100 Favorite Shows: #54 — Barry
“You did a terrible thing. Do I think that defines you?”
The mid-to-late 2000s cast of Saturday Night Live experienced immense success leading their own series following their respective departures from the show. Fred Armisen headed up Portlandia, Seth Meyers transitioned to Late Night, Kristen Wiig took to The Spoils of Babylon, Andy Samberg championed Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Will Forte created The Last Man on Earth. For Bill Hader, though, it took much longer to find the right vehicle. In January 2016, HBO gave the green light to Hader (along with Alec Berg) to create a pilot about a hitman who tries to become an actor. Every aforementioned series had already existed in the cultural consciousness for years by the time Hader’s dark crime comedy, Barry, debuted on HBO in April 2018. Yet, Barry was clearly one of the most daring and creative series to come from that era of SNL. Hader played Barry Berkman, the hitman who moved from Cleveland to Los Angeles (and became Barry Block). Over the course of two seasons thus far, Barry has cemented itself as a demented character study and a wickedly tense tragedy. There was inordinate talent in the SNL of the 2000s and Hader has proven himself as comprising a vast chunk of it.
(You better believe there’s spoilers for Barry and Breaking Bad bandied about in this essay. There’s also spoilers for The Sopranos, but that wasn’t an alliterative enough title to include in the preceding sentence.)
At first, Barry seemed like a standard product from the era of “peak TV.” An anti-hero protagonist, streaks of dark comedy, inventive performances from beloved character actors. It had all the makings of another solid HBO double, even if it wasn’t a home run. That changed completely in the penultimate episode of season one, “Loud, Fast, and Keep Going,” after the gang of Bolivians gets the drop on Barry and the reckless plan of his friends to infiltrate a contested airstrip. The only survivors of this attack are Barry and one friend of his, Chris (Chris Marquette), the latter of whom insures their survival by shooting a gang member in the back to save Barry’s life.
This moment is initially a relieving one for both Barry and for us, but Chris spends the rest of the episode trudging through trauma, unable to shake his actions, even despite his former life as a Marine. So consumed by guilt, Chris confesses to Barry that he’s going to come clean to the cops and won’t hear any argument from Barry that such an act would result in their entire hitman operation crumbling down, exposing Barry along the way.
It’s a tense moment that instantly pits us against Chris, as we’ve been thus far rooting for Barry to succeed in escaping a life of crime for a life of acting. One of the central questions of Barry, “Do your actions define you?,” was pliable up until this episode, as we found justification in Barry’s murders being necessary evils; they were acts of villainy to prevent worse villains. Quickly, though, the scene pivots when Barry shrieks in frustration, “Why’d you have to say that?” From that point, Chris clearly understands that Barry is debating murdering him and he attempts to go back on his confessional plan, even citing that Barry made him shoot the gang member when he didn’t want to.
It all falls deafly on Barry, though, who is looking out the window and waiting for Chris to stop talking so he can shoot him in the head and stage the gun limply in his hand. It’s one of those iconic, gripping television moments meant to cement that series as a clear play for the echelon of its genre, but it’s also the end of any turning point for Barry as a lovable protagonist with a chance at a turning point. In murdering a traumatized Chris point blank, it’s clear now that Barry is evil. He’s not just capable of rage and war crimes and perpetuating gang wars; he’s an active participant in each of them. From that moment on, Barry stopped being a story about a man finding a path to salvation and became a story about a man who would do whatever it took to save his own ass.
It’s a stunning moment and the apex of Barry’s first arc, but it’s also remarkable from a visual perspective, not just a narrative one. The stylistic choices of directors like Hader and Berg themselves, as well as Maggie Carey and Hiro Murai, present Barry as one of television’s more cinematically-oriented programs through a number of sweeping shots. In this climactic moment, the camera is placed like a silent observer, on the ground and in the bushes, watching Barry stalk away from the murder scene, glancing backwards to see if anyone happens to be nearby. No one is, but we’re still watching his actions. Always watching, steadily disapproving.
