Barry

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Bipper
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Re: Barry

#51 Post by Bipper » Mon May 30, 2022 5:53 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:
Sun May 29, 2022 10:53 pm
Tonight’s episode was perfect.
I was terrified the whole episode of what would happen when Albert showed up at the dinner party and turns out I just needed to be terrified from the second Barry walked in the door - that reveal was AMAZING writing.

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cdnchris
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Re: Barry

#52 Post by cdnchris » Mon May 30, 2022 7:39 pm

Yes, it really felt like it was going in one direction only to pull the rug. I rather liked the chase sequence as well, and the beignet guy's scenes were amusing. I think Hank will regret not getting in on that.

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Re: Barry

#53 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon May 30, 2022 11:04 pm

The car chases reminded me most of both Point Break and Terminator 2, in the middle of so much new ground being broken dramatically with the