Which show had the better series finale: Succession or Barry?
Two of our favorite shows closed the curtains on Sunday. Let’s get into which one delivered the stronger sendoff.
TV Features Series finale
Two of the most singular shows to ever air on HBO—which is to say, two of the most singular TV shows, period—ended their runs on Sunday night. Succession offered an emotionally draining and devastating finale (because of course it did) with “With Open Eyes,” a 90-minute installment that saw a lot of characters’ fates flip-flop. Immediately after that, we were treated to Barry’s sendoff, “wow,” an expertly directed episode by Bill Hader that had a final sequence we didn’t see coming. So let’s answer that admittedly kinda ridiculous question: Which show had the better series finale, Barry or Succession?
Saloni Gajjar
Yes, we know Barry and Succession can’t be compared, aside from how HBO managed to end two of its top originals at their peak on the same night. We’ll mourn for a long time. But that twist of fate allows everyone to weigh in on how their finales fared.
For most of its final season, Barry forgot it was primarily a comedy. Don’t get me wrong: There’s dark humor in there, but Alec Berg and Bill Hader’s series mutated into a stellar but depressing drama about the real world. The series finale culminated with strong commentary on the culture of glorifying violence and Hollywood. As I tried to predict last week, I thought Barry could defy expectations by not killing Barry Berkman (Hader) and turning him into a “hero.” While he does die—I also muttered an “oh wow” at the sudden execution—of course we see the movie wrongly depict and basically celebrate Barry’s crimes. The episode was undoubtedly exciting, but it also felt anticlimactic. Even NoHo Hank’s death felt a little unearned, if not surprising—at least the departing frame of him holding Cristobal’s statue hand remains unforgettable. Overall, I enjoyed the half-hour, and I’m proud of Sally (Sarah Goldberg) for attempting to break a traumatic cycle. The Barry series finale, in the end, met my expectations.
Now, let’s talk about Succession because, for me, it was the better series ender. Despite its hourlong episodes and the longer 88-minute finale, this drama often felt like an acerbic comedy. I’ve paused to chortle, cringe, and literally laugh out loud multiple times during any given episode. I’ve joked that Succession should be slotted in the comedy category at the Emmys. But underneath its layered sarcasm, the show’s writing and performances always remind you this is a serious—dare I say prestige—drama about a rotten, rotten family of fools. And “With Open Eyes” cut my heart in all the right ways. It had me on the edge of my seat and made me question my emotions; how dare they make me care about the Roy siblings as the three idiots chant “Meal fit for a king.” It’s safe to say my anxiety heightened in the last 20 minutes, which made it clear yet again that Logan was right: His kids are not serious people. They are fuck-ups. Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, and Jeremy Strong topped themselves in the final conference-room scene. Shiv, Roman, and Kendall might as well have stabbed each other with daggers. Instead, they used their words and information for wounds that may never heal. There was no other way for it to end. What a legacy.
Cindy White
As Saloni has already pointed out, the only reason we feel compelled to compare these two very different shows and their distinctive finales is because HBO aired them on the same night. I think the only criteria we have for determining which show had a better ending is to look at what each of them was trying to accomplish, and how well each of them accomplished it.
Let’s start with the Succession finale, which I preferred. In its fourth season, the show broke through in a way that few others do in this era of peak TV. For the last 10 weeks, it felt like everyone was watching Succession and had an opinion about where it was going and how it would end. Maybe being too close to those conversations is an occupational hazard when you’re writing about it every week, but it has been fun seeing all the speculation and theories after each episode. That just brings into focus the monumental task Jesse Armstrong and his team faced to come up with a satisfying conclusion that made it clear to the audience what story they wanted to tell all along without pulling out the rug beneath them.
As many of us expected, Armstrong wasn’t going to let any of the deeply fucked-up Roy siblings walk away with a clean win. What came as a surprise were the episode’s lighter moments, with Kendall, Shiv, and Roman united in their mother’s sparsely stocked kitchen, goofing around and actually smiling for once. Anyone who’s watched this show knew it would all come crashing down by the end. Where they all finished up was heartbreaking, but it felt right for the characters we’ve come to know. And every creative decision, from the direction to the costuming to the outstanding performances, supported that vision. It was an ending “fit for a king.”
Moving onto Barry: This show was also burdened by the weight of expectations, but perhaps had a little more wiggle room from an audience willing to give Bill Hader the benefit of the doubt. This season proved divisive among fans for its darker turn and a time jump into a bleaker narrative landscape. I have to admit that I preferred the earlier seasons of the show to this last one. I appreciate that Hader was building to a conclusion that made a statement about violence and the way institutions like the military and Hollywood perpetuate myths that continue the cycle, but in the end I feel like it swerved a little too far from the Barry I started watching in season one. Hader is a gifted storyteller and a filmmaker with a very clear and interesting point of view—I can’t wait to see what he does next—but for me the finale felt like a welcome relief (as I suspect it might have also also been for Hader) that this story and these characters were finally put out of their misery.
