Barry Season 4 Episode 6 Review: Looking For A Sign
When last we left Barry Berkman (Bill Hader) and Sally Reed (Sarah Goldberg) on the HBO series "Barry," they were in great distress. (When has that ever not been true?) Barry and Sally have made a meager life for themselves and their son John (Zachary Golinger) in middle America for eight years, thanks to being in the FBI Witness Protection program after Barry revealed secrets of his time with the Chechen mob to get out of jail. They've reinvented themselves as Clark and Emily, a married couple that doesn't do much aside from home-schooling John (that's Barry's job, and he is unsurprisingly not good at it), and working at a local diner (that's Sally's job, and she understandably loathes it). But Sally and Barry are both shocked to learn, via the Hollywood Reporter, that a) Warner Bros. is pursuing a biopic about Barry's life as a hitman/acting student and b) Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) has come out of hiding after having shot his son Leo (Andrew Leeds) to purportedly consult on the film.
As this week's episode, "the wizard," begins, Barry is trying to pass on knowledge to Sally this time, and about something he's arguably familiar with: how quickly to assemble a gun. "Boys instinctively know how guns and cars work," Barry says when he clarifies that the gun can't be left fully loaded, lest John fire it accidentally. (Here, we are reminded that Barry is only a good teacher at ... very specific things.)
Sally refuses to engage with this plan, pointing out that while Barry may think they can't "outrun a movie," they'll have an equally hard time outrunning Barry killing Gene. (Barry clarifies, by the way, that he's only out to kill Gene, not anyone involved with the studio. Even eight years later, Barry is not doing a great job with handling the fact that Gene may be telling his story, since to him it's "... not the truth." Hoo boy.) Barry makes things disturbingly clear: "We either do this, or we drop John off at an orphanage and then kill ourselves." It's honestly amazing how quickly this show can turn on a dime from being darkly funny — as in the line about boys knowing guns and cars — to being truly grim, in a literal minute. Things don't get much lighter as Barry bids John goodbye, with the young boy being very emotional about the prospect of his dad leaving even for 24 hours, and even with his mom at home. (It's notable here that both Sally and John allude to having to move "again," leaving open the question of how many times they've moved in the past, and why.)
The Story of My Journey
After the opening title card, we're outside a California prison, where Jason and Damian (Andre Hyland and Tobie Windham), the same two inmates who once mocked Monroe Fuches (Stephen Root) in jail — pick up ... well, they pick up Monroe Fuches. And this time, Fuches has truly managed to reinvent himself. He's now heavily tattooed, with his hair slicked back, his fingernails painted black (in well enough with the guards to wave at them in a secret fashion), and picking up a Coffee Bean barista (Carrie Gibson) after getting his coffee. And yes, he's still called The Raven, but now, the moniker seems to have stuck in the fiercest way possible. Fuches is driven to a slick business campus named NoHoBal, overseen by NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan). Although we know that NoHo Hank was cold-blooded in having his lover Cristobal (Michael Irby) offed, Cristobal's presence is a big part of the campus, from old photos to a statue in the center of the lobby. Hank looks very much the same, though he's shocked at what happened to Fuches. "My body tells the story of my journey," Fuches tells him evenly about his body art. (He also pretty much states that he's become a sadomasochist because of the torture he received in prison, which ... uh ... fun!) Hank promises that whatever work Fuches does for him will rake in plenty of cash, but Fuches has two conditions: live on Hank's best property, and bring him Barry Berkman.
Well, some good news on that front, Raven! Barry is at a local airport, listening to a religious podcast before boarding a plane to Los Angeles. (Notably, he turns off said podcast as soon as the host, Pastor Pat, notes that while ranking sins is fruitless, the worst sin is obviously murder.)
Back in California, Gene is back at his home, which has been overtaken by his agent Tom (Fred Melamed), who wants Gene to ignore all of the dolls Tom collects and has placed in the house so they can hear a pitch from Warner Bros. (During the pitch, we hear that the "article turned out great" ... does that mean the Vanity Fair piece went through? We've not heard from — nor will we in this episode — Lon Oneil directly, and have no idea if he's still ... functioning after his run-in with Jim Moss.) The idea is simple: a thriller with the killer acting student as the lead, but the elder acting teacher as the hero who overtakes the student. Though that would seem to appeal to Gene's baser instincts, there's a surprise: "You can't make this movie," Gene says firmly. After describing the eight years he spent in Israel on a kibbutz, Gene states it more cleanly, emphasizing that glorifying Barry's murders only exploits the memory of his dead girlfriend Janice. "What I'm comfortable with is this movie going away," he says. (If only Barry knew they agreed on this point.) After the WB exec points out that they can make the movie with or without Gene's help, they're interrupted — Gene's presence is demanded by the district attorney.
A sign of some kind
Outside the Burbank airport, Barry is listening to a different podcast, with a Pastor Carl talking about which sins really are sinful. But even though Pastor Carl seems to be implying that some deaths are okay — certainly the Old Testament had a few big deaths sanctioned by God — he does clarify that you can't just kill someone for crossing you. (Another podcast failing Barry's wishes for approval.) Later, we hear Barry listening to another podcast, with another pastor (this one voiced by Bill Burr) saying that killing isn't really a sin based on his own experience. As he keeps listening, Barry arrives outside of the house Gene bought for his son and hears what he needs to hear: a religious person saying that if God gives you a sign of some kind, then it's okay. Yikes.
