Summary: Hank calls Fuches who agrees to meet upon hearing that Barry has a kid who Hank has captured. Barry buys guns and heads to Hank's place. Fuches arrives first and has a stand-off with Hank. Fuches says he has accepted who he is and will leave Hank alone if he admits he killed Cristobal. Hank breaks down but ultimately can't do it so Fuches shoots and kills him. Fuches dives on John to protect him while the remaining men all kill each other. Fuches delivers John to Barry and leaves. Barry, Sally, and John sleep in a motel. Sally and John leave during the night and Barry goes looking for them at Gene's place. He ultimately decides to turn himself in while talking with Tom, but Gene abruptly kills him. A few years later, Sally is teaching acting again with John. John goes out to a friend's place and watches the movie made about Gene and his father called "The Mask Collector". Gene is serving life in prison and Barry was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full honours.
The Good: This episode subverted my expectations in many ways, and I applaud the writing team for creating an ending that surprised and entertained at every turn. I imagined that much of this episode would have been dedicated to Barry's conflict with Hank and Fuches, and yet the situation was resolved in the episode's first half, amusingly before Barry even got there. I went into this episode expecting another massacre by Barry, so having everyone kill each other before he got there ended up playing on my expectations beautifully to create the perfect surprise. Hank and Fuches also received a terrific conclusion. Their conflict occurred far too quickly and I didn't quite feel the significance of their disagreement until their showdown in this episode. Fuches has done the hard yards to change and he has accepted how bad of a person he is, and because of that he is disturbed by Hank's stubborn delusions where he gets to pretend that he's still a good person without accepting the bad that he has done. Hank killed Cristobal, and rather than face that truth and accept it, Hank hides from it and lashes out angrily at anyone who tells him otherwise. This fundamental difference between Hank and Fuches creates an almost primal distaste for each other, one that is fittingly utilized in their confrontation. Stephen Root and Anthony Carrigan are outstanding as Fuches lays bare what he needs from Hank, and Hank crumbles under the weight of his grief. In the end, Hank is killed and Fuches lives, which is fitting with the message of the show. Fuches did the right thing and accepted who he was. The result for Fuches is genuine redemption as he saves Barry's son and gets an opportunity to set things right with Barry in a beautiful final scene they have together. That they don't speak is perfect as it shows Fuches' restraint to manipulate Barry any further. But on the other hand, Hank dies because he was unable to accept the bad things he has done and was never able to achieve true change. Hank's death is tragic, and I love his final scene where you can tell that he sees Cristobal during his final breaths. The image of Hank's lifeless body holding the Cristobal statue's hand is a beautiful send-off for the character, one that worked exceedingly well. Everything else going on around Hank and Fuches also works really well. The action sequences in this show are excellent, and this last one was no exception. It was ridiculous to see everyone get mowed down instantly, and the grenade going off was darkly comical. I appreciate Bill Hader's direction as always, and the sequence of Fuches walking John away from the carnage as everyone agonizes in their pain was brilliantly executed. As for Sally, she finally gets to confess all that she has done wrong to John in a beautiful moment. This feels like John meeting his real mother for the first time as Sally is finally able to be her true self instead of "Emily", and the mother-son moment here works really well, especially to set up Sally's choice to leave Barry and what we see at the end of the episode. I like that Sally's story has come full circle as she ends up leaving Barry in the same way that she left Sam (sneaking out in the middle of the night), giving herself a chance at another life. It's almost funny how Barry is relegated to the background during all of this. As Fuches and Hank have a tremendous philosophical clash, Barry is just buying guns to prepare for his sacrifice, and it's all ultimately pointless. I have to applaud the show for still including so much comedy in this finale, as scenes like Barry walking through a store fully armed really made me laugh. "Barry" may have shifted more towards drama, but it never left the comedy behind. Barry is all prepared for an honourable sacrifice and one final big hurrah, and yet when he arrives he simply reunites with his family and nothing more. There isn't much for him to do here, but that's the point. Barry has nothing more to contribute, all that's left is for him to turn himself in, but he doesn't want to do it. It's funny to hear him make up excuses to Sally to not want to turn himself in. It's easy to understand why. Barry has a family to hold onto and that prevents him from giving himself up; it's the same deal as before, where Barry held onto the idea of a future where he could be happy to prevent giving himself up. But once Barry realizes his family has left him, he has nothing holding him back and he can finally understand that it's time for him to truly redeem himself and pay for his crimes. It's funny that Tom is ultimately the one to talk him down in this situation, but this makes it clear that it was Barry's own choice, not the will of someone else. And in one final ironic twist, Barry is denied his chance at true redemption. Because by now it's far too late, and it would be almost sick to give this man another chance. In