of the one we met in season one. And strangely, Sally’s never seemed more in control and confident. Sure, she’s concerned that people are only in the class because she’s the “Entitled C-word Girl,” but the class sympathizes with her anger. Well, until it’s thrown back on them.
When a blonde woman named Kristen (Ellyn Jameson) comes to class unprepared with a monologue from Sunset Blvd., Sally dresses her down as her teacher did to her. Then, in a tight close-up that Sarah Goldberg fearlessly owns, Sally attacks her looks, motivations, and past, accusing her of being an attractive and “charming” woman who had been told her whole life that she should be an actor based on those qualities. It has never felt more like Sally was confronting herself—so much so that I thought the role Kristen booked was as Sally in an upcoming film version of the Barry Berk—ahem—Gene Cousineau story.
Sally tells the class that the work of an actor requires mental torture and the ability to recall horrible emotions and memories to serve the scene, much like the emotions Barry and, well, everyone on the show tries to shut out. She encourages them to be the “ugliest versions of themselves,” but she’s talking about herself again. This is the ugliest version of Sally, and the class isn’t having it. They call her abusive and her tactics unnecessary. The class is more supportive of the now-viral video in which Sally attacks Natalie than this technique, possibly because that’s actual anger instead of acting anger. After using Cousineau’s get-out-of-jail-free card (“a tight five”), Sally finds everyone in the class has abandoned her, except Kristen, who still needs help preparing for a role.
As Sally becomes Gene, Gene becomes Barry, engaging in some light recon to steal the information from Lon’s computer monitor where these things are typically stored. Hader directs another impressive oner as his camera tracks through the O’Neil residence. It’s a testament to his comic precision that he can maintain the dread and fear of home invasion thrillers while getting away with Melamed searching for a snack. When Lon’s wife walks back in (“Lon’s wife in the house!”), Cousineau sweet talks her into telling him that Lon is at Jim Moss’ house. Unbeknownst to her, Moss is torturing him in the garage and wiping his brain so that he can only speak German. But at least she didn’t care much about the planter Tom put through her window. (Again, characters don’t always react to violence in the typical ways on this show.)
There’s a lot of talk of trust and honesty in this episode. And as Sally forges a new, potentially unhealthy relationship with her acting student, Hank exits one with one of his best friends. In a call from prison, Barry tells Hank that he needs a “dog catcher” for Cousineau—and, to be explicitly clear, Barry is asking Hank to murder Gene—and Hank refuses. He knows that Barry is working with the feds and drops some uncomfortable truths similar to the ones he dropped when Barry asks if he is evil in season two. Hank calls Barry a murdering, self-centered, narcissistic piece of shit. Barry counters by informing Hank that, actually, he’s a good person and a good friend. He still can’t see the truths that he doesn’t want to be true.
But it won’t matter because he’s about to make his escape, but not before Fuches, once again, has a change of heart. After withstanding the vicious insults from his former crew, like “big bird,” “fish tits,” and, my favorite, “baby shoes,” Fuches watches Rain Man and realizes he’s made a terrible mistake. He and Barry aren’t enemies. Fuches is Cruise, and Barry is Hoffman. They are Rain Man, and Fuches can’t let his little meal ticket fall, so he tells the guards that someone will kill Berkman.
Thankfully, Toro’s best men are better at podcasting than killing. As Barry’s meeting with the feds begins, he notices an agent (played by Fred Armisen) that appears to have a rolling boil bubbling in his head. The agent sweats and shakes with Lynchian menace as Barry clocks him as an assassin. Then, with the killer unmasked, the agent pulls out a peashooter, fires, and screams in horror as the gun explodes in his hand with such viscera. It is truly a surprising moment that kicks off a massacre via the drop ceiling, taking every agent in the room out and leaving an open door for Barry.
There were times in this episode the show felt a little expository, as if we were seeing more setup than payoff—particularly with all the business regarding Barry and Cousineau and the return of Batir (JB Blanc). Still, I can’t stop thinking about it as a whole. There’s so much magic in this episode: the camera work in the opening shot, the home invasion, Sally’s close-up, the cameos that never feel overplayed—even as Armisen grasps his now mangled hand—Han Zimmer’s Rain Man theme needle-drop…. There’s no scene without something original or strange or worth seeing. These killers tap into their ugliest versions as those around them chew Skittles, serve them jalapeño poppers, and enjoy their podcasts. That’s crime utopia, and it remains sublime television.