The DA (Charles Parnell) recaps what Gene did in the last eight years, and asks why Gene never came to his office after thinking his life was in danger. It's a fair question, but he's not able to help clarify what happened to Barry, as they lost track of him eight years ago. "How'd your son take seeing you?", asks the DA, and that's a question Gene can't answer.
Back home, Sally is having a hard time getting through to John, who refuses to even draw with her. It's not that we needed a great deal of proof that Sally's maternal instincts never kicked in with John — nor any great amount of explanation as to why — but this scene does a fine job of laying it out: after heavily burning a grilled cheese sandwich that he doesn't want to eat, she adds in a liberal dose of vodka to his orange juice and gives it to him to drink. When I tell you that this subplot — since there will be more before the episode ends — was profoundly, almost physically discomfiting to watch, you can probably guess why. If nothing else, this subplot leans close enough to danger to make you wonder if John's going to die at the hands of an ill-suited parent.
At their new digs, NoHo Hank shows Fuches the view from outside at what is clearly his best property. (There are plenty of very funny "Oohs" and "Aahs" from Fuches' crew.) NoHo Hank promises to keep an eye out for Barry before noting that Gene has resurfaced, which shocks Fuches.
Gene is also resurfacing at his son's house — while Leo was shot, he's relatively fine eight years later. And of course, who should see Gene enter the house but Barry, who takes it as a sign to complete his warped mission. Fortunately for the unaware Gene and Leo — the former of whom promises to try and kill the movie, but the latter of whom doubts it — there's another sign awaiting them. When Leo's son Gordon arrives home from school a few seconds later, Barry realizes now may not be the right time to kill Gene. Whew.
Something in my eye
But let's not sigh in relief too heavily, because it's time to go back to the double-wide home with Sally and John, for a sequence that recalls nothing less of the most trauma-inducing terrors from "Requiem for a Dream." John is napping on the couch, no doubt aided by the alcohol Sally gave him unknowingly, but Sally's full in the bag herself, so she goes into her bedroom to sleep it off (lying on top of the parts of the gun Barry tried to get her to assemble earlier). And then, we hear a male voice from outside mocking her and calling her a b****. Sally rouses herself, but the voice has gone away, and there doesn't appear to be anyone outside their house.
What occurs next would ... almost certainly have to be a hallucination, but honestly, who knows: Sally is followed by a mysterious specter who slams her bedroom door shut, and then we hear the same male voice again, taunting her, noting that John doesn't seem to be waking up, and that she put something in his eye. (This voice presumably belongs to Shane Taylor, the man who Sally killed last season after she stabbed him in the eye. The actor playing Shane, Anthony Molinari, is credited this week.) And then the entire house starts shaking as a truck rams into her side of the house before leaving. (This presumably is Bevel, the ex-diner employee from last week, as the actor playing Bevel, Spenser Granese, also shows up in the end credits.) The recent news that Bill Hader has written a horror film should really come as no surprise after you watch a disturbing scene like this. He's already doing horror. Truly chilling stuff. Later that night, John awakes from his nap to see the house in disarray and Sally desperately calling Barry and leaving a frantic voicemail to get him home. (We also hear that Barry's voicemail says he'll call whoever leaves a message "Scott Back-ula", which ... is good. Funny voicemail.)
Back in Malibu, Fuches, his crew, and NoHo Hank are having a swanky dinner and celebrating their new partnership. At first, all is going well, as Fuches crows about having inherited a daughter (via his barista girlfriend), and that NoHo Hank is doing so well. But when he notes that NoHo Hank had Cristobal killed, that sours the occasion. "I didn't kill Cristobal," Hank says, which seems ... oh, only partially true, when you think about it. Fuches laughs it off when Hank says their rivals had Cristobal killed, but Hank's not any happier for it. "Why don't you accept that you're a badass and I'm giving you a f***ing compliment?" Fuches asks. Hank, in return, says the deal is over and they have to leave immediately.
The wrong kind of sign
Back at his house, Gene looks around to see if Tom is there that evening, as Barry watches from outside. And then comes that sign Barry's looking for: the door to Gene's bungalow is wide open. But not all signs are as clear as they seem — just as Barry approaches the door and starts to push it further open, someone attacks him from behind and puts a sack on his face. Who is this someone? Well, that's no mystery. Barry wakes up tied to a chair, in a garage. Jim Moss's garage. Because Jim Moss (Robert Wisdom) is staring right at him. Welp!
"The wizard" does spend some of its runtime establishing the new normal for the other remaining characters, as we saw so little of anyone aside from Barry and Sally last week, but it does so in a way that suggests a final sense of propulsion. There are now only two episodes left, and only so many more ways in which these characters can survive or kill each other, and the ratcheting tension is ... kind of getting unbearable! That's not automatically a criticism, but at the same time, there are only so many more corners Barry and the others can find themselves stuck within. While many HBO series have had it where the penultimate episode of a season features the most major plot developments, with this one, it feels an awful lot more like "Breaking Bad," in that ... well, it feels like this show's most major plot development would have to come at the very end of its final episode. (There's still the chance that this is all some warped dream Barry is having before being killed off, if only because I really don't think I can bear seeing John get hurt.) But maybe next week will surprise us all. Let's take a breather for now, huh?