These types of visuals were thoughtfully constructed throughout Barry. Characters on their knees filmed from behind, Barry leaning out of a passenger window as the camera sticks atop the hood of the car. The shots were consistently as precise as they were soaring. For example, the sixth episode of season one, “Listen with Your Ears, React with Your Face,” ends with bullets entering the windshield of a van that careens out of control as blood fills the screen. “Loud, Fast, and Keep Going” presents this same moment from the perspective of the gunmen, as John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” soothingly plays at the top of the installment.
Traditionally, these moments would be depicted as near-death experiences for Barry over which we feel immense tension. After all, we’re intrinsically inclined to root for characters to find the human connection they seek so deeply in their stories. But once Barry shoots Chris, the entire show’s tone and development shifts. It’s hard to rewatch the series’ first six episodes and not feel inclined to root against Barry, knowing what eventually becomes of his arc anyway. He can’t escape the criminal choices he’s made and, as such, he also can’t escape the criminals he’s made friendly with.
At every turn, Fuches (Stephen Root), the hitman mentor of Barry, and NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan), the Chechen mafia leader who frequently engages Barry, are always waiting to present him with a new job. Even though Barry might be after a new scene for his life to unfold against, they’re reluctant to allow him to savor it. Instead, they see him as they’ve seen every other hitman: incapable of change and always able to commit any crimes they need them to. For Fuches and NoHo Hank, Barry is just a hired hand with no hope at redemption. Barry’s frustration comes in that he can’t find redemption because criminal leaders continue to turn up at his side and demand certain behavior from him. It’s a viscous cycle, yes, but choices are made at every turn; Barry is never explicitly forced to do anything.
This frustration comes to the surface brilliantly in Hader’s performance, which always reveals the interior conflict within Barry. He’s slightly detached (after murdering Chris, he arrives at his theater group’s performance of Macbeth and doesn’t understand why he’d need a costume), but always aware of his surroundings and his responsibilities. Barry is capable of uncapping the boiling pot of rage and fury beneath him, but for the most part, he’s inclined to stick his hands in his pockets and say nothing. The internal strife is always present in Hader’s body language.
After all, Barry never necessarily wanted to be evil. Rather, he simply deluded himself into believing that each of his targets deserved to die. Therefore, he’s little more than a Robin Hood figure with a gun and still has the capacity to be an actor. However, the denouement of “Loud, Fast, and Keep Going” shows us that Barry could never be both a hitman and an actor and he’s certainly not a character who would deserve such a generous journey.
When Barry turns up for his bit part in Macbeth, his imagination overpowers him backstage. He conjures mental images of Chris’ wife and child receiving the phone call about his death that push Barry to the emotional brink. Overwhelmed with tears, he enters and delivers his line, “My lord, the queen is dead,” with unprompted thespian brilliance. In turn, his line inspires awe from his acting teacher, Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler). Likewise, his trauma fuels an otherworldly performance from his scene (and potential romantic) partner, Sally (Sarah Goldberg), who launches into an astounding monologue.
Afterwards, Sally commends Barry’s acting and generosity, beseeching, “Whatever you did to get to that place today, that is your new process. All you have to do is do that every time, okay?” Yes, Barry’s line is a moving moment of what his talents could have produced instead of death, but it’s also a reminder that those are impossible to achieve now. To access his fullest acting potential, per Sally, Barry must commit amoral atrocities on the daily. As such, the path of the capable menace is the only path forward. Berkman trumps Block.
One of the more meta-textually impressive aspects of this third act is that Hader and Goldberg are tasked with presenting fake acting in a manner that would be believably brilliant to us and to their in-world audiences. It’s not easy to act well in a falsified manner, but they’re both highly deft at it. The entire character of Sally Reed is ingeniously realized by Goldberg, who infuses empathy, insecurity, and a sense of demanding the best of both herself and others into one of the series’ many breakout characters.
While Goldberg became a breakout star with her breakout character, Winkler’s turn as Gene Cousineau proved what we already knew about the esteemed character from such prior comedies as Happy Days and Arrested Development. To earn initial audience affection for Gene, Winkler infuses his portrayal of the doting, narcissistic performance coach with the cherished adoration we’ve long possessed for the image of Winkler. For the same reason we root for Gene, in spite of his flaws, so too did we cheer with unabashed euphoria as Winkler earned a long-overdue Emmy for the role.