Stray observations
- “Yeah, it’s called Los Amigos Gadget. Each week they rate and review a different gadget, but none of the gadgets work. Like once, they did a jacket that cooks s’mors in its pocket. It’s really stupid.”
“I bought one of those. It works fine.” - Watching Del Toro’s face lose its smile as Hank begins mocking the jacket was one of the episode’s funniest moments. Anyone that’s ever bought an expensive item on Instagram only to find out it’s stupid but can’t admit it to themselves can relate to this one. Online shopping truly brings out the worst versions of ourselves.
- Last note on the podcast: Del Toro’s face is a bit inscrutable, but I get the impression that Toro is either hosting or producing the podcast. He is not here for Hank’s criticism about the lack of visuals on the show—probably because he’s been fielding them for a while. I’ve probably spent more time thinking about this than they spent writing it. Either way, he’s a friend of the show.
- “If Rip Torn gave it to you, it probably fires real bullets” is a line I plan on working into my everyday life.
- “You know what? I’m just going to go into hiding.”
“They always find you. I’ve had many cases like this but I can’t talk about them.”
“Because they’re classified?”
“No. They’re really disturbing, and I just don’t like thinking about them.” - Winkler has so many strange line deliveries on this show, but his exhausted “I don’t know” after the crash is one of my favorites. He is at the end of his rope with himself.
- “Ah, shit, that was a kitchen in there.”
- “Do you guys have Julia Roberts on your cover?”
“Yeah, I’m sure at some point.” - Patrick Fischler’s German was genuinely unexpected. However, I was happy to see him alive after Jim Moss was seen spraying down his trunk with a hose.
- “Tell Gene Cousineau to shut his fucking mouth” is something people have been saying around Hollywood for decades.
81 Comments
I have the feeling that Barry has some sort of weird limited 4th wall breaking skills to know he’s in danger.
Like, he realizes when something gets too awkward, he’s in danger.
Then how did he get poisoned you may ask? Because he thought that she didn’t know he was the killer of her husband (not awkward enough).
And we can’t leave out Richard Riehle as the warden. How long until he’s screaming at people like they’re the Bobs?
Speaking of which, the absence of Gary Cole on BARRY seems criminal.
Thought that was Brian Doyle Murray?
Heh, with that first glimpse of the warden I thought it was Brian Doyle Murray too. But then came a close-up shot or two and that was definitely Richard Riehle (the “Jump to Conclusions mat” guy from Office Space)
They are a bit twinn-ish in their elder states. Riehle also did a great guest spot on “West Wing” as a cop unfairly accused of brutality. He would be a good Random Roles!
He did do a Random Roles! In 2017, and his West Wing appearance is brought up.
He’s probably working on another heart attack!
-He told you that?-It took over three hours, but, yes, he told me that.
Release the Cousineau Cut!
It’s the little lines like that that make this show so great.
I loved the Fred Armisen cameo. His nervous would-be assassin reminded me a little of his “creepy Italian guy on a train” in EuroTrip, only slightly more dangerous.
I was half expecting an episode of Los Amigos Gadgets to appear online.
This was the funniest episode in quite a while. And hiring comedy pros for small parts is welcomed too.
much like i appreciated the small mr show reunions on better call saul i appreciated the snl reunion here.
Ugh. If you’re referring to Mr. Armisen, you’re way off. Guy is the death of comedy. The OTT mugging faces took one right out of the scene, and his appearance was *already* going to be a huge distraction.
I’m not an Armisen lover by any stretch, but Hader’s dry “That guy’s here to kill me” was a perfect counter-reaction to Armisen’s blatant over-the-top acting.
I think the “pea-shooter” was a gun disguised as a pen, a gag wonderfully set up by “gadgets that never work” discussion.
Yeah, I couldn’t tell what it was at a glance, but it blowing up in his hand was absolutely a gag on the gadgets never working. That cracked me up.
Definitely a pen because if you look closely, some of the liquid streaming down the stump is black which I assumed was ink.
Oh yeah 100%. As soon as they introduced the assassins as the “podcast guys who talk about gadgets that never work” I knew we were going to see one of those gadgets not working. Still a fun reveal.
There were actually two gadgets that didn’t work. Chuy was hidden, strapped into the ceiling with a gun that he was shooting into a pipe coming out of the ceiling. But rather than killing Barry, he killed everyone else. Comic genius!
That wasn’t a pipe, it was a silencer on the rifle he was shooting with.