Tim Lowery
I’m going to agree with my colleagues that Succession, for me, was the better series finale. (Also, apologies for asking this pretty ridiculous roundtable question—and many, many thanks to William Hughes and Matt Schimkowitz for their stellar, insightful recaps each week on Succession and Barry, respectively.) So, anyway, Succession. I was distracted by two things while watching “With Open Eyes”: 1.) that these would be the last moments that I’d be with these characters who I’ve spent years watching—and rewatching, and 2.) that this show really has perfected the flipping-the-script season finale—so how would they top those? As far as the latter, with only two days of reflection, I’m not sure that they did. (The last finale, season three’s “All The Bells Say,” is, in case you’re keeping score, my fave finale closer. Just a remarkable hour of television.) But. Succession’s series finale, of course, was remarkable, with bits of everything I wanted to see in it: little moments of levity with the sibs at the beach palace as well as truly gutting moments of desperation (Ken ripping open Roman’s wound, the shouting matches, the look on Shiv’s face in the car with Tom, Ken staring out at the water in Battery Park) to remind us that this was always going to be a tragedy. It will be interesting to see days, weeks, and years from now how my estimation of this finale changes. But again, it is an incredible achievement for an incredible show.
As for Barry, “wow” is another episode I’ll need, I think, to take in a few times before I get a handle on it. But one thing it drove home—in a show that drove this home all season—was Bill Hader’s remarkable direction. Two very different scenes stand out to me: Sally and John, both facing away from the camera to start things off, having that big discussion about who Barry, and Sally, are; and Barry walking through a superstore, guns strapped to his back, stomping hios way past that most milquetoast of American environs. The show ended, as it probably always had to, with a creative left turn with that legacy-movie montage. It’s a reminder that, not unlike Succession, there won’t be another dark comedy quite like Barry.
41 Comments
Hoping it wasn’t a series finale, but Somebody Somewhere was the best thing on HBO Sunday night.
Joel’s expressions when she starts into “Gloria” are beyond amazing. I need several GIFs.
YES!!
Easily. It wasn’t even close. Succession had a bad ending IMO, but enough on that, and Barry copped out by having Berkman get military honors and never having to actually pay for all his horrible crimes.Somebody Somewhere was just perfect.
It was perfect, and thankfully, it was not the series finale! Woo!
I’d take Barry. I thought it concluded the story in a more dramatic, somewhat unexpected, and cathartic way. I liked it fine but I’d also say that the Succession finale suffered a bit from the same thing that the series did—it was very repetitive and people didn’t learn or change. Another contentious board vote. Another argument among the kids. Minds changed; allegiances changed. Half-baked schemes foiled. None of them getting what they want (Tom excepted). Everyone miserable and lonely (possibly Roman excepted). I don’t mean that as a criticism because that’s what the show was about and it was true to it to the end—they are bad people who exist in relation to people only through imbalanced power dynamics and aren’t actually capable of attaining what they want nor do they deserve it. It was fitting but I felt that it sort of fizzled following a lot of unresolved drama (e.g., Pierce) where Barry did what it did to end each season and ramped to a dramatic climax. While I liked the execution of Succession and was definitely on the edge of my seat more as I’m way more invested in that, I thought more about the choices made in Barry and appreciated the narrative risks and closure. I didn’t need Succession to wrap up all of the details but I do think they needed a bit more runtime to payoff some of what they built up (e.g., how/why do they have Ewan now?). It’s praise for both that I want the equivalent of another episode or two of Succession whereas I don’t need any more of Barry.
Yeah, in truth I’m kinda going back and forth, but since Barry seems to be the underdog here, I’ll mount a defense.
The Succession finale — and series — ultimately hinged on the question of who would take over after Logan was gone, and it’s been clear from the second season at the absolute latest that none of the kids really had the stuff. They were always playing a game they weren’t that good at and couldn’t be assed to learn, so while “one of them gets the company as a grim commentary on nepotism and unearned privilege” was always a possibility, I’d argue that “someone else either outmaneuvers them or gets it after they step on their own rakes” has generally felt like the most likely outcome for a while now.
And while the show is a very good example of how to do a story about marching toward an inevitable conclusion, Barry managed to play to its themes in a way that was much harder to see coming — nobody got all that close on the prediction thread earlier in the week.
Yeah, in truth I’m kinda going back and forth, but since Barry seems to be the underdog here, I’ll mount a defense.
The Succession finale — and series — ultimately hinged on the question of who would take over after Logan was gone, and it’s been clear from the second season at the absolute latest that none of the kids really had the stuff. They were always playing a game they weren’t that good at and couldn’t be assed to learn, so while “one of them gets the company as a grim commentary on nepotism and unearned privilege” was always a possibility, I’d argue that “someone else either outmaneuvers them or gets it after they step on their own rakes” has generally felt like the most likely outcome for a while now.
And while the show is a very good example of how to do a story about marching toward an inevitable conclusion, Barry managed to play to its themes in a way that was much harder to see coming — nobody got all that close on the prediction thread earlier in the week.
Why are we comparing two completely different shows?
It seems pretty clear Succession’s was a season finale that it was later decided would serve as the series finale. Still a great episode, but I wonder how it might have differed if they knew that was the end while writing it. I think I’d have to say Barry, but it’s really close. Succession had the better final season overall, for sure.
Honestly, I give them more credit for realizing it worked as a series finale. Making a fifth season without Logan could have opened a situation where the show starts running on fumes, whereas this ending almost leaves you feeling it could have kept going. I also appreciate how realistic it is about the circumstances at hand with the deal, no matter how cruel the character’s resolutions feel to the viewers.You can argue for the merit of Barry’s finale as an individual episode, but I’m not the only one that’s had a lot of issues with the latter two seasons as a whole. Many great individual moments, but I’m perplexed by how quickly his arc as an actor failing upwards was tossed off. Wasn’t that an integral part of the show’s premise? I really feel like Covid ruined Barry’s momentum far more drastically than Succession or Better Call Saul, and the knowledge that season 3 was heavily rewritten will always leave me wondering what the initial scripts for those episodes looked like. I don’t necessarily know if the show always lived up to its high ambitions at that point without coming off as messy.
This isn’t a competition. Both of these shows were outstanding. Nuff said.
No, but it is an article debating which was better…
“It seems pretty clear Succession’s was a season finale that it was later decided would serve as the series finale.
Sure, except that it absolutely wasn’t.
But hey, you know more than Jesse Armstrong, I’m sure.
I’m going to be the worst and say it was a split decision. Succession wins on execution and Barry wins on ballsiness. But my vote may change as I get some distance. I just watched Barry tonight and it’s still percolating in my brain. It may grow in my estimation as I think more about it.I think it’s hard to judge the two finales against each other because I started each from a very different place. Succession to me has always been a show about the foregone conclusion: that none of the kids would succeed. So starting that finale felt like marching over familiar or inevitable ground. Barry, on the other hand, felt so completely like anything could happen, and it did. Sure, there were some moments where you had to suspend disbelief, but Barry has always been like that. Basically, Succession stuck the landing, as was expected. And Barry confounded expectations, as was expected. A victory for both in my mind. And a victory for the viewers—what an embarrassment of riches. My final takeaway is this: Somebody give Hader a feature film to direct. He’s been so, so good all season on Barry, and some of the strongest episodes from earlier seasons are under his direction. I’m dying to see what he could do with a film.
Again, why are we comparing two completely different shows?
Not since Don Draper have I seen a character (Kendall) so often predicted to die by suicide. People were actively on suicide watch throughout this episode, especially during the signing ceremony. Like Mad Men, I’m glad they opted for something less dramatic and more fitting (and in an odd way more devastating). Barry ended more or less the way I expected, but the closing film scenes wrapped things up in a way that made the show about much more than the fate of the title character. I think it’s a baller move to off your lead and still have 10 or 15 min left.
I believe Arrow killed off its lead in the penultimate episode.
“Succession” was the better show overall but the finale left me with an “eh” feeling. It wasn’t horrible but it could’ve been better. “Barry” I think was one of the better series finales I’ve seen in a long time.
Succession, no question to me. Barry felt oddly perfunctory
I’m surprised by how little the Succession ending is being discussed, actually. There was a bit of chatter about it Monday morning, but there’s not really much to argue about, relive, or gush over in the ending, so it all died down pretty quickly. I had one short text exchange about it with a friend, and don’t expect it’ll come up in conversation again. There’s nothing really to object to or speculate about. It all ends pretty logically and unsurprisingly. It was fine.I thought that after all the buildup of the last four seasons, the ending of the show came pretty quickly, and clearly wasn’t interested at all in the aftermath. There’s a final fight (which is more or less a mirror image of every fight the kids have had for the last four years – Kendall: give it to me! The others: No), a vote, Tom sweeps in, we get a single closing shot of each of the three kids, and it’s over.
I was really enjoying the first half of the Barry finale right up until the final time jump. If Barry had not done that, and instead done a better job of closing out the business with Jim Moss, it would be a much more difficult decision regarding which finale was better.But I will always be more grateful to Barry for bringing us the gift of Anthony Carrigan, who I hope will one day fulfill his destiny and be cast as Saitama in the movie version of One Punch Man.
I am not sure I see much of a difference between the finale and any random episode of Succession. Barry surprised me every episode, and its finale was not an exception.