Because of how warm Winkler is in all aspects of his life, though, it’s hard not to see Gene become genuinely more lovable over the course of the series. The more he relinquishes the outdated, impossible standards he maintains for himself and for his disciples, the more we see the heart of Barry through his character. He represents what Barry could have been and is one of the only figures open to connecting with Barry over his sadistic past (partly because of his growth in empathy and partly because of the acting potential within Barry unlocking his own trauma).
At the end of “The Audition,” Fuches attempts to frame Gene for the season one murder of Detective Moss (Paula Newsome), the officer in charge of investigating Barry’s inciting action: the hit placed on Ryan (Tyler Jacob Moore). Fuches raises a gun to Gene’s head as Barry races through the forest (keep in mind, this aired on the same, blood pressure-exploding night as the series finale of Veep and Game of Thrones’ “The Bells”) and we find ourselves rooting for Gene above all else. (It reminds me of how the one time Breaking Bad fans struggled to excuse Walt’s actions came when Hank was put at risk.)
Despite the brilliance of Sally and the unexpected affability of Gene, there is no denying the top breakout character of Barry: NoHo Hank. The aforementioned Chechen mob boss, NoHo Hank is a sugar cube-looking sweetheart who is in way over his head in each episode of Barry (in a manner akin to Dean Pelton, who is clearly ill-equipped to run Greendale) and is better suited to offering visitors submarine sandwiches and juice boxes. Coincidentally, NoHo Hank also happens to be the character who sets the events of Barry in motion with the Ryan hit that brings Berkman to Block and Cleveland to Los Angeles.
While the series has an abundant share of terrifying and dark moments, there’s plenty of room for lightness (the presence of Kirby Howell-Baptiste and D’Arcy Carden in Barry’s acting class absolutely helps) and most of this comes from the absurdly endearing NoHo Hank. In a role that could’ve been a menacing Coen Brothers-esque villain, Kerrigan’s charm and singularity takes a Blood Simple streak and turns it Burn After Reading. Whether his comic relief comes in acknowledging how police sirens are not good signs for hitmen, texting with bitmojis, or coining the phrase, “suck balls mountain,” NoHo Hank is the sweetest crime boss television ever cooked up.
For as giddy as the dynamic between Hank and Barry can be, the real tragic element of Barry comes in the hitman’s dynamic with Fuches. For those who treasure beloved comedy veterans, Root ranks about as highly as Winkler does. However, as the layers of Gene reveal a more sensitive man underneath, Fuches unravels crueler and crueler with each episode. The season two episode, “ronny/lily” (my favorite of Barry’s), is a perfect encapsulation of how fun and thrilling Barry can be, in tandem with the fraught relationship Barry and Fuches share. For the most part, “ronny/lily” is a standalone installment, but it’s also a pivotal stepping stone for Barry distancing himself from the pull and manipulation of Fuches.
For the first half of Barry’s second season, a cat-and-mouse storyline unfolds between Barry and Detective Loach (John Pirruccello), Moss’ partner who winds up embroiled with a multitude of leads that all point towards Barry as a top suspect. At the end of the fourth episode, “What?!,” the series’ greatest subversion transpires as Loach refuses to arrest Barry on the condition that Barry murders his ex-wife’s boyfriend, Ronny (Daniel Bernhardt). It’s an absurd development that entirely reshuffles the deck of Barry’s arc, but it also results in a killer episode.
Arriving at Ronny’s home in “ronny/lily,” Barry initially tries to offer him a trip through a criminal back channel akin to the witness protection program. Ronny, however, is well-trained in martial arts and decides to fight back against his would-be killer. Neither of them act with incredible coordination as they wrestle on the ground for a few moments before Barry inadvertently crushes Ronny’s windpipe. It’s a moment buoyed by amusing sound mixing (the persistent wheezing from Ronny alerts us to his presence throughout the home like verbal muddy footprints) in a manner reminiscent to the brawls that transpire across the Kill Bill films. I couldn’t help but be reminded of when Beatrix fought Vivica A. Fox in a suburban home or Daryl Hannah in a manner of mutilation.
