Barry's Final Season Makes Darkly Funny Points About Personal Growth

Everyone’s imprisoned in the final season of Barry, including the characters who aren’t behind bars. What makes this last run of episodes so impactful is that they realize it. In its first three seasons, the HBO comedy thrived on self-delusion: Hitman Barry Berkman (Bill Hader) thought he was a few acting classes away from cleansing the murders from his soul. Barry’s fellow actor (and eventual girlfriend) Sally (Sarah Goldberg) believed she was a striver and a victim, but not a narcissist. NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) fancied himself a nice-guy crime boss who could bring compassion to his underworld empire. Skewed perspectives like these prompted one ridiculous choice after another, but by the end of Season 3, when Barry hallucinated he was on a beach with everyone he’d ever killed, there were hints he was waking up to the depth of his darkness. As the other characters finally embrace their own essential natures, the show delivers a merciless, though no less amusing, thesis about the nature of personal growth.

That argument is tied to the concept of acting. Over and over, the final season — which Hader directed in its entirety — demonstrates how the characters have trapped themselves in performances. That’s literal with Sally, who is still reeling from the fallout of her failed TV show and the damning video of her screaming at Natalie (D’Arcy Carden), furious about her former assistant’s skyrocketing career. On a trip home to clear her head, Sally is in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant when she gets the news that Barry has been arrested for killing Janice (Paula Newsome). While she’s breaking down in her mother’s car, her mom leans out the window to make small talk with a server. Her low-key contrast to Sally’s histrionics is classic Barry humor, and it reveals something about the neglect that has made Sally obsessed with inhabiting characters instead of just being herself. As the season goes on, she finally sees how a life spent pretending to be someone else is tearing her apart.

There’s a similar trajectory for Gene (Henry Winkler), who’s initially delighted he’s been praised for exposing Barry as Janice’s killer. Soon enough, however, his need to play the hero pushes him to ludicrous extremes. He begins to understand how much he’s contributed to his own suffering, but the twist is that he doesn’t change that much. Or rather, he admits he’s addicted to validation and decides to go with it. Winkler’s performance shifts in response, replacing Gene’s nervous, desperate-to-please energy with a centered, deep-voiced steadiness. By embracing his worst qualities, he somehow becomes his best self.

By that standard, NoHo Hank is a standout this season. After rescuing his boyfriend Cristobal (Michael Irby), he tries to live a legitimate life far away from Los Angeles, drinking poolside cocktails with his man. However, when he sees an opportunity to start a new criminal enterprise, he takes it. More importantly, thanks to some frank advice from a fellow crook, he abandons his aw-shucks, I’m-your-pal goofiness. He’s still prone to inappropriate enthusiasm, like openly lusting for a hitman he’s trying to hire, but now he has a terrifying glint of menace. Carrigan’s ability to reorient his character makes him an MVP of the show’s superb acting ensemble: By keeping minute traces of Hank’s puppy-dog eagerness, he emphasizes just how much the character has changed.

However, Barry has not become Breaking Bad, where bumblers become masterminds. Self-knowledge doesn’t make these characters less inept, and every plan gets botched because someone can’t aim a gun, remember a line, or just stop talking. Plus, the show is still set in the same comic world, where a background character does something outlandish to emphasize that chaos rules everything in the end. The fact that a Dave & Buster’s becomes the seat of Hank’s criminal power is an especially good reminder that the show refuses to be too serious, even when it’s pondering good and evil.

Hader himself drives this approach. In the season premiere, Barry’s belief that he’s too wicked to be loved is played with heartbreaking dejection. A few episodes later, though, he reverts to his old narrative, where he’s a misunderstood saint. Hader communicates Barry’s relief that he can let himself off the hook, as well as his re-commitment to the idea that he’s actually a decent guy.

As a director, Hader trusts us to grasp these shifts. He’s always had a strong hand in the show’s visual language, and now that he’s the sole helmer, he leans even harder into scenes that leave key moments to our imaginations. For instance, Barry lashes out at a compassionate prison guard who tries to cheer him up. When he says he’s a cop killer who would kill this particular guard if given a chance, the guard stops smiling and pulls out his nightstick. The scene immediately cuts to a close-up of Hader, looking confused and contemplative. It seems like a whimsical suggestion that Barry has realized he should be nicer to people, but then, rivulets of blood run down his forehead. We don’t need to see the actual beating to grasp what’s happened and how Barry feels about it.

Elsewhere in the prison, Hader lets the camera linger on the communal television, which is always showing an episode of Yellowstone. Barry might be wrestling with his soul, but the rest of the inmates are just trying to enjoy a popular drama. As always on this series, nothing can stop the deluge of mundane details. Every murder can be interrupted by a phone call. Every villain can have a passionate opinion about TV. We might all be struggling to understand our true natures, but as Barry keeps reminding us, our personal crises are just a small part of the world’s never-ending clown show.

The first two episodes of Barry’s fourth season premiere on Sunday, April 16 at 10:00 PM ET on HBO. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Mark Blankenship has been writing about arts and culture for twenty years, with bylines in The New York Times, Variety, Vulture, Fortune, and many others. You can hear him on the pop music podcast Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs.