Summary: Fuches tries to convince others in the prison to help him and Barry. He tells Barry that the FBI made him wear a wire but he refused. Barry meets with Sally who is horrified by him but tells him she feels safe with him. After this, Barry meets with the FBI and cuts a deal with them. Hank and Cristobal pitch their new sand business to a couple of gangs. Hank tries to get the group to help break Barry out of prison. Cristobal talks to him, and after Fuches calls to say Barry is speaking with the FBI, Hank decides they have to kill Barry. Gene puts on a one-man show for Lon to tell an exaggerated story of his relationship with Barry. Sally finds that she has no future career in acting. After talking with Gene, he suggests that she teach.
The Good: Last season I talked a lot about how episodes were hurt by the sheer quantity of disparate stories being told, as it resulted in episodes feeling disjointed with lots of short scenes and minimal story progression in each episode. Thankfully, this season so far seems to have broken that habit, at least in these first two episodes. There are fewer stories being told in this season, scenes are given more time to breathe, and every story thread has meaningful connective tissue that makes this feel like one clear story instead of a series of different story threads. I've really enjoyed the different feeling of this season so far. Barry's time in prison has been fun to watch, and Fuches' presence keeps things feeling light. He's so emotionally charged, and makes such braindead decisions sometimes, and it's really funny. His attempt to win over the prison by interrupting TV time and giving everyone obnoxious nicknames was quite funny. Fuches seems to think he has everyone playing in his hands, but he lacks subtlety and ends up never accomplishing what he wants to. This is also exemplified by Fuches trying to tell Barry how he had to turn on the FBI for trying to break him away from Barry to try and give him some points. But nobody buys it. The cops obviously don't buy it, and Barry doesn't buy it either, knowing full well that Fuches is full of crap. Because of that, is it any surprise that Barry seems to have betrayed him by the episode's end? Barry is a shell of who he was before, and after a phenomenal scene with Sally (see: Best Moment), I could totally buy into Barry coldly sacrificing Fuches and Hank for his future. Hank and Cristobal remain so much fun to watch. Their coordinated pitch meeting for the two gangs was charismatic, silly, and perfectly in character for the both of them. The direction was superb, the comedy was perfectly timed, and they were convincing enough that I could honestly buy into the gangs agreeing to get into the sand industry. I also can't help but feel bad for Hank here. He saw Barry was arrested and immediately got to work trying to get him out only to learn that Barry never cared and was immediately willing to sell him out. It's a sad moment for Hank who finally realizes how one-sided this friendship has always been, and true to form to the show, the scene ends with a fantastically funny line delivery of "we have to kill Barry". As great as Hank was, it's Gene who steals the show this time. Poor Gene just can't help himself. He's such an attention-seeking person and despite his best judgement he does something really stupid by contacting Lon and telling him an exaggerated story of what he did. I couldn't help but laugh in amazement when Gene desperately tried to confirm that he was an "anonymous source". This is going to blow up in his face, I'm sure of it. It helps that everything we see of Gene is absolutely hilarious. Lon catching up to him before he can put up his stupidly obvious letters that anybody could pick up is really funny, as is his impression of Barry and his laughably inaccurate readings of what happened in his conversations with Barry. Henry Winkler kills it here, and I was having a good time in all of his scenes. His story culminates nicely with a moment between him and Sally. Sally comes in with accusations, but Gene does well to focus on how they are both victims of not only Barry, but their own hubris, before giving her some advice on how to move forwards. The Bad: Nothing. The Unknown: Did Gene really do all of this just for another taste of fame? Jim will inevitably find out about this. What happens then? Who is Toro? What plan did he have to get Barry out of prison? Is he going to try to kill Barry now? What is the purpose of Barry's hallucinations in this season? We see flashbacks of his childhood with Fuches, and some hallucinations of a better life with Sally, similar to what we had in season 1. I'm curious to see if these scenes are leading somewhere. Will Sally start to teach acting? It does parallel nicely with Gene, since both of them were cancelled by the industry. Is Barry really going to make a deal with the FBI? Is he going to give up everyone? Who is the person he is taking with him? Is it Sally? That seems to be the obvious answer. Could it be Fuches? It would be funny if he was taking Fuches all along, but Fuches jumped the gun by freaking out and calling Hank. Best Moment: Barry and Sally's scene is outstanding television. It makes sense that Sally only came back to make sure that the murder that traces back to her is covered up. But she stays around after that, and this totally changed the dynamic. At the start of the conversation, Barry looked like a shell of a man who was ready to say farewell to this chapter of his life. He was repentant, apologetic, and seemed to understand that he never deserved Sally to begin with. He has accepted what went wrong in his life. Bill Hader conveyed this masterfully, and he looked terrifying, like a broken, soulless man throughout this scene. But then Sally makes a mistake by telling Barry that she feels safe around him. And Barry latches onto that. The acceptance vanishes in an instant, and suddenly all that Barry sees is an opportunity to get Sally back, and then his desperation comes out. Sally runs away, but the damage has been done, and it's so sad to see Barry reduced to this pathetic, disillusioned mess. Such a good scene with phenomenal acting and writing. Character of the Episode: Gene. Conclusion: "Barry" is back to doing what it does best in marrying drama and comedy in a way that is tremendously entertaining. This is a great episode to shift season 4 into gear. 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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