Bill Hader in HBO's Barry

I thought the GTA vibe was intentional, given Barry's gaming throughout the show.

Also the machine gun the guy tried to handoff was one of the heavier weapons in GTA5

Fuchs going from shot-and-left-for-dead to perfectly fine in the course of a couple of scenes threw this whole show into a level of SoCal Magic Realism that unsettled everything else for me. It would honestly be a relief at the end of the season for Pam Ewing to wake up and realize it was all a dream. xp maybe the video game stuff means it is a dream!

bill hader aka king of the algorithm pic.twitter.com/lZjOUDQ1Jy

— Shae 🇵🇸 | BARRY S3 (@escapinglocals) May 23, 2022

The GTA vibe was enormous throughout the chase.

-The NPC mailman unable to react
-The casual change of vehicles and continuation, leaving a huge mess behind as if it wouldn't be instantly traceable to the vehicle owner in reality
-The curiously, overly long shots following Barry on the bike onto the highway as if in 3rd person perspective (AKA as if playing the game)
-The traffic not reacting to gunfire at/from the bikes weaving through
-The over the top firepower from a conveniently placed goon in said traffic that even MORE unbelievably does not react to the heavy gunfire even after (during the attempted handoff gag)
-The instantly hostile car dealer NPC that fetches his gun
-The biker girl that gets knocked over by the initial shotgun but has more HP so gets up again
-The NPCs at the dealership that scream and run a short distance away (not far enough away from someone still shooting wildly) and aren't panicking
-The same NPCs calmly strolling back into the building after the biker is shot dead on the roof just like how actual NPCs simply switch back to idle animations/pathing as if nothing happened.

<3 james hiroyuki liao in this

This show has really captured how Stephen Root can go from total buffoon to Satanic figure in the blink of an eye.

one thing i like about this season is how various people have a chance to bring barry to legal justice, but are far too wrapped up in their own violent vengeful fantasies, so he skirts away

Haha, Evan very much otm about that chase scene

Very impressive finale. I read an interview that said that Cristobal died, which I didn't realize when I watched that scene (and may not be accurate?).

I'll say something possibly daffy: I think the extreme ramped-up emotions and increased brutality of this season feels more resonant with the times. A lot has changed in the 2 years since this show was away and that's plenty of time for characters in these situations to dig deeper into instability. I'm glad a show like this and one like Atlanta (whose latest season I largely need to catch up on) can become what it wants to without worrying about the classification of remaining a comedy.

I don't think Cristobal died, but his brain was fried by his wife's electroshock conversion therapy.

This show is next to impossible to classify, and as the characters sort of spun out away from each other this season it was increasingly hard to find the through-thread of the show (although as I type that I realize that with the exception of the Hank/Cristobal plot, they all passed back into Barry's orbit here at the end). Reflecting on this finale, I would say that the main character of the show is the theme of solving problems with violence, brutality, and betrayal. And of course how doing so is a vicious cycle.

I have been dipping into some of the press that Hader has been doing this season and around the finale, and I love that he is really unsympathetic to Barry - it's a nice contrast to the Walter Whites of the world who are more at risk of getting valorized by fans.

Everybody goes, “How do you write and direct yourself?” I’m like, “He doesn’t speak.” [Laughs.] I don’t think the whole of seven I say a word. You don’t want to hear Barry talk for that long. He’s a dummy.

Also Chris L - your initial point about resonance with the times seems otm w/ how Hader sees it. This is from the same Vulture interview as the link above:

I always appreciate things that I would watch and feel, “Oh, that feels honest.” I did another interview and someone said, “Wow. This is really bleak.” I said, “Is it bleaker than anything you see on the news right now?” Living in the pandemic and where the world’s at and mass shootings and all these things — it’s all in there emotionally.

Nice, thanks for the heads-up! This season also had some of the best satire about streaming content I've seen so far; another area where they were observant.

Oh yeah, and all the meta stuff with the show we're watching adopting the algorithm advice (e.g. characters always eating breakfast) - clear enough to see but not ott

oops i mean dessert. i have inadvertently revealed when i eat donuts

Beignet oracle guy was great.

I haven't seen the finale yet so this post might be redundant but I predict next season will see Sally ask for Barry's favour she turned down (and caused their split) to be called in.