Despite the glaring injury Ronny suffers, he still does his best to intimidate Barry with nunchucks and flying kicks before eventually collapsing from his own suffocation, prompting an exhausted Barry to plead with the man to just give up the fight. It’s a moment of levity that is immediately counterbalanced by the arrival of Ronny’s daughter, Lily (Jessie Giacomazzi), who makes Barry and sprints through the house after her father. For a brief instance, we think that Barry might kill Lily for observing his face (it’s hard to trust his “I’m not gonna hurt you”), but these doubts are assuaged when Lily fights back against him with a ferocity that rivaled her own father’s.
Sprinting towards him on all fours and leaping weightlessly through the air, Barry hilariously states, “I thought you were a dog” before she beats the shit out of him and lacerates his back with hurled glass. The absurdity of the Lily character (Fuches, bitten by her, proclaims her to not be human after witnessing Lily’s rapid climb up a tree and gravity-defying leap to a nearby roof) recalls similarly surreal episodes of contemporary series like Atlanta or Man Seeking Woman. However, the best comparison is “Pine Barrens” from The Sopranos, which depicts an unknowable Russian, subverting the attempted murder of Paulie and Chrissy, and surviving all attacks on his life. Like the Russian, Lily is an ethereal figure who challenges the structure of the main characters’ world.
While these sequences are egregiously entertaining (both for their immaculate stunt work and the hysterical belief on Barry’s part that he can cover up the bleeding holes in his body with a hoodie. You know, so he doesn’t scare the nearby pedestrians), they’re also heavily revealing of the true nature between Barry and Fuches. Desperate for stitches and a visit to the hospital, Barry pleads with Fuches to care for him out of fear that he’s dying. Fuches perpetually insists on avoiding medical attention, believing it would also bring police attention, considering the extent of Barry’s wounds.
Just as Barry saved himself when he murdered Chris, Fuches is willing to let Barry die if it means he can save himself from entering into the orbit of local police officers. He’s clearly manipulative, but he also is phony in terms of his own selflessness, like some sort of mob-oriented Mother Gothel from Tangled. Throughout “ronny/lily,” Fuches advocates for the murder of Lily and downplays the severity of Barry’s injuries; both actions are purely motivated by his own selfish interests. Fuches is concerned solely with the task at hand — and the protections that go along with it.
In the middle of the chaos, Barry flashes back briefly to a stylized depiction of Marines returning from war and shaking off their trauma with hugs from their loved ones. When Barry comes home, though, he’s greeted solely by a smirking Fuches, who doesn’t hug him; he gestures only to Barry’s right, suggesting it’s time for yet another mission. By now, we know how much of a hold Fuches has over Barry, but for the first time, it begins to weigh palpably on Barry’s mind, too.
The climax of the episode takes place in a drugstore, where Barry is sent to obtain medicine and wraps to heal Fuches’ newfound bite wound, courtesy of Lily. There, Ronny turns up once again (windpipe exerted, undoubtedly) and, as “How Do I Love” by Leann Rimes plays dully overhead, he renews battle with Barry. However, the seriousness of the conflict is immediately undercut by Barry’s request, “Don’t be an asshole,” and Ronny’s misguided flying kick that sends him about five feet to the left of Barry. “You’re not at one hundred percent, man, come on,” Barry pleads, but Ronny just won’t quit brawling with him, even as the cops arrive and shoppers flood the parking lot in panic.
When Loach eventually turns up at the scene, the conflict escalates to the point where both he and Ronny wind up dead, giving Barry a chance to jog right by the preoccupied police officers. The only escape he has is to enter back into Fuches’ car, which he does. But for a brief moment, he sees Fuches in the driver’s seat, smirking at the insanity unfolding in the drugstore behind them. Fuches gestures over to the passenger seat in a way that indicates Barry’s work still isn’t done. With Fuches, there will always be something else to subject oneself to and, for the first time, Barry realizes the enormity of his loyalty to him.
While the third season of Barry is still in the works, it will undoubtedly present myriad threads worth following as we understand the characters better, as well as their relationships with one another (Gene and Barry are headed for the breaks, for example). But the one closest to the core of Barry lies within Barry and Fuches. They’re split now, after Fuches escaped an attempt of murder from Barry. On Barry, though, there’s always a chance that he can come right back. With a smirk and a nod, he can easily corrupt Barry away from the theater’s next Shakespearean tragedy into one of his own. It’s an inescapable choice.
