Summary: Barry plans how to kill Cristobal, the leader of the Bolivians, using stealth, but Taylor wants to bum-rush him. Barry tries to get Taylor to listen to his plan unsuccessfully. Taylor sneaks money into Barry's bag when Barry doesn't take it. Barry goes to acting class where he continues to learn new lessons. He discovers the money in his bag and he hides it in the bathroom. Vacha wants revenge on Barry but he is ordered not to kill him. Vacha goes after Sally instead and ends up in a gunfight with Moss who was going to acting class to meet with Gene. Vacha is killed, and the cops find Barry's money hidden in the bathroom. Barry tells Taylor that he will do the job on his own. However, Taylor shows up with a horde of marines and he drives a car straight to the landing site. The car is shot at and several marines are killed, including Taylor.
The Good: The writing in this episode stood out to me. Everything that happened was logical and satisfying. There was a string of events that led to the conclusion of the episode with Taylor bum-rushing the Bolivians and the acting class falling under suspicion again. It was pretty complex, but the story was always easy to follow, and I really love the way that several pieces fell perfectly into place at the end. For example, Moss and Vacha running into each other and getting into a gunfight made perfect sense, and I was really impressed with how Barry's stashed money came into play as evidence. In the other half of the story, Taylor's actions were consistently unpredictable, yet it all made some sort of sense based off of what we knew about the character going into this episode. The reveal that Taylor read Barry's acting book was really well done, and it neatly explained Taylor's stunning behaviour in a way that actually made sense (I could definitely buy into the unhinged Taylor being easily influenced by a book). Barry was terrific in this episode, as always. His interactions with Taylor were a highlight, and I found myself laughing more often than not. He was presented with a very real dilemma here as his hopes about Taylor working with Fuches to let him go free were quickly dashed, and in the end both Fuches and Taylor were demanding Barry to kill the other. It was a big problem for Barry, and one that was examined in a very humourous way, which I think was surprisingly effective. There's something oddly funny about this situation that Barry put himself in, so it feels right to ridicule it. The ending however was really intense. Barry tries to cut Taylor out, but it totally backfires and Taylor arrives with a party of marines to go attack the Bolivians. The scene is scary in a lot of ways as Taylor leads the entire crew to their deaths with a single reckless move. Even with the humour coming out in a few moments, the repercussions of Taylor's decision are quite horrifying, and it's a fitting end for his character to be killed while making an overly aggressive move in an attempt to kill some people. As usual, we were given another strong scene in the acting class. Barry and Sally's relationship has been put in the background these past few episodes, but it's still getting some solid development. This episode shows Barry being forced to deal with the fact that Sally doesn't love him by way of working an acting exercise with her. It's a subtly acted scene, and one that ends up being more powerful than expected. The Bad: The gunfight didn't quite work for me. The scene itself was built up perfectly and it made sense that Moss would kill Vacha. But what was missing was any kind of emotional investment. I don't really care about Moss, and Vacha is the least interesting villain that the show has offered up so far. So when they fought, I was never really at the edge of my seat. The adrenaline rush from the implications of Moss finding a Chechen wore off pretty quickly, and we were just left with a pretty hollow gunfight that never did anything to keep me hooked. This show has an interesting problem which is preventing it from scoring higher. Everything surrounding Barry is fantastic, but whenever the story shifts away to Gene, Moss or Sally, I find myself getting pretty uninterested. The show has done so well with Barry that any time he's offscreen, I find myself just waiting for him to come back. That's not to say that the scenes without him are bad. They aren't. They are well-made scenes with characters who I understand and enjoy watching. But I just can't seem to get invested in them. The Unknown: What will come of Sally playing the role of MacBeth? Will she get the results she desires? The cops will presumably be watching over the acting class now. What will they discover? Will they be back on Barry's tail soon? Who survived in the car at the end? Are Barry and Chris alive? How are they going to get out of the situation that Taylor threw them into? Best Moment: The ending sequence was a perfect escalation of tension, but I have to give it to the acting class scene once again. These scenes provide such brilliant insight into Barry, and he always walks out having grown a little bit as a character. I love the way that the show is handling the character of Barry, and I hope that we continue to get more of this stuff in the final two episodes of the season. Character of the Episode: Barry, thought Taylor really did make me laugh a few times. Conclusion: This was another great episode. The character development and writing was really impressive, and I continue to enjoy myself while watching this show. I can argue that the style of the show makes emotional investment in anything other than Barry quite difficult, but when the execution of the show is this good, I find it hard to be bothered too much by that. Score: 69
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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