Spoiler Warning: Barry Season 3
The bad guy with a heart of gold trope has been a long-standing fixation in Hollywood. Everyone loves a good antihero. But what happens when the character’s audiences have fallen for prove to be more anti than a hero?Barry, a black comedy crime drama cooked up in the minds of Alec Berg (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Silicon Valley) and Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live,IT Chapter 1 & 2), who also plays the titular character, attempts to answer that question, as Barry’s violent machinations continue to snowball.
InBarryseason three, audiences find Hader’s Barry in a pretty dark place. He’s back on that hitman grind, his relationship is on the rocks, and worst of all, Barry’s relationship with his mentor and actor coach, Henry Winkler’s (Happy Days, Arrested Development) Gene Cousineau, is on the fritz. The first half of season three has set audiences up for a wild ride in the remaining few episodes. WillBarryfinally be the victim of his violent past, or will he be allowed to continue his acting career, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake?
Fuches' Revenge-Seeking Loved Ones
In the most recent episode ofBarryseason three, the series' most obviously villainous character, Monroe Fuches, played bybeloved character actor Stephen Root(Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Man in the High Castle), is back stateside after a brief hiatus in the Chechen steppes, armed with a Barry-focused bloodlust, and a newly assembled crew of revenge-seeking rubes.
Inspired by a Chechen folktale, Monroe Fuches has begun to assemble a posse of individuals who have lost loved ones to Barry’s assassination antics. For example, keen-eyed audience members recognized a scene in the most recent episode fromBarry’spilot, where Barry callously shoots his silenced sidearm between the eyes of an unknown businessman. As it turns out, said businessman had a loving family, and Fuches is able to convince the widowed mother and fatherless son to purchase a gun and take justice into their own hands. As season three concludes, there will undoubtedly be leagues of revenge-seeking civilians knocking on Barry’s door.
‘Generous’ Gene
As previously mentioned, the relationship between Hader’s Barry and his acting mentor,Winkler’s Gene Cousineau, is at a bit of a crossroads. This is likely because Barry murdered Gene’s girlfriend at the end of season one, and Gene found out at the end of season two – a fairly good reason for a relationship to sour.
However, it is possible that the combination of Barry’s desperate need for a father figure and Gene’s unquenchable desire for fame might bring about a tepid reconciliation between the two characters. In season three’s fourth episode,all the sauces, Winkler’s Gene Cousineau learns of a Variety article about his relationship with Barry; the article expresses that Cousineau saved the life of veteran Barry through the power of acting.
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Additionally, Barry was able to secure a role for Gene on a popular television show. Gene, filled with real-life rage, smacks Barry on camera, and though the attack was unscripted, the show creators love his ‘performance’ and ask him to return. If Gene wants to heal his sullied reputation in Hollywood,Gene may have to reconcile with Barry, despite Barry’s ultimate betrayal, in order to keep up appearances for his silver screen resurgence.
Jumping Ship on Joplin
Though Barry audiences have been treated to wanton violence and grotesque gore throughout the series' run, nothing made viewers want to shut their eyes in horror more than when Sally Reed, played by Sarah Golberg (The Dark Knight Rises, Crown Heights),gave a speech at the premiere of her semi-autobiographical television showJoplin. Golberg expertly encaptures the trappings of insecurity and anxiety, stammering her way through a trope-filled tirade before finally succumbing to emotion and revealing to the assembled audience that she recently learned ofJoplin’snear-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score.
Herein lies the problem and why audiences have cause to fear Goldberg’s Sally Reed in upcoming episodes. A positive Rotten Tomatoes score mere moments after a television premiere ultimately means next to nothing. Golberg’s Sally is bubbly now, but audiences are fickle. If, for instance,Joplintouches upon a hot-button political issue, there is no doubt that the legions of online trolls will come out in force to sling enough rotten tomatoes to fertilize a botanical garden.
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Few currently running television programs are as inspired asBarry. Season three has already cemented itself, despite a long hiatus, as worthy of its prior seasons. With the myriad storylines currently circling its cast of characters, the second half of season three is sure to deliver in a big way. Pun aside,Barryis a hit.