one final brilliant scene, Gene shoots Barry abruptly in a scene that's edited in such a comedic way that I can't help but laugh. Only a show like this one would make me chuckle when the main character was killed off. I can't think of a better way that Barry could have died. Surprisingly, the show doesn't end here. After a nice piece of editing that makes you think for a moment that they are going to do an awful "it was all just a theatre production" ending, we get one final timeskip to explore the legacy that Barry left behind. I love this decision so much. In these final moments we get to see Barry tackle one final interesting theme: the inaccuracy in media portraying the lives of real people. This idea was set up back in the aptly titled "tricky legacies", and it pays off enormously here as we get to see just how badly Hollywood butchered the Barry/Gene story. Seeing a movie about this story that we just watched which so enormously misses the point is comical, but also a sad reflection on how true stories can get lost in translation and how difficult it is to trust in what we haven't seen with our own eyes. "The Mask Collector" was a blast to watch, and it's interesting to think about what John would take away from this movie. Would he be happy to know that his dad was a hero? Would he understand that a Hollywood production like this can never answer his questions, considering that he would know how inaccurate the scene of Barry saving his family was? It's difficult to read, but it is engaging to think through these ideas and create our own takeaways from the story. It's also quite frustrating and almost infuriating to learn that Barry was given a hero's burial while poor Gene rots away in prison, having lost everything in his life because of the one awful man who is now being praised as a hero. Sad, thought-provoking stuff. The Bad: This can't help but feel a little underwhelming. A big reason for that is because of the timeskip happening so late in the show. With only 4 episodes to develop a story post-timeskip, the show wasn't quite able to make this final act as emotionally engaging, dramatic, and interesting as it could have been. Barry and Sally's story was fleshed out, but they didn't ultimately end up doing a whole lot in these final three episodes. Meanwhile Hank, Fuches, and Gene all felt underdeveloped and I never got a clear sense of who they were post-timeskip to connect with their emotions in the way that I had with the characters pre-timeskip. It's a shame because so much of this finale was beautifully written, well-acted, and thematically significant, but I didn't have the same level of emotional investment as I did before the timeskip. It's disappointing to learn that Jim genuinely did let Barry just get away. Are we seriously going to pretend that Jim doesn't want any justice for the man who pulled the trigger on his daughter? Barry could offer such valuable information on the Gene Cousineau case, so Jim should absolutely want to keep him imprisoned. Ultimately, Barry getting away from Jim's captivity is just a moment of very lazy writing in a season that was otherwise pretty well done. The Unknown: Will John believe that his father was a hero? Or will he recognize the inaccuracy of "The Mask Collector" and understand that this film is not the truth he would have been seeking? What has Sally told him about Barry? What became of Fuches after he left Barry? Did he continue to live a life of crime until it inevitably caught up to him? Best Moment: The stand-off between Hank and Fuches, and the carnage that resulted was hugely satisfying. Character of the Episode: Hank. Conclusion: Overall, this was an emotionally satisfying, poetic, and enjoyable finale that concluded this series in as darkly comedic of a way as you would expect. I've seen a lot of mixed opinions on the final season of "Barry", but I don't quite agree with them. Yes, this season had its weaknesses, but I found it to be every bit as compelling as the other seasons of the show. Season 2 is still easily the best for me, but I rate season 4 as similar in quality to seasons 1 and 3. There was a darker tone to this season and some heavier scenes, but there is still absurdity and comedy in every episode in this season. While the tonal balance may have shifted towards drama this season, I never felt like "Barry" lost its heart, nor its comedic edge. The storytelling in this fourth season was superb, and every character was given a memorable send-off and conclusion, with all of them coming with their own twists and turns that both surprised and impressed me. As such, I'm very satisfied with this season as a finale, and even though there weren't quite as many laughs as I'm used to seeing from "Barry", I'm overall happy with how the series ended. "Barry" has been a lot of fun to watch and I'm very glad that I got to experience it. The blend between comedy and drama felt unique from the first episode, and I continued to be both captivated and entertained by the show through all four seasons. Bill Hader's sense of humour and his directing style came together nicely to create a visually memorable and funny show that also happened to have some well-written and thought-provoking storylines, even if they weren't the most subtle. At only 32 episodes long, I can easily recommend "Barry" since it offers an incredible amount of content and entertainment with such a small time commitment, and incredible consistency that ensures you will be entertained until the very end. I don't rate "Barry" as one of the greatest shows of all time, but it's still terrific; it's an easy, entertaining watch that I thoroughly enjoyed and I look forward to rewatching in the years to come. Score: 73
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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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