What will happen in Barry‘s series finale?
As one of our favorite shows heads into its final half hour, we make some educated guesses about how it will all end for Barry Berkman & Co.
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[Editor’s note: This piece contains spoilers for the current season of Barry.]
Barry polished off its very funny and dark penultimate episode with one hell of a cliffhanger, as NoHo Hank kidnaps Sally and John and gives our titular hitman-turned-actor-turned-bleeding-out-dad a ring. So … how will this inventive, expertly directed show play out in the finale? We asked A.V. Club staffers for their thoughts on that question. Read on for their predictions. And be sure look for Matt Schimkowitz’s recap of the series finale, “wow,” on May 28.
Sam Barsanti
Predicting what will happen on Barry is sometimes impossible, but I think the finale will either feature him miraculously and inexplicably getting everything he wants—Warner Bros. decides to make the Barry Berkman movie with him as the star, maybe he and Cousineau are reunited, and everyone but Barry is just kind of rattled by the realization that the entertainment industry is the biggest monster of all—or Barry dies/surrenders in some way that lets everyone else off the hook, like Walter White or Saul Goodman.
But I think the former might be the better of the two options, even if it wouldn’t be a Big Finale Thing. It was a weird misstep to give Barry and Sally a son, since it means that anything that happens to them is dark and sad instead of dark and funny, and this was never the kind of show where I wanted to see the horrific and realistic consequences of Barry’s ill-conceived actions. I want to see criminals debating the best way to keep their boss’ girlfriend from seeing and hearing it when they behead FUBKs. If there’s some tragic death, I don’t think it’s going to be the poignant sendoff it would be in another show, so I’m hoping Bill Hader and the rest of the team do something more clever with this ending.
Saloni Gajjar
As Sam said, guessing how Barry might end feels like a fool’s errand, especially after the ambitious midway pivot of the final season. I’m excited we get to try anyway. Bill Hader’s creative risks have paid off enormously because the HBO comedy is going out with a banger—an often desolate, darkly funny banger that’s kept us on our toes throughout.
So how might it all crumble in the end? My immediate thought is that Barry Berkman has to die or spend his entire life in prison. How else will there be any justice? But that seems almost like an easy way out, and Barry has proven it’s not the show to do that. As much as I want to see it happen, it probably won’t. The last episode is bound to give us a highly anticipated Barry and Noho Hank reunion (the two haven’t shared screen space in season four at all) now that Hank’s got Sally and John. It means Barry has to make tough choices and (probably) more kills before the curtains close. Ultimately, I do believe he’ll get away with it all and take his family with him. Barry gains the new life he wanted when he began “acting,” and Sally achieves the fame she desperately desired. The question remains: At what cost? Maybe Hank’s death—nothing would hit harder than the series’ most beloved character biting the dust. Gene is poised to go down for Janice’s murder, and I think his downfall will be quite the tragedy. His greed and short-term thinking landed him in a terrible spot, and now he’ll be the one to pay for sins he didn’t commit.
Regardless of how it shakes out, I am expecting Barry to subvert my expectations. I’ll be strapped in for what’s hopefully going to be a bleak, excellent goodbye.
Matt Schimkowitz
Given that this season has been a spelunking expedition into the depths of despair, I’m not expecting the show to end with Barry and Sally riding off into the sunset. If I squint, I can see a Taxi Driver-esque, “Barry’s crimes actually make him a hero” ending that people will debate for years, but rub my eyes and hope I’m mistaken. Anyway, prediction: Barry dies! It really feels like the show has always been building to this, so I’m resigned to say goodbye to him. However, the one I’m concerned about is John. For the last few weeks, the show has teased his death through various set pieces and jokes about the demise of him or other children—Barry’s YouTube suggestions must be truly abhorrent considering all the Little League baseball injuries and presidential fails he’s watching. I half expect Barry to be directly responsible for John’s death, making Cousineau shooting his son another bit of foreshadowing. Really bleak stuff, but that’s Barry. I do hope that Barry and NoHo Hank patch things up. They were such good-time bros for a while.
Ultimately, I expect the show to surprise me and generally hate when I can accurately guess what’s going to happen. Here’s hoping the show lives up to the last 31 episodes and shocks us one last time.
Cindy White
Bill Hader is too clever to give us the expected, so I can’t predict the ending of Barry with any kind of certainty. There are some setups and arcs that I hope will be paid off in the finale though. I don’t see any kind of redemption for Barry; he’s a monster. He was lionized for it in the Marines, and that helped him create a false image of himself as a good guy. Hollywood operates in a similar way in this show, so it would be neat if Hader hit that theme one more time.
That being said, I think Barry needs to be forced to accept the darkness in his soul before it’s all over. Maybe that means he doesn’t survive. It would be fitting. To some extent, all of the characters are the heroes of their own story—Sally, Hank, Fuches, Gene … they’ve all worn masks that hide their true nature. There has to be a reckoning coming. I’m also very worried about John. Hader has said that the point of the time jump was to give Barry and Sally a son, so I think he’s going to be important. We might be leading up to a conclusion that makes a statement about cycles of violence and how they’re perpetuated. But whatever happens, I know it’s going to be wild.
46 Comments
If I had to make a prediction, I’d guess that, somehow, Barry dies by John’s hands. Possibly, Sally as well.
For once, I have absolutely no fucking idea, and I love that.Very, VERY little of this show has been predictable to me. It’s delightfully maddening.
Seriously? The ending is too predictable. We are going to pan away from John looking into a snowglobe and realizing the whole series of events was all in his imagination.
I would lose my shit laughing. Possibly literally.
I hope you find it again
So much of this show has been characters getting into seemingly inescapable situations and yet somehow and someway escaping. My prediction is that everyone that’s tied to Barry ends up either dead or in jail, and Barry is left (mostly) unscathed, doomed to continue his life in a never-ending purgatory.
I didn’t realize the new season was out until a week or so ago. I really want to start the new one, but that tiger scene in the last season finale was rough (probably didn’t help that I was eating at the time). Is there anything that visceral in the new season?
Definitely nothing that brutal or terrifying.
Oh God — that whole episode was gut-wrenching. Nothing that bad so far. But I’m not sure if that means we’re skipping the visceral deaths this season or that we’re ramping up to them. Hopefully the former so our friends can go out with some dignity.
My hope is John ending up with Albert
Well, they kinda wrote themselves into a bit of an unfunny corner after the time jump, so I can only hope that scary martial arts girl comes back to climb on top of the corner and scream at them.
Barry becomes a single-father/lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest. Sally goes to work for a sprinkler sales company in Florida.
I love the idea of Sally getting fame after the dust settles. Like maybe she gets to play herself in the movie, or at least, nabs a screenwriter or E.P. credit on the film. But it has a sad denouement because Sally will always know she’s famous not because of anything she did, but because she was a party to things that went on around her, and that self-doubt will always be there.
I’m gonna go with the men kill each other, potentially Sally kills Barry (but not necessarily), and the movie gets made now from Sally’s POV with her as the victimized heroine. Last scene is Sally advising the superhero actress on how to play her in the movie. Either Sally remains an absentee mother now that she’s a star, or John’s also killed as collateral damage in Barry’s “rescue” of Sally and John, and Sally uses John’s death for even more sympathy from the public. So in essence, Sally gets the “Taxi Driver” ending rather than Barry.
oh that’s interesting.
That’s excellent. I would fully watch that, feel horrible, then watch it again.
Better than any of the guesses from the article.
i predict* it will be an hour episode*hope, knows it won’t be.
It’s scheduled for 35 minutes on the HBO tv channel.
Wow, Barsanti has some terrible instincts for drama. Who would’ve thought!
I had to go back and rewatch ep7 because I’m not altogether convinced John is even real. Is he a McGuffin that extremely delusional actors might create in order to anchor themselves in the script they’re writing for themselves, on the run? Two interactions in ep7 seem to indicate John is real… when he’s put in the van, and when Hank invites Sally and John to announce themselves on the phone… but reality is squishy on this show, especially through the eyes of current-day Sally. If John is just a shared phantasm, it would be the ultimate spousal abuse: Sally working a crap job while Barry stays home to educate a child that doesn’t exist.
what about the kid who was talking to him and his parent?
Yeah, I thought about that. But I also thought about young Barry meeting with Fuches in the same landscape, and then the wedding party comes trotting by, and we arrive at the reception where Barry and Sally are dancing together. So, in my proposed theory, the situation with John and the neighbors is all “character backstory” for the phantom son. And I’m in no way betting the farm on this theory. I just think it would fit, thematically and plot-wise, for Barry and Sally to build their new life around a central fiction.
All along I’ve thought “no way that kid’s eight.” So hmmm…
We’ve had two parents accidentally shoot their kids in this show so I’m wondering if Barry goes for the hat trick in the finale.
Good call. I’d forgotten the earlier Mom-shoots-son scene. What a fucking mess. I really, really hope John isn’t killed. I feel for the little guy.
I’m hoping Fuches ends up with the kid.I’m also really hoping Sally dies. Sarah Goldberg is such a great actress she has made me irrationally hate Sally more than any TV character since Mad Men’s Pete Campbell.
Everyone dies in a blaze of glory except for Fuches, John, Sally, and Gene. Fuches takes John under his wing and raises him as a hitman, but the right way, learning from all the mistakes he made in bringing up Barry. Gene and Sally get their movie made while in prison, in spectacular Hollywood fashion.
There’s a “right way” to turn someone into a professional hitman?
oof fuches raising john is soooo dark i love it.
Barry is the ultimate survivor/badass, so if he’s coming after Hank — and Fuches, who has forced an alliance with Hank — then they’re going to die. Hank will be mad but ultimately welcome it; Fuches will die pleading and manipulating once his men are dispatched.Sally and John will witness the entire showdown. Barry will be horrified that John has seen his true self and commit suicide. And that sets up Zwing’s pitch perfect ending for Sally. Everybody loses!
I can’t conceive of anything killing Fuches. He is cockroachian in that regard. Conversely, I don’t see him killing Barry, as Fuches never pulls his own trigger.
Good point. Maybe Fuches is just maimed? Spends the rest of his life unable to talk? I hope he doesn’t just get away.
If you think you know what’ll happen in the series finale of this show and you aren’t Bill Hader, you’re wrong. But that’s where the guessing fun comes in.Hank is probably toast, unfortunately. The way Barry seethed at the end of the most recent episode made him very scary, and Hank may have forgotten in the past 8 years just how terrifying an unleashed Barry can be.Barry will attempt to get his family back after dispatching Hank, but I’ll bet Fuches will show up to confront him as well, leading an already-delirious Barry to have his mind broken in two. Let’s say something random like his hand injury he got while breaking out of Moss’ place is a slapstick way that Barry fails to off Fuches, and is either murdered by the Raven’s gang or hauled away by police. Sally says fuck this I’m out. Fuches adopts Barry’s son into his gang and tutors him to be just like another mini Barry.Oh and let’s say Whalberg actually shows up in a cameo (far away from the woods) to play in Gene’s movie and Gene’s in it too. That’d be fun
I don’t know how many times I’ve been like, “Where the hell do they go from here?” and they end up going someplace really interesting and absolutely true to the story and the characters, so, my 2 cents: Barry survives and carries on as a hired killer, Cousineau goes to prison, Hank sacrifices himself as pennance for Cristobal’s death, Fuches sort of wanders away because it turns out he really is a nobody and no one cares about him, and Sally has a semi-successful career in show businesses, perhaps writing or consulting on the Barry story from her perspective. I’d say the odds are 50-50 that John gets out of this alive.
I’m predicting that Barry ends up killing noho hank and his accomplices. I do think all the characters have to face the music that they have hid from for so long. Either Fuches or Albert (who hasnt been seen in awhile) will end up killing Barry and if its Fuches go back to jail where he has gained respect(or maybe Albert kills Fuches). Maybe Barry feels guilt for Gene taking the fall for Janices death and turns himself in. Maybe a plot pivot has Sally killing Noho to save Barry (much like the biker scene). Either way I’ve been on the edge of my seat all season and I’m going to be really sad when its over or maybe just super happy it happened.
Credits, probably.
I really liked this show a LOT the first couple seasons. But the past several episodes — particularly the ones after the time jump (which I didn’t even think was real at first, it was so silly) , have all left me vaguely blah about the show now.
Given the “art film” turn of this season, I think Hader makes the mistake of doing some avante garde, open-ended closing. Some obtuse, interpretive thing that does not definitively show any particular outcome – like The Sopranos, but much more bizarre. The run time is predicted to be short, which is a problem when it comes to really fleshing out a logical or semi-realistic conclusion to all of this, and still leave time for some funny in there.
I’d have preferred he stayed the course of the previous seasons so we could have had scenes between the characters that we’ve all come to love. Hank and Cristobol had some of the most entertaining scenes and storylines together this season -and he went and killed off Cristobal and left us with this weird time-jump, Christian nutball thing. Most of the characters have otherwise remained remained apart this second half of this season as it wraps up. I’ll still miss it when it’s over, but the time jump episodes just haven’t landed all that well IMO.
Sometime during a past season — probably after the episode where Gene escaped from the car trunk and was attacked by the neighborhood dogs — I decided that NoHo Hank, Fuches, and Gene were just phenomenal at being survivors, and that they would be the most likely to be alive by the end of the series. Even with Hank and Fuches on opposing sides, I have a hard time seeing either of them die.Throw in Sally and John, both probable to make it, and Jim Moss, not really in much danger, and Barry is now the 7th most likely character to survive his own show. The show could always surprise, but if someone has to die…
Fuches (by default) raising an orphaned John to be a hitman seems the most likely route. And just typing that makes me think “Fuck.”
I think Sally and Gene will both have tough choices to make. They’re somewhat similar characters in their need for the spotlight and self-centeredness that overshadows parental bonds with their kids. I think Gene wants what’s good for others but can’t overcome his addiction to adulation and acting. I think Sally doesn’t tend to want what’s best for others and just can’t escape herself. So, I suspect they’ll both have the opportunity to sacrifice themselves—Gene for the truth and Sally might have to chose between Barry and John somehow—or maybe between John and herself. Sarah Goldberg mentioned in an interview that she hopes Sally can make at least one unselfish choice by the end, so this is where my suspicions come from. These are the heartbreaker scenes that the show is not afraid of.The Fuches/Hank/Barry parts are building up for a lot of action. Gene’s agent probably saw Sally and John get kidnapped, so he’ll tell Gene, which means it’ll somehow get to Jim. Jim probably knows a good bit about Hank and The Raven, which brings the whole gang together. I predict Hank dies at the feet of the statue of Cristobal. Gene is in jail awaiting trial. Jim wants to see Barry dead, so he might go so far as to kill Hank, maybe make an attempt on Fuches, for the chance to finish Barry off himself. Maybe Jim tries to kill John, Sally sacrifices herself. Barry rage kills Jim, John sees and is too afraid of his dad to ever be near him again. Barry sees what he’s done, goes on a suicide mission to take out Fuches so John is at least safe. Somewhere in there, we will laugh. Gene writes a memoir, gets a TV movie of his life that he watches ad nauseum in prison. John gets adopted.
I think the show does a wonderful job of making Sally a selfish person, but one still worthy of compassion. Maybe her happy ending is just the audience continuing to extend her some unconditional humanity (ultimately it’s what Barry gives her, despite the trauma that comes with it).
I agree that the show (and Sarah Goldberg’s performance) do a great job of leaving space for compassion for her character despite her selfishness. That’s why I’m hoping she can escape herself. She’s so broken; I want her to find her resilience again, but for someone else’s sake this time.
My prediction is that John is going to be put in the position of potentially killing someone. At some critical point, he’ll be the one with the gun, that can make things go one way or the other for one or more of the main characters. Does he do it, or doesn’t he is the ultimate question. Both of his parents have killed people…and he doesn’t really know them because of the fantasy world in which they’ve sheltered him. Will he kill too?Whether the killing happens or not will really set the final tone of the show. Does he have a chance to save Barry’s life, but Barry talks him out of it, sacrificing himself so that John doesn’t become a killer (the optimistic ending)? Or does John become a killer to save Barry’s and Sally’s lives (the dark, fatalistic ending – our behavior is passed down through the generations, whether we want it to be or not).
I predict either NoHo Hank is going to let John play video games while he is being held hostage.