Puzzling Over Barry Series Finale One Week Later (HBO)

Still trying to wrap your head around how Barry ended? Me too. In this series finale episode, I look back at how Barry started, back in Season 1, Episode 1, and compare it to where it went by the end, which was surreal, bold, experimental, emotionally true, thematically true, but maybe in some difficult-to-define way less satisfying? I'm of two minds about it, but glad it was risk-taking enough to inspire a lot of debate. Regardless, it's one of the best TV series of the last 10 years, in my book.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

(00:22):
I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watch something good, Italk about it on the show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started. Today on the
show, we are talking about theseries finale of Barry and kind of just

(00:44):
Berry in general. This is somethingthat some of the listeners reached out to
me about and I'm kind of gladI waited a week to do it because
the last episode of Barry was soweird that I feel like I needed time
to process it. Barry in generalhas gotten increasingly weird and surreal, and
I think that that's going to createa more polarizing reaction from the audience because

(01:04):
it's strange and it's not what we'reusually looking for at a TV I think
for most people, and towards theend particularly, it got super weird,
and really, ever since the timewhen they did this big jump forward and
it's years later and Barry and Sallyhave a child and they're sort of hiding
out in the middle of nowhere,and it almost is like a different show.

(01:26):
And because of the extremity of whathappens, not only that point,
but then in the last couple episodesafter that, they have to kind of
collapse time and that forces some narrativeshortcuts. And so I want to say
before I get into all this,I like the last episode of Barry.
I think it's cool. I applaudthe boldness of it, and I think
that I watched it again actually thismorning. It's like emotionally true, but

(01:51):
it's I do think it has there'ssome narrative stuff that is worth unpacking.
So I do want to be clearthat I do like it, but I
have issues. So let's just kindof walk through this here. Robert Wisdom's
character, Janice Moss's dad is depictedas like the smartest guy in the world,
but he leaves Barry in a positionin his garage where Barry is able

(02:12):
to escape really easily, which doesn'tyou know, there's no magic secret of
that. It's it is a narrativeshorthand, right, It's just a way
of getting from point A to pointB. I don't know that it's really
plausible or consistent with the character thatwas established, so you know, take
that forward a will And then also, and I think this is actually probably

(02:35):
even the better example. In thelast couple episodes, Fuchs is determined to
get Nojo Hank to admit that hebetrayed and killed Christo Ball, And it
makes sense on an emotional level anda thematic level, But why would his
character care that much about that?You know, I just didn't understand on
just like a practical level. Sothat's why, you know, the way

(02:57):
that it plays after that big timejump, it almost is like a really
awesome piece of Berry fan fiction.I think that's how it feels. It
feels like if someone wrote a pieceof Berry fan fiction that was fantastic and
it went viral and we all lovedit. We thought it was great,
but it was still sort of likea weird, what if kind of different

(03:17):
thing, like its own experimental thing. If you take it on its own
terms, I think it definitely works. But just reading the tea leaves online,
I mean, I think I wasthe only one who had sort of
a mixed reaction. Now, onepart that I did see mixed reactions about
which I totally loved, straight up, just absolutely adored. Is at the

(03:38):
end when they do the fake moviethat was made out of inspired by what
happened in the show, they haveKuzano played by a British actor, which
that was great. I just Ithought that whole thing was hilarious and I
loved even the fake silly action inthe fake movie was still choreographed and photographed
better than most actual movies. Barrywas always very underrated, and how well

(04:00):
it choreographed action. If Bill Hayterwanted to, he could make a great
action movie. But also the end, the same issue is there, which
is that you know you're watching Barry'sson wants this movie that is loosely based
on his father's life, but wedon't really have an emotional connection with the
son because we don't know we don'tknow him, Like if his name was
Barry's son, it would be thesame impact. Even though you know,

(04:23):
they did a great job, likeI think given how late he was introduced,
they did as good of a jobas they possibly could. But it
speaks to the fact that this wasI mean, it's just a big high
wire act at the end, andthere's just not enough time, right,
There just wasn't enough time to reallyestablish all this in a way that has
its foot on the ground in realityin a really strong way. Again that

(04:45):
said, I thought it was hilarious. The final note that Barry was buried
with full military honors at Arlington,I thought was hysterical. So the show
is true to itself thematically emotionally.It's a show about creating identity, and
that's what the end is about creatingthis idealized identity, even if it has
no burying on reality, and peoplewanting to do that about for their own

(05:08):
identity. So all that is there. But I think it's fair to say
I kind of can't help but thinkback to where we started, and so
it actually to prepare for this,I went back and watched the beginning of
the first episode, and it's allabout normality, about the mundane qualities of
life. We see Barry kill aguy and then sit in the middle seat

(05:28):
on an uncomfortable plane ride, goback to a messy apartment, play video
games alone. Stephen Root is givinghim a hard time about extra day in
the hotel room because it adds totheir expenses. His rental car sucks.
He goes for another job, andNoah Hank says, we need you to
kill a guy who's sleeping with Gran'swife at a holiday inn in Studio City.
So again it's all just super groundedin reality and the humor. The

(05:53):
idea is about identity, the characterization. It's all drawing from how real can
we make this supposed to where itgoes later, which is surreal. So
I think even though the surreal stuffis brilliantly done on a certain level,
it's just not going to have Ithink it doesn't kind of stick to your
bones in the way that the stuffthat is very based on reality does.

(06:15):
So I think that was my thingis that Again I liked it a lot,
but I do think it plays likean experiment and a worry the experiment
and an experiment that I thought wascool, but I don't think that it
like I don't know. I almostwish that we could have also the alternate
version that stayed in reality, evenif it meant it would take longer and

(06:38):
you know, another two seasons ofwalking that through to the ending that they
ultimately got to. I would havebeen interested to see that. It's interesting.
I've listen to a bunch of interviewswith Bill Hater about this, and
he talks about his writing and howhe will sometimes make a choice to skip
a bunch of stuff because he's like, I just thought that would be boring,
Like if I showed you so forexample, Barry escaping from and how

(07:00):
does he end up? Where endsup with Sally and all that, and
and Bill said something, the factof you know, showing the escape from
prison and logistics is that he feltlike would be sort of boring. And
I really like that as a writingstrategy. I think it's that's actually a
brilliant way to approach it and wouldprevent a lot of you know, kind
of weaker writing. That being said, it's almost like for me, a

(07:24):
little bit too much of that towardsthe end, I kind of needed more
connected tissue, you know, somewherein the middle, That's what I'm saying.
I like that it has the boldnessto skip around, but I just
felt like I kind of needed justa little more, like, you know,
a middle ground. And the lastthing I want to say that I
absolutely loved and it just shows youthat Barry sticks to sort of the courage

(07:46):
of its convictions, and it's sohonest about its characters. At the end,
we see Sally in the future andit's like this bucolic idyllic the snow
is falling, and she's a teacherand she teaches theater and she finished,
she leaves a performance, and herson is like, all right, mom,
like love you and instead of sayingI love you back, she says

(08:07):
basically like was the show good,and then never says I love you back.
So she's still just like narcissistic.She's still like not a great mom.
It's not like she became like thebest mom in the world. So
I just thought that was a reallyinteresting, kind of brutal choice that,
you know, they could have veryeasily just let her say I love you
back to her son. They wouldn't. But again, I think that the

(08:28):
show had a real courage of itsconvictions throughout. And I'm very I mean,
look, I'm very interested to seewhatever Bill does his career. I
wur watch anything he does. Itdoes feel like, in a weird way,
this end was like a little tooabrupt, but at the same time,
maybe it's it was kind of timefor it to end. It almost

(08:48):
feels like Bill, he is sotalented and he got to do like many
movies, like he got to dolike his version of like a scene from
Heat with the car chase in thehighway, which is amazing. He got
to do his version of of likea really good Blumhouse movie, that that
bit where the guy is clad allin, you know, like it's like

(09:11):
a full costume movie covering his faceand he's following Sally around. He got
to sort of use the show asa vehicle to explore all these different genres
so effectively. And yeah, Idon't know. I think it's almost like
it you can't cage the bird fortoo long, right, Like he kind
of just needed to. I thinkhe needed it to end as well as

(09:33):
the show you know, came toat a certain point they had to end
it. But all that being said, if you told me, you know,
there was some magical way that Icould see two more seasons that played
it out again with that more sortof grounded in reality approach, I would
have loved to see that. Soregardless, awesome show, as you can

(09:56):
hear, I'm sort of stumbling over. It's like I feel to two different
way at the same time about howit ended. So I would really love
to know what you think, especiallynow having had a week to sort of
digest it. Did it work foryou, did it not work for you?
Did you want more? Did youwant less? You know, how
did you feel about the end ofBarry? I would love to know.
You can always reach me at danad voyagemedia dot com. Watch this Tonight

(10:18):
on Instagram, better moore down onTwitter, and watch this Tonight podcast on
TikTok. That is a show fortoday Until next time, Bye bye.