Barry.
Overall I liked Barry better as a show than Succession. With Barry, it gave you a completely unpredictable show week after week, bleakly funny and spectacularly shot by Hader’s direction. With Succession, you get a ritzy glitzy trash talking take down of rich losers, with questionable camera shots (STOP WITH THE PUSH-INS) and story beats. It was all simply about backstabbing; who could backstab who the fastest, how much would it hurt, etc. I stopped caring who would “win” by the end and was just in it for the pain, which it heaped in droves in the finale.For example, we never really see Shiv’s “turn”. Going from “meal fit for a king” and defiling Peter’s cheese straight to “Nah I changed my mind in the pivotal vote, fuck this” was a huge rug-pull. Was it Tom telling her he was the one to be in charge of ATN that made her do this? If so, she took her betrayal out on the wrong person, when her ire should have been towards Mattson. The show’s plot was never its strong point, because all it amounted to was “rich people like to backstab their family for power”, and that’s all.Hader’s show was more experimental, more intriguing, more hilarious (except for Succession’s best joke, ‘you can’t make a Tomlette without breaking a few Greggs’), with better acting and a more interesting storyline. In fact, if we want to rank the series finales for most of the prestige shows that are ending this week, we can go:Barry>Succession>Marvelous Mrs Maisel>getting hit by a truck>Ted Lasso
Barry. SUCKsession was garbage. This show appealed to those that think the sopranos, nypd blue, yellowstone, and friends, lost, and kate plus 8 were good. Fight me, you classless bundles of goo.
Ted Lasso
I just read a pretty good summation of the Barry finale on the Ringer that explained how that ending tied up the show’s themes better than I first thought, reminding me that the show was often focused on characters’ efforts to mythologize themselves ………… but that’s not REALLY what the movie was doing. It didn’t come about because of Barry’s fantasies of redemption or Sally’s narcissism or even Gene’s absurd reenactments. It was just a crass dramatization of a fucked-up police investigation. It was probably just put together by some random Hollywood producer who read a newspaper article. So I’m not really sure how it ties up anything. It’s a decent Hollywood satire, but that was only ever a backdrop of the show. If it had been 40 more years down the road and it was JOHN’S mythologizing of his father, that might’ve been something.
I was initially bummed Connor didn’t get more in the finale, but he’s the one Roy who actually got a win, between giving himself dibs on Logan’s stuff and the video proving that he was the only one who got to hang out with Logan in a fun way.Connor is undoubtedly going to have the happiest life going forward.
I knew they weren’t going to do it but if there were a Six Feet Under-style “where are they now” montage, I most wanted to see a time jump with him wreaking havoc in some country.
I don’t think anyone would say no to a direct to streaming “TV movie” or “Christmas special” or whatever you want to call it set some years in the future. A man can hope.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they intentionally left if pretty open to allow for that possibility but I also wouldn’t be surprised if Strong was like, “no, that character died inside of me” if they ever tried.
I wish those were more of a thing on prestige shows or that someone created a series with the intent of checking in over time with jumps in the story, like Boyhood. Imagine if someone set out to make a show like Succession or The Wire (thinking of stories that kind of go on without a key protagonist death) that was done as mini-events spaced out over more than the typical annual/semi-annual season cycles. Could be cool, dramaturgically. There is something very interesting about elements of what accidentally happened with Deadwood, SATS, Dexter, Rosanne, etc. but not sure any really worked in this way.
“but he’s the one Roy who actually got a win”
Is it a “win”, knowing that Willa is definitely not going to stay?
Nah. He will have an unhappy marriage and it was clear that he and Willa are already going in opposite directions. If he gets the ambassador role, she isn’t coming along…if he doesn’t get it, then my guess is they are going to live in separate parts of the $63m apartment she is gutting.
Succession. NO QUESTION.Succession was bloody brilliant!Barry was also on TV that night.
Barry is an exceptionally well-structured show that remembered, at the last second, it had to do something with Cousineau and just kicked all his character development under the rug in the last two episodes and hoped no one would notice so it could give its protagonist an ironic, tragic ending. I don’t think I’ll ever get past the fact the show kind of played for laughs a guy whose entire life was destroyed by the guy who was turned into a hero just because, at the last second, he spent five seconds in a single scene implying he might be willing to let Barry be a hero.Everything else about that show felt exceptionally honest to its writing except that one beat that will linger on and annoy the hell out of me forever.But Succession understood its thesis: Capitalism is a dumb ideology fueled by abuse and lies and cannot coexist with the necessary support and sacrifice necessary for familial relationships. People clawed each others’ eyes out for a company made out of bull**** and crepe paper and in the end Roman was right: the company was worthless and so were they.
Is this headline a joke? The Barry finale was fucking terrible. Really the show only had one genuinely good season and the rest was okay to awful.