Editor’s Note: The following are major spoilers for the series finale Barry.“Wow.” Last words of ruthless killer turned mediocre actor turned delusional father of Barry BerkmanBill Hader) V Barry were both his funniest and the forerunners of the show’s best and darkest punchline. After being shot in the chest by his former acting teacher and friend Gene Cousino (Henry Winkler) just as he was about to give up, he collapsed into a chair before looking up just in time to say the last line before getting shot in the head. Much of this echoes the season 3 conclusion, with Barry on the cusp of a potential redemption before being brutally cut short. Both have a slight hint of satisfaction, but he was still consumed by a sense of emptiness that was intentional. The almost cosmic joke was that even after all this time supposedly spent trying to figure out the best path with the repeated “start now” refrain, Barry was always just one step away from darkness.
However, this Barrya series finale that makes everything else look like just the initial preparation for this final twist. Simply and humorously titled “Wow,” the show denies any catharsis in favor of an unexpectedly comedic ending. Even on the night when there was a spectacular series finale successionin itself the end of an era, what Hader managed to accomplish with Barry turned out to be its own fitting culmination for the whole buildup. While it wasn’t always as sure as it could have been throughout the finale, as the previous season was still the show’s best, it was all worth it for this great, absolute end to the show. While the last shot of Barry and Gene is great on its own, like they’re both on stage and the audience is literally cheering, this is just the beginning of the end. The final sequence of events, devoid of almost everything we’ve known so far, pushes us off a cliff into humorous waters in which we’ve always been on the verge of drowning. Barry has always been about how we extract stories from their true emotions to create empty narratives, using the idea of ”truth” like a club until it breaks, and that was it to the fullest.
“The Barry series finale was the best show ever”
After Sally declined this deliberately disappointing final confrontation (Sarah Goldberg) managed to start a new life for himself and Barry’s son John (Jayden Martell) away from all the chaos. Years have passed and she is now a high school theater director, directing a production that finally gets her the recognition she so desperately needed. However, she remains as unsure as ever, insisting that John ask if the show was really good. When he offers her the praise she needs and then says he wants to go to a friend’s house that night, she agrees before heading home alone. She is unaware that her son is actually about to watch the movie that has finally been made about Barry, which is, to put it mildly, wildly and ridiculously inaccurate. Known as mask collectoran already ridiculous title that sounds like it could be found at the bottom of a discount cart after being sent straight to video it sees the actor Jim Cummings play Barry and fights a fake version of Gene from the movie. Played out with the most forced dialogue, it’s the complete opposite of what actually happened, and the most brilliant sequence of all.
Everything the series intended is sanded down to make a film version that is ridiculously blank. This culminates in Barry’s transformation into a martyr, where after he is depicted as being shot to death by his malevolent acting teacher, the ending text tells us that he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. It’s a ridiculous redemption that can win over an ignorant audience just looking for a blank action movie, but no one who really knew it would buy it…right? When the episode cuts back to John, he starts smiling and appears on the verge of tears before the series also goes black. This was not the true end of his father’s story, but it was he who now influenced him. It was another disgusting approximation to how, for all the ways we love to put stories on a pedestal about revealing the truth of existence, they can just as easily hide it and offer simple answers that we can fall into.
The truth for John that his father was a bad man who was unceremoniously killed right before he promised once again that he would indeed do the right thing might not be something he would have accepted. For all the talk about the authenticity of the stories, about the supposed end goal that all empty characters were aiming for, time and time again it turned out to be just talk. They would all sell the very concept of truth if it meant they could be in the spotlight. Jin, who had returned from hiding to ostensibly oppose the film, which he felt would distort history, turned around as soon as he felt his image could be of use. Barry, who constantly lied to himself and others in everything he did, eventually built an existence that was literally a fake representation in the spirit of Synecdoche, New York albeit with all life devoid of it. Sally, who we had long hoped would find some kind of salvation and truth, only got what she had after she lied on stage to everyone’s confession. No matter how many times they said that as storytellers trying to find some transcendental or existential truth, they were all just hucksters looking to feed their egos. It would be tragic if it weren’t fun to watch it all unfold at the same time. They were all hypocrites, and the show was about the journey to finally get rid of the pointless excuses they made in order to get to the more hauntingly humorous truth.
“Barry’s closing scene is the final poetic climax”
This brings us back to John and the last story we can catch a glimpse of. The fact that the film, which at first seemed boring to him, with all its many prepared lines and even more strained interpretations of what really happened, goes to the fact that he was moved by it, is the culmination of everything that happens. Barry played with. With every lie told, whether on or off stage, in the brutal hellscape that was his Los Angeles, we got closer to the darker truth that dishonesty would be tolerated more than anything. This movie, while the most dishonest and deceptive we’ve ever seen, will now be more real than who Barry really was. He got his legacy despite never earning it. All one can do is laugh at the ultimate realization that no matter how much chaos the show has gone through, Hader really did. Finding a clarity as edgy as it is comedic, he made the unforgettable action thriller the most chilling and funny ending ever. “Wow” really.
All episodes Barry available for streaming on Max.
Source: Collider
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