I think it was a pen gun (either made from a pen or simply disguised as one). They have a reputation for being as dangerous to the user as the intended target. So yeah, it would definitely have been in the podcast.
OMG that connection between the two went over my head until just now. LOL
HBO taking pot shots at Rip Torn (RIP Rip). Artie helped build that network god damn it!
We’ve known about the gun for a while. Gene tries to use it on Barry early in season 3. (Which makes me think he knows it’s not a prop gun and is just embarrassed by his failure to use it properly.)
It’s a revolver, if I recall. In which case it’s both a prop and real gun as revolvers don’t need to be modified to shoot blanks (thanks for that knowledge, In Bruges).
I also recall it being a revolver.
I guess Gene doesn’t have the Beretta any more.
He killed guys like them in Korea.
Very tasty deep cut. Melanie & Sheldon would be proud.
Also, now that this is in my head, I’m imagining a version of BARRY in which Rip Torn played Fuches. Shandling as Barry. Hank Kingsley in place of Cousineau.
Hey now!
I heard it more as a “Rip Torn was a badass” remark, rather than a slight.
I think the joke is more Rip Torn was “notoriously unstable” than “a badass”
I mean, the guy broke into a bank drunk and armed, and he hit Norman Mailer with a hammer. Giving a guy a real gun as a gift seems pretty mild by comparison.
Yeah, but there were a lot of people who wanted to hit Norman Mailer with a hammer.
Rip Torn is a man of action.
Indeed!
Rip Torn was a legend. A couple years before he died he got arrested for trying to break into a bank that he mistook for his house.
That was a weird reference to Rip Torn. I thought they were going for Rip Taylor, who’s act involved pulling lots of crap out of bag that never worked. I wonder if they screwed up writing the joke? The reference is spot on even if the joke is pretty obscure by this time.
If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!
…so much so that I thought the role Kristen booked was as Sally in an upcoming film version…That thought didn’t occur to me until I read it here. Now I can totally imagine that it’s a project for BanShe being headed up by Natalie and Kristen is doing research…and maybe her real name isn’t even Kristen.
Does not bode well for Natalie (or Sally) if this proves to be the case.
I was certain that was where it was going. And still quasi-convinced.
The main thing that pointed me in that direction was how much more poised and confident Kristen seemed in the second scene. One could attribute that to her story about how Sally was the only one to “get anything out of her” among the acting classes she’s taken, but to me the more reasonable interpretation (which, on Barry, doesn’t necessarily make it the more likely interpretation, but still) is that she stuck around because she needs something specifically from Sally as Sally rather than as an acting teacher. That and their physical similarities made me feel like Sally’s being studied for a role.
And Kristen avoids mentioning what project the role she’s booked is in.
Good lord. That scene between Hank and Barry was great and man did Hader ratchet up the psychopath level.
“anyone that’s ever bought an expensive item on Instagram only to find out it’s stupid but can’t admit it to themselves can relate to this one.”
Ah yes, Instagram. That famous website you buy things on.
i mean yeah. it’s essentially pivoted to a shopping platform. you’ve never bought anything off the timeline?
“The glee Barry takes in presenting a violent world through an optimistic and casual lens has always been a primary component of the show and its comedy.”oh boy finally a show with this sensibility!
This episode was pretty great. So much good stuff-but the highlight was the long time coming conversation between Barry and Hank. It was pretty great to see some steel from Hank, and Hader is just giving a fantastic performance as always.
Such a great episode, the del Toro cameo was a fun surprise, that whole exchange about the podcast was genius.This EP also didn’t let us forget – because that’s often backburnered – that Barry is hell on wheels.
“… I got stage fever.”I busted up hearing the Rain Man theme (was it ever a part of those Time/Life CD compilation commercials that played so much in the 90’s or am I imagining that?)That first glimpse of Fred Armisen was great. Truly one of those moments only he and Hader only could have come up with together.
Glad to see Richard Riehle in the series now!
Yeah, there’s that Alec Berg >> Mike Judge >> Office Space connection, which makes me hope we see Gary Cole too (he and Hader have also both done voice work in Bob’s Burgers). 😀
Also Stephen Root >> Mike Judge >> Office Space/King of the Hill
That Rain Man bit made me realize it’s been a long time since I’ve watched Rain Man, and I think I need to rectify that.
When Sally tells the class to take a “tight five,” is that the motocross guy she murdered in the back row?
