This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of Barry, “You’re Lovely.”
Among the most frequent objections I have heard of barry since the first season is that the series has become so dark that it no longer feels like a comedy most of the time. This is an understandable concern. Heck, I voiced it myself during season two (although I think the more recent years have been more balanced). As great as the series has become in terms of drama, action, suspense and horror, you can’t blame anyone for feeling melancholic for the dumbest days when many scenes were just about the crushing levels superficiality and narcissism in Gene Cousineau’s acting class. .
At the same time, though, it’s not like Season 1 is exactly hiding from the inherent obscurity of a hitman show. The humor hasn’t entirely gone away either, though there are stretches where it mostly exists in the corner of NoHo Hank stuff. But “You’re Charming” was a powerful reminder of how always funny barry can be whenever he wants, even though the episode’s two central scenes involved emotional trauma and then shocking violence.
We open with Hank and Cristobal saluting Toro, a legendary assassination facilitator played by Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro. He’s there to help them solve their Barry problem, but for some reason his chosen killers are the hosts of a podcast about gadgets that never work. So what’s meant to be a serious, tense conversation is instead hijacked by Hank who takes issue with various aspects of the podcast format and/or podcast support in general.
. Between that scene and Sally’s ex-agent telling her last week that she could have a lucrative new career in podcasting, it seems like
barry as a whole is not likely to leave many five-star reviews. Meanwhile, we get various bits of delightful visual comedy courtesy of Gene’s agent, Tom (played verve and unashamedly as ever by Fred Melamed). Upon learning that Gene performed a one-man show on Barry Berkman for a
Editor’s Choice Barry Season 4 | Official trailer | HBO So there is The crow Fuches. After betraying Barry, forgiving Barry, and then being betrayed by Barry, he is overflowing with bitterness and despair, and is at least relieved to learn that Hank is preparing to have Barry killed. But then he catches a few minutes of rain man on television in the prison common room and realizes – with startling precision
— that her relationship with Barry bears many similarities to the sibling dynamics in this movie. Barry isn’t on the autism spectrum, as far as we know, but he doesn’t understand much about basic human behavior either, and needed his dad’s old pal, Fuches, to help him. help him through life. Yes, Fuches also exploited Barry’s gift for violence to make money, but Raymond’s brother did the same with Raymond’s ability to count cards. Same difference, right? This is easily the funniest example of an HBO character seeing a funny mirror version of themselves on TV since Uncle Junior got it wrong.
for a documentary about him and Bobby Bacala. Although Stephen Root probably isn’t often confused with Tom Cruise circa 1988. Related THE
rain man the epiphany once again drives Fuches’ loyalty back to Barry, as he tries and fails to warn the guards of the intended hit. That doesn’t matter, though, since the episode’s absurd and shocking climax has Barry mostly foiling things on his own. While being briefed by Federal Agent James Curtis (played by Dan Bakkedahl), Barry notices a strange, terrified man standing behind all the FBI marshals and agents, played by the former Bill Hader. SNL
buddy Fred Armisen. Armisen’s character stares at Barry, crying, his body practically vibrating. It’s a surprisingly bizarre image – Hader turning Armisen’s innate surreality to his advantage – and one that tells skilled murderer Barry Berkman everything he needs to know. Imperturbably, he told the Feds, “This guy is here to kill me. And he’s got a gun on him or something. He must be one of Toro’s podcasting hitmen, we realise, and immediately get gruesome and hilarious confirmation when the guy blows his hand up with the gadget he intended to use to kill Barry. . From there, his audio partner appears from a hiding place in the ceiling and murders all of the Feds, but Barry kills him in turn with one of the agents’ pistols, then appears to escape, leaving only Armisen there, sobbing. on its two ruins. hand and his dead friend.
It seemed unlikely that Barry would spend his entire final season behind bars. But no matter how easy it was to assume he would escape, how could anyone have imagined that…
This would that happen? The whole sequence is jaw-dropping at how weird, gross, and cartoonish it is. A fitting ending to a very entertaining half hour. Sarah Goldberg as Sally in ‘Barry’ Season 4.
And yet…even amidst all the aforementioned gags, “You’re Charming” doesn’t shy away from heavier material. The scene that gives the episode its title involves Sally attempting to launch her new career as Gene’s successor at her acting school. At first, she worries that her students will hate her because of the viral video, but it turns out that most of them either don’t care or see the incident from Sally’s point of view. That’s not the problem. Instead, she gets into trouble being an acting teacher — or, at least, being like Gene Cousineau. One of her students, Kristen (Ellyn Jameson), hasn’t properly prepared a monologue, and Sally harangues her about it, about whether Kristen just wants to be an actress because people have always told her how pretty she is. and charming, if anyone will take her seriously, etc. Just when Kristen complains that Sally is mean, Sally tells her to recite the famous closing line from
sunset boulevard which she struggled with earlier, and this time Kristen is doing it like a really good actor would. The method worked! (Or, that variation, anyway.) Sally is thrilled, but the students are disgusted, calling Sally an abuser, with one insisting that “it’s not because it was you.” fact that we need you to do it for us.” Tendency
On the scale of abuse we’ve seen given and received on this show, Sally’s tirade is pretty minor. And, as she notes, that’s not uncommon in the acting business. Kristen herself even acknowledges that what Sally did worked and asks for Sally’s help in preparing for a scene she had in a big job. But the other student’s objections relate to the show’s larger discussion of cycles of abuse and the ways people hurt people, well, hurt people. Hank seems to have emerged from his nightmarish visit to Bolivia a stronger man, able to stand up to Barry on the phone rather than hug him as always. But it’s an act at best, as we see how quickly he cowers when his former colleague Batir shows up alive and very unhappy with Hank and Cristobal’s new set-up. Sally will never be able to get rid of the feeling of being suffocated (twice!). Gene, for all his pomp, still mourns Janice. And a lifetime of violence ruined any chance Barry had of becoming a real person. He’s able to express his feelings more clearly now, especially his anger at learning that Gene talked about him with Lon, but he doesn’t understand where those feelings came from, or how much he hurt Gene and to others, nor that Sally is unlikely to hide with him on purpose. Again, witness protection appears to be irrelevant in the wake of the failed hit. The agents are dead, Fred Armisen is missing a hand, and Barry Berkman is hot. (While, of course, the Rainman score plays.) And damn, was it a big laugh to see that happen.