Barry Finally Became The Hero He Always Wanted To Be In The Series Finale
This article contains spoilers for the "Barry" finale.
"Barry" has always delved deep into the psychology of the main character, and the fourth and final season continued exploring Barry's mind even after he died in the series finale. He has always had competing desires in his double life of killing and performing. In his life as an actor, Berkman played the role of a good-hearted soldier who saw some bad things but was ultimately a good guy. He killed to maintain this facade, but when he got caught for those killings, his fake identity collapsed.
Starting a new life as a fugitive, Barry had a son and gave himself a whole new audience to stage his heroism for. He always hoped the world would see him as a stand-up guy rather than knowing the real him. The hitman might not have lived to see it, but he got exactly what he wanted — a real Hollywood ending. Berkman realized at the very beginning of the series that he is attracted to performing, to taking a sliver of truth and using it as a mask. This is what gravitated him towards the acting class of Gene Cousineau, the man who would eventually be framed for Barry's crimes.
Before Gene was inevitably imprisoned, Barry was on the run. He shielded his son from the world in fear that he might catch onto his parents' lies. The serial killer turned to his own convoluted interpretation of religion and did his best to act like a real All-American family man. "He's very much trying to paint the version of himself that he wants to be to his son," series creator and star Bill Hader explained to TV Line. "How his son sees him is how he's always wanted to be seen by everybody."
The Mask Collector paints Barry as the hero he pretended to be
Becoming an Evangelical, overbearing stay-at-home dad might have seemed like a total 180 for a murderous fugitive, but the part was actually well within Barry's wheelhouse. Being a stand-up father was just a role to Barry, who had always been drawn to acting, only this time the stakes were a little higher. "The thing that was nice about him having a kid is Barry had a chance to be the person he always wanted to be in the eyes of his son [...]" Hader told The Wrap. "This kind of upstanding American guy, which is a character he's playing. So they're still acting."
The most important thing for Barry was to maintain his hero image in his son's eyes, to be redeemed through this fabricated persona that he had created and maintained for John's benefit. Luckily for Barry, the world would help him maintain this carefully constructed lie even after his death.
Cousineau signed his own proverbial death warrant the minute he shot Barry. He was already being accused of orchestrating the murder that Barry had committed, and now it really looked like he was behind it all. With no confession to counter the accusations levied against him, Gene was villainized so hard that they got a British guy to play him in the movie — and everyone knows the most sinister and calculating villains are British!
Barry, on the other hand, was lauded as a troubled veteran and naive victim of Cousineau's manipulation. The court of public opinion (and of law) found him to be a hunk and a war hero. The misinformed Hollywood narrative lines up almost perfectly with the fantasy that Barry had created for his son. When John watched "The Mask Collector," he didn't see unjust inaccuracy — he saw his late father's bravery.
Does John know the truth about Barry?
So, how much does John know about Barry's past? At the beginning of the series finale, before the final time jump, Sally confessed to her son that his father has killed a lot of people, and not as a soldier, but as a murderer. Even though Barry is vehemently opposed to violent video games, he does defend the home with a gun in episode 5 and has clearly opened up about his past in the armed service.
It seems that Sally has tried to keep John sheltered from the truth of his father's crimes into his teenage years since he was not allowed to watch "The Mask Collector" at home and had to see it in secret. Since John readily believed the story told in the film, it would seem that Sally kept her son in the dark about the specifics of Barry's murders. It's possible that she didn't want to give him the gruesome details, or that she hadn't wanted to revisit the subject since Barry's death.
Maybe John just didn't remember that his mother had told him his father was a murderer all those years ago. Maybe he thought she was misinformed. Maybe Sally thought it would be best to maintain Barry's lie — like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Or maybe the movie was so compelling he threw everything he knew to be true about his father out the window.
Maybe he simply wanted to believe the Hollywood lie.