Spoiler Warning: Barry Seasons 1-3
It’s difficult to imagine where the acclaimed HBO show Barry could possibly go after its final third batch of episodes. By all accounts, the currently airing season, with just two episodes left, is speeding, hurling, catapulting toward a violent, cataclysmic, unrevisitable finale.
Barry (Bill Hader), the show’s titular character, is stuck in a deep funk, having committed multiple irreparable murders and alienated himself from his mentors, his girlfriend, and most of his friends. NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) has lost all of his buddies and his buddy. Fuches (Stephen Root) is as sadistic as ever, having gathered all the wronged loved ones of Barry’s victims, who Fuches himself set him up to kill, to track Barry down and exact revenge. A new, no-nonsense agent is committed to the case of who killed Detective Janice Moss (Paula Newsome).
It really doesn’t look good for our favorite assassin-turned-actor. In fact, the only person who seems to be doing relatively okay is Sally (Sarah Goldberg), and she is at a low point in her career, having her debut show canceled. Where will Bill Hader take season 4?
How Barry Season 3 Sets up for an Amazing Season 4
Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Barry season 3 boasts a huge upgrade in visuals, stunts, violence, and other production value. The show has been more ironic than ever, blending the inane with the terrifying, the slapstick with the unforgivable, and the nonsense with the thought-provoking. While plot-wise, it seems like there won’t be anything left for the future, the show keeps inexplicably, against all odds and sense, getting ridiculously better, despite its protagonist having no redeeming qualities other than the general desire to maybe do better someday.
The company has clearly invested even more considerable resources into the brilliant mind of SNL alum Bill Hader. It has spared no expense for complex freeway chases and innocent-slaughtering shootouts, such as episode 7’s head-turning freeway chase and car dealership standoff. Some are already calling it the best action sequence on TV of 2022 so far.
Also, this is the broodiest season ever, its understated visual composition and tonal pacing directly contrasting with the intensity of the events transpiring per episode. With the clear, auteur-like creative investment in the current season, all signs are pointing to Hader and co-creator Alec Berg setting us up for another amazing, captivating, and delightfully disturbing season to come.
How Can Barry’s Story Move Forward in Season 4?
HBO
Barry is unemployed, single, friendless, under suspicion by law enforcement, and after Barry’s May 29th episode, dead. Barry is literally dead. He was killed by the widow of the old army buddy he murdered in cold blood. How in the world is his story going to continue? If the writers can write him back to life, as they presumably will by the next episode, they certainly can write him an equally compelling future for a new season. But how?
Things don’t necessarily have to get brighter in Barry’s life to justify the network continuing to make this brilliant, meta, symbolic beauty, but they do have to be going somewhere. Barry appears to be headed nowhere other than the grave if he isn’t there already. Knowing the genius that is Bill Hader, absolutely anything is possible for this character and this show, including it continuing under the label of “Barry” without actually having a living character named Barry.
Most likely, the star power of Hader will null this option. Still, these brilliant showrunners have all options available to them due to the sheer capacity of their brains to conceive of bold, niche stories, begging some important questions, such as how in the world are they going to write themselves out of these corners?
Barry’s Unpredictability Sets Up a Wild Ride
It can only be left to assume that we have some pretty contortive twists and turns to look forward to in the final episodes of season 3, setting us up for season 4. Sally may get her show back on the air. Barry may somehow survive the poisoning and escape the wrath of his victim’s loved ones.
The agent after him might be struck down or sent away on another mission. Mr. Cousineau (Henry Winkler) may be emboldened enough by his new professional success to engage Barry in blackmail of his own or distracted enough to forget about him. Barry may succeed in getting Sally back somehow. Everything may come together to prepare audiences for an eventful new season and to tie together some frayed ends of what was once Barry’s promising new world.
As a show, Barry is punctuated by a lack of punctuation, a deliberate, sublimely satisfying let-down after a relentless build-up, an absence of progress, and a face-punch of messy unpredictability. Barry mimics life itself in that way. Everything we expect may be deliberately teased and then decisively ripped from us and jarringly replaced by some even more warped and disturbing reality we must grapple with.
The only thing we can really be sure of is that we Barry fans will be on a wild ride for some time, with no telling where we might wind up. Particularly in this last season, the creators have thrown all expectations and existing references out the window to craft something entirely their own, wholly unique, and for viewers, inescapably compelling.
Barry has two episodes left to air for season 3. While season 4 is already in production, there are no confirmed details, including a release date. We eagerly look forward with pained anticipation and cautious concern to the next adventures of our favorite murderous creative!
