Spoiler Warning: Barry Season 3Barry season three has been a wild ride, to say the least. Each of our favorite characters has seen peaks and valleys, unlike the show has previously offered. Bill Hader’s titular Barry has spent the latter half of the season ruthlessly pursued by the loved ones of his past victims. However, the character whose storyline was arguably the most interesting to watch in season three was Sally Reed, portrayed by the incredibly talented Sarah Goldberg (A Bunch of Amateurs, The Dark Knight Rises), as she experiences the highs and lows of Hollywood and the callous nature of show business.
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Fortunately, for fans of the HBO Max show, the recently released Barry season three finale will not be the end of our favorite character’s stories. Most importantly, it is not the end of Sally’s arc, so fans of the often overlooked struggling actress and Sarah Goldberg’s pitch-perfect performance can rest assured that more twists and turns, both good and bad, will be the subject of future viewing. Here’s why Sarah Goldberg, in an already inarguably phenomenal series, stands out in Barry season three.
Sally and the Stages of Grief
Despite receiving initially positive reviews, Sally Reed’s semi-autobiographical series in a series Joplin is canceled after only a single episode due to poor performance as per the ever mysterious and oft-maligned (albeit fairly) algorithm. Sally is understandably heartbroken, despite an offer to work on the middle-of-the-road series called The New Medusas and the assurances of a kind-hearted beignet guru.
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Here, Sarah Goldberg’s nuanced performance as Sally Reed is able to convey how seemingly hopeless creative pursuits are in 2022. Her wide-eyed stares of disbelief, coupled with the ways in which Sally Reed makes her way through the stages of grief. She is first unable to understand why a show could be canceled so quickly. However, she quickly becomes embittered at those who she perceives to have stolen her success (more on that later). This would be less easily understood if performed by a less capable actor.
Sally’s Sense of Resolution
Prior to the cancellation of Joplin, a hopeful Sally is tasked with giving a speech at the series’ premiere. Initially confident, when facing down the packed auditorium, she immediately struggles to find the proper verbiage and fumbles with her meticulously prepared notes. For a long moment, one which the showrunners are anything but quick to let pass, viewers of the HBO Max series who have come to love Sally Reed cringe, but later, when she launches into a triumphant pronunciation of Joplin’s positive Rotten Tomatoes score, their hearts swell with pride for the long-struggling actor.
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With the possible exception of a similar speech she delivered to Barry in the series’ second season, this public display of emotion is likely the greatest showcase of Sarah Goldberg’s incredible set of acting chops. Just when it seems that Sally Reed is going to have a complete breakdown on stage, she turns her panicked panting into an emotional effigy, which serves as something of a resolution, however brief, to the difficult journey the actress has endured.
Sally Reed’s Malicious Meltdown
In Barry season three’s penultimate episode, “Candy Asses,” Sarah Goldberg’s Sally Reed truly lost it. While she stopped short of wanton murder, unlike certain other characters on the show, she goes on a tirade littered with incendiary insults and sordid swears. The victim of Sally’s tirade is none other than her former assistant Natalie, who is played by D’Arcy Carden (Inside Amy Schumer, The Good Place). She receives this verbal smackdown after Sally realizes that Natalie is the showrunner of a more algorithm-friendly ripoff of her own Joplin.
The scream-fest, which is later revealed to have been filmed by Natalie, and which results in Sally being fired from The New Medusas, would be difficult to watch if delivered by a less talented actress than Sarah Goldberg. The harsh, frankly sexist language contained within the tirade would make a less complex character fall out of favor with audiences, but Goldberg is able to still, at moments, draw humor from the rant.
When Barry returns for season four, despite the blazing guns and murderous revenge plots that propagate the surrounding storylines, fans of this critically acclaimed HBO Max series will undoubtedly have one character’s potential future storylines at the forefront of their minds: Sally Reed. Thanks to the brilliant performance of Sarah Goldberg, Sally Reed has become one of the series’ most beloved characters. To make the ebbs and flows of a struggling Hollywood actor and screenwriter as interesting as the machinations of a retired hitman is obviously difficult. Without an actor as talented as Sarah Goldberg, it would be outright impossible.