I checked. Yeah, it totally is. Good catch.
last year I had people explaining to me that the psycopath who takes people in his garage was “a nice guy trying to avenge his daughter”. Do you still believe that now?
I was just coming to comment that whatever Moss must’ve done is obviously extremely fucked up and how can there be any way that doesn’t blow back on him somehow? I don’t think you can really get away with torturing a reporter in this scenario.
You can if his brain is so scrambled he forgets English AND his wife.
His wife knows Jim Moss is the last person he went to see before he came back like this, though. She told Gene that.
Yes, but I doubt O’Neil is going to say anything of use. And Moss definitely won’t say anything.“Yes officer, he came by asking questions. I told him to f**k off. I have no idea what he did with his day after that.”Besides, after seeing Lon’s condition after his visit with Moss, are his wife and editor willing to pursue the story any further? Probably not.
I just feel like, “my husband went to interview a lieutenant in the police force; he came back only speaking German and not knowing who he is; what the hell did the guy do to him?” is the sort of thing that should obviously have some ramifications, probably legal ones.
In real life? Probably so. But in Barry’s LA nobody on the LAPD is going to ask Moss any questions.
Yeah, perhaps— and that’s a problem for me and speaks to how the show is straining plausibility in seasons three and four in a way that it didn’t in the first two. Even when insane stuff happened, it grew organically from the previous action, and the actions people took had consequences. Just completely dropping the consequences feels like sloppy storytelling.
I think there are still consequences coming. Gene and Hank are feeling them now. Gene’s son is in the hospital, if not headed to the morgue. And Hank has to live with the fact that hurt Cristobal so badly that he chose death over staying with him.I don’t think it’s going to end well for Barry and Sally.
I hope you’re right. I wasn’t encouraged by this last episode that we’d see some consequences for Lt. Moss, since Lon didn’t show up at all and we have an apparent time skip at the end.I agree, though, I don’t think any of this ends well for anybody. It’s just a matter of how. (And, in terms of how good it is, how plausible the writers can make it; “surprising, yet inevitable” comes all the way from Aristotle’s Poetics, and it’s hard to do well in an ending, but if you can nail it, you can take your show from very good to all-time great.)
I kind of get a vibe that Barry is going to end up living out the rest of his days locked up in solitary and residing in his fantasy world. He’s never been all that stable to start with, and it seems he’s spending more and more time in his own head.I’d be OK with that as long as they don’t cop out and flip it so that the last four seasons were the fantasy and his real life is the bleak and boring life with Sally and the weird kid. I’d almost expect Bobby Ewing to step out of the shower if it came to that.
I was pretty sure O’Neil was a goner when I saw Moss hosing out his trunk. It was a definite Goodfellas reference. Now we know it wasn’t blood he was washing away. My guess it was vomit, urine and feces. If my halfway decent German is accurate, Lon was saying he didn’t know who these people are (his wife and his editor) and he just wants to go back to the farm.Whatever it was Moss did to him, it seriously screwed him up.
Barry’s deadpan “that guy’s here to kill me” was so good.
It’s so easy to forget that Barry’s the villain until he goes full-on monster when things turn against him. I was so proud of Hank standing up to him!
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Late to this, I am just slightly impressed both show and Jim Moss supplied real German Haribo gummibears that is dedication to detail
Late to this, I am just slightly impressed both show and Jim Moss supplied real German Haribo gummibears that is dedication to detail
i want to see Hader direct an action movie. The set-pieces in Barry are some of the best actions scenes The Russo Bros. wished they could excute (see Extraction and The Gray Man for shitty action scenes).
This might sound odd, but I think Hader could direct a hell of a western!
What makes a Barry action scene so unique and genuinely exciting is the visceral chaos and clumsiness of the violence. Killers fumble, people get in lucky shots, everything feels genuinely unpredictable — and all the more horrifying and funny because of that awkwardness. Think of Sally’s pen jab or the way Barry gets surprise taekwondo kicked by that Ronny guy. I love John Wick and its beautiful choreography, but I’ll take the blundering mayhem of a Barry action scene any day.
I agree. Ronny was lethal and had an almost Rasputin-like ability to withstand injury, but his daughter was a demon!
I will most likely get pilloried and shot down but so many scenes in these episodes, like this one, from the opening sand truck driving in, to visual split with Barry on one side of the wall and the hanging assassin behind, so many wonderful carefully composed shots concocted in this series…. I swear someone is channeling an inner Wes Anderson!