This article contains spoilers for the HBO series Barry.HBO’s Barry has struck a chord with fans. With three seasons in the can and an eight-episode fourth season to come (with all episodes directed by series star and creator, Saturday Night Live alum Bill Hader), it’s only natural to wonder what’s in store for everyone’s favorite assassin and aspiring actor Barry. Not to mention his acting teacher Gene Cousineau (the wonderful Henry Winkler), NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan, arguably one of the best television characters of all time), Barry’s long-suffering girlfriend Sally (Sarah Goldberg), and his twisted uncle/handler Monroe Fuches (Stephen Root).
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If the trajectory that season three of Barry took is any indication, fans are in for a dark ride. Especially in the final three episodes of season three, Hader’s Barry saw his inner darkness, criminal nature, and ruthlessness take over. Whereas the first two seasons of Barry had many moments of humor (thank you NoHo Hank!), season three of Barry took fans on a dive into the depths of Barry’s psychopathy (not to mention the absolute darkest moments of the show for every character).
Barry Berkman is a complicated character. He wants to be something more than a mid-level hitman for hire, yet he can’t seem to resist the lure of just one more hit, drawing more people into his dark web of crime and deceit. Even his bittersweet on-again-off-again girlfriend Sally, while initially appalled by his offer of violence on her behalf, later asks him to perform violence on her behalf. Just as everyone’s lives seem to darken when they cross paths with him, Sally’s nature changes as a result of her association with Barry.
It is pretty clear that Barry is a psychopath. It’s also pretty clear that he attempts to live a more upstanding life but repeatedly fails at that. Can a psychopath change their nature? A reporter for Fresno, California’s KSEQ asked Hader if he thought Barry was a psychopath. Hader answered, “Oh my gosh. I don’t know. I really don’t know,” he said. “That would be interesting to see what someone would think about him. You know, I should ask a therapist.”
Barry in Season 1 Is Conflicted About His Role As a Hitman
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Barry season one introduced its audience to ex-Marine and current hitman Barry Berkman. He’s from Cleveland and got into the assassin business via his ‘uncle,’ Monroe Fuches. Barry goes to Los Angeles to perform a hit, and it turns out his mark is an aspiring actor. Barry tracks him to his acting class, becomes enamored with the people and instructor, as gets obsessed with the idea that maybe he could do something other than be a hitman. Basically, Barry discovers human connection and the healing power of creativity and finds that he likes it, even though he’s super awkward about it. After all, being an assassin is a lonely business. Season one also introduces the Chechen mafia and the Bolivian mafia, which becomes Barry’s primary conflict, and gives the world NoHo Hank.
Barry in Season 2 Is Really Trying To Make Love Work
In season two, Barry’s personality intensifies. It gets both darker and sweeter. At the end of season one, Detective Janice Moss, the police officer investigating Barry’s various murders (and also the girlfriend of acting teacher Gene) is murdered — by Barry, of course. She had figured out Barry’s connections to the crimes she was investigating. Things were going too well in Barry’s personal life with girlfriend Sally and the play they were going to put on together, so Barry could not let her derail his new life.
As he falls more in love with Sally and acting, he also falls deeper into murder in order to keep up his nice guy facade. Season two also develops the bromance (which is really a romance) between Chechen mob boss NoHo Hank and the leader of the local L.A. Bolivian crime syndicate, Cristobal. Barry also learns about Sally’s abusive ex-husband Sam. He offers to take care of him for her, and she’s appalled. All of this sets up the utter despair, darkness, and extreme violence of the season finale and season three.
How Barry Relates to His Acting Classmates
When Barry the hitman wanders into the acting class his mark is attending, a light bulb goes off in his head. This could be fun and potentially a way to turn his life around and get out of the hired assassin business. Barry grows tired of the body count he’s responsible for and part of his psyche is desperately searching for a way out. He’s trying to save himself. He sees his classmates in Gene Cousineau’s class as a new family. The problem is, Barry is a hardened assassin; is it already too late for him? He studies his classmates and mimics their behaviors as he learns to interact with them in an authentic manner. If that isn’t the behavior of a psychopath, what is? A psychopath may want to get better, but can they really change?
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Barry and His Relationship With Sally
For Barry Berkman, Sally represents a kind of life he never let himself believe he could have. On first appearance, she’s a pretty, perky, blonde aspiring actress and screenwriter. But Barry misses signals that reveal that Sally is more complicated and darker than first appearances, because Barry is a psychopath who only sees others via his own gaze, not for whom they truly are.
Case in point, he was all into being friends with the LAPD detective until she became a threat to him. His feelings for Sally run deep, but they are flawed. Through Sally, he sees a better version of himself (sometimes literally, in idealistic fantasy sequences of a life with her); he sees a kind man who would love and protect her. However, in the end (so far), he ends up dragging her into the mess of his existence, and ends up endangering her life.
Barry and His Relationship With NoHo Hank
NoHo Hank is the leader of the Los Angeles branch of the Chechen mafia (at least once the original leader is killed by Barry, masquerading as “a much shorter” Bolivian mob member), and a delightfully developed character. He’s a criminal who is afraid of crime. He has acted as an informant, letting Barry know when other members of the Chechen mafia are after him. He’s a friend to Barry, and it takes Barry a long time to realize that, but when he does, he’s a loyal foot soldier for NoHo Hank, even training his Chechen mafia members in sniper skills when Barry no longer wants to be involved in the local mobs. That is, until Barry kills many of them.
Barry and His Relationship With Monroe Fuches
Barry’s relationship with his handler and ‘uncle’ Monroe Fuches (played with truly diabolical perfection by Stephen Root, of Office Space and News Radio) is one of the most complicated in the series. He’s the only real family Barry has, yet Fuches is using Barry and the sniper skills he developed as a Marine to further his hitman for hire business.
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Fuches only cares about the money, and Barry’s heart breaks as he comes to realize this. Barry turns on Fuches, and yet he can’t quite let him go, either. As complicated as their relationship is, Barry has a problem ending it. After all, not only is Fuches family, but he’s the only person who knows exactly who and what Barry is and still wants to be part of his life, even if it is on his own terms and for financial gain. Initially, Barry seems like he deserves much better than Fuches, but as the show progresses, Barry might be just as (if not more) fundamentally broken than his ‘uncle.’
Can Psychopaths Like Barry Ever Change?
From a scientific standpoint, Real Clear Science and Yale agree, rather hopelessly, that psychopaths cannot change:
From a completely nonmedical or scientific standpoint, we’d agree that psychopaths, at least past a certain point of adulthood, cannot change. Look at Barry: he tries so hard to reform himself — through acting, through his relationship with Sally, through his friendship with his fellow Marines, acting class members, Gene, and NoHo Hank. Barry tries valiantly to leave the life of a hitman behind. but his very nature, that of a psychopath, does not allow him to progress, and every time he almost escapes himself, he kills again and vows to change, lying to himself with the promise, “Starting now.”
To the best of our knowledge, there is no cure for psychopathy. No pill can instill empathy, no vaccine can prevent murder in cold blood, and no amount of talk therapy can change an uncaring mind. For all intents and purposes, psychopaths are lost to the normal social world.
He must keep killing to save his own butt, because if he gets caught and thrown into prison, he will have nothing but time to sit with his self-loathing nature. Bill Hader’s portrayal of Barry is so pitch perfect. He’s a man who wants to change, but he cannot ultimately change for the better. His performance shows the internal conflict Barry faces, a man doomed to be himself.