;)

lol

I probably shouldn't be, but I'm surprised at just how unhinged Sally got, like freaking out at Natalie and then casually asking Barry to fuck w her

Does anybody want the lottery numbers for next week? ;-)

The scene between Jim Moss and Gene in the garage, was that a callback to an actor's exercise in 'finding the truth in your statement' or something like that? Felt structured that way rather than an interrogation or hypnosis setup.

I thought it was kind of a dark reflection of the acting exercises in season one, the mirroring thing, but yeah it felt very theater-y.

just blasted through this season, iirc from my acting days the gene and jim in the garage scene was explicitly referencing the meisner technique

Pulling a Succession!

Exclusive! I talked to Bill Hader about why he's ending #Barry with Season 4. https://t.co/6gwlR0afog

— Kate Aurthur (@KateAurthur) March 7, 2023

While I'm all in favor of shows not being dragged out way past their expiration dates, I am bummed about the more recent trend of shows ending before it feels like they should. That said, it's definitely easier to accept when it's the creators making the decision and not just dumbfuck tax avoidance bullshit.

i totally trust Hader--feel like s. 2 was slightly better than s. 3 but watching the new trailer makes me wanna watch the whole thing over again

idk if i agree with succession, but i def think it's smart to end this one earlier than later. the premise is not built to last forever.

do i think it's a coincidence that hbo's critically-beloved but lightly-viewed series are all deciding it's time to hang up the cleats at the same time? sure.

Have loved Barry so far but S3 was a bit weaker than S1/S2 and I can easily see this show providing diminishing returns. I'm fine with it ending

Same, seems like a perfect time for it to end, looking forward to the final season though.

First two episodes were decent, but I'll be honest I'm way more looking forward to the NoHo Hank and Cristobal scenes than anything with Barry (although Fuchs trying to round up his prison gang was pretty funny).

There needs to be a NoHoHank/Cristobal spin-off.

The umpty-leven shifts in alliances and motivations in a half hour were a little OTT for me, even for this show. It was like watching Jonathan Winters or Robin Williams pull out props and hats from a box and make a one-liner, then move on to the next prop. I have to re-acclimate myself to its cartoon rhythms. Still good though.

Only watched ep1, but we were meant to think that Cristobal had died at the end of last season, right? I mean, easy enough for them to say he was only mostly dead, but is there any chance all the Hank/Cristobal stuff is an extended fantasy?

Haven't watched the new series yet but as I remembered it Elena had elctro-shocked him to a vegetative state.

this look just killed me:

https://www.looper.com/img/gallery/noho-hank-actor-anthony-carrigan-details-work-with-bill-hader-on-barry-and-a-film-icons-season-4-cameo-exclusive-interview/intro-1681491237.jpg

i watched ALL of this show and couldn't tell you what happened at the end of the last ep i watched if my life depended on it

this show is maybe a little bit too confusing/hard to follow for me

I have to re-acclimate myself to its cartoon rhythms.

OK, re-acclimation complete, this was terrific. Great cameos from GdT and Armisen.

what's so funny to me about the Gene/Gene's agent breaking into Lon's house, is Gene's agent being 100% sure that all of the hard drive info is in the monitor--maybe if it was a Mac??--but it looked like a PC, and not only that, Lon def has backups and stuff saved to the cloud, but Gene's agent is too old (I guess?) to understand this.

Amazing episode--one of the best in the past two seasons

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't know of any PCs that have hard drives in the monitor, but I could be wrong

People who complain the show forgot it's a comedy are wrong. Moss doing something to the reporter that left him delirious, speaking German, and switching snacks from Skittles to gummy bears is so absurdist.

My PC has a hard drive in the monitor.

yeah like i said. was still funny to throw a monitor in the pool

and assume that. . . that was that! all taken care of

I wonder if the single shot “next time on Barry” previews are a tribute to the hilariously empty episode previews (I think?) Mad Men that largely consisted of scenes of people going “what” or “huh” and staring

Some grim stuff in the latest episode. Kinda hoping the final scene was a fakeout that will be resolved right away in the next ep.

Despite the lack of any murders, this was possibly the grimmest episode yet.

it really was almost unbearably bleak

Barry's disappearance was eight years earlier but John seems older than that — I guess the fed-provided new life included a kid.

God damn that was indeed bleak. Wow.

Am I projecting, or did the cast start to change the way they said the show 'Laws of Humanity' to 'Loss of Humanity' instead?