Summary: Fuches is arrested after his new hitman fails a job badly and is killed. The cops connect him to the tooth recovered from where Goran was murdered. Loach is given this information and connects Fuches to Barry. Meanwhile, Gene has a nervous breakdown and leaves the class. Barry tries to keep everybody's spirits high but nobody is into it. Barry tries to convince Gene to come back but it doesn't go well. Hank is enjoying his new life as Cristobal's partner, but is surprised and hurt when Cristobal wants to bring in a rival gang, led by Esther. Hank pins the blame of Goran's death on Esther and tries to get Barry to kill her. Barry refuses angrily. At the play, Gene shows up and cancels it, announcing he's done teaching. To get him to stay, Barry tells the class a story about his first kill, but is shaken by how different the class' interpretation of it is from what actually happened. Gene decides to stay. Barry encounters Hank who threatens him, telling him that he has to kill Esther or he will tell Goran's family that Barry murdered Goran.
The Good: This was a wonderful premier that did a lot of things right. Right from the get go, I knew this was going to be great. The cold open shows a newly recruited hitman trying to do a job and botching it horribly, leading to a trainwreck of events that results in Fuches' arrest. The whole thing was hilarious, and I couldn't stop laughing the entire time. What's most striking is how this scene focuses on one of this show's defining styles of humour: incompetence. It took me a little while to understand how this show worked in season 1, but now I can appreciate how everybody in this show is so woefully incompetent, and how funny it is to watch everything go wrong. Overall, the comedy was done superbly well here. This was the funniest episode of the show for sure, and I was laughing in nearly every scene. It would take far too long to go over all of the jokes I enjoyed, so I'll go over a few highlights. Fuches trying to play smart with the cops only for them to take his DNA from his coke was a perfect comedy moment. Barry attempting to hype up the acting class by imitating Gene was great. Everything that Hank did was simply a joy to watch, and I laughed at his antics. This episode proves that "Barry" has found its footing as a comedy. The tonal issues I had early in season 1 are all but erased. The show has figured out that its best drama comes from inside the heads of the characters, not through tension or action. There are no attempts at unnecessary tension-based drama, and that allows for the comedy to be the focus. What's most impressive is that the show doesn't focus too much on the comedy. There is a balance between drama and comedy, and that balance was maintained perfectly here. Barry's character arc in this episode was really good. We can see that he's desperately trying to ensure that Gene doesn't abandon the class. This class has allowed Barry to move past the person he was, and he is fighting hard to ensure that he doesn't regress back to his depressed mental state in season 1. But tragically, to ensure the continuation of the acting class, Barry ends up revisiting old wounds that he had hidden. After being unsettled by the difference between how the acting class portrayed his first kill and how it actually went down, Barry is once again questioning if he is a good person or if he's just a heartless monster. This shakes Barry to the core, and in a stroke of horrible luck, Hank returns to see him immediately after this with a completely different atmosphere. Hank threatens Barry and forces him to return back to the life of a hitman. And unlike in the clothing store, Barry doesn't have the resolve to push Hank away, and so he has found himself sucked back into the same conflict he thought he had just escaped. One thing about this episode that really surprised me was how much character was put into Hank. Hank was a fun background character in season 1, but he is treated as much more of a main character in this episode. Hank's been given an actual character arc this season, and I'm really excited to see how he adapts to his new role. This episode shows us that Hank really is a genuinely kind and goodhearted guy. He enjoys his new partnership with Cristobal, and enjoys the finer things in life, like volleyball. That initial sequence with Hank was hilarious, but it also does well to show us that Hank really isn't suited to be a big mafia boss. Yet that's the position he's in, and he's doing his best to achieve his goals. After being talked down by Esther and Cristobal, and then abused by Barry, Hank has enough. He forces a change inside himself and comes off as downright chilling in the ending scene with Barry. But it's not quite the right fit for Hank, as the show proves when he drives off listening to absurdly unintimidating pop music. The Bad: Nothing I would call bad. This was a really fun episode to kick off season 2. The Unknown: Will Barry accept the hit? What will this mean for his relationship with Sally and his commitment to acting class? Loach has discovered a connection between Moss' death and Barry now. Will he go after Barry in revenge? Where will this storyline go? What else will the cops do with Fuches? I presume that he's going to return to Barry at some point. How will that happen? Best Moment: Barry's speech about the first man he killed was pretty good, but what took the moment over the top was the contrast between Barry's actual past and how the actors were portraying what happened. It was a chilling reminder for Barry of how messed up he is, and Bill Hader conveyed Barry's shock and unease brilliantly. Character of the Episode: I'll give it to Hank this time. He had a great episode all around. Conclusion: This was a near-perfect way to kick off this season. I'm already extremely interested in what comes next and there are a couple of really engrossing plot lines that were set up. Outside of the set up, this episode managed to function as a great episode on its own with plenty of comedy and a couple of powerful moments. I may be going a little high on this one, but I really loved what it accomplished, and I had a lot of fun watching it. Score: 72
1 Comment
Ben
1/18/2020 02:47:07 am
Excellent review. I also thought this was the funniest episode yet, and that the tone seemed more consistent. The focus of Hank's character is great.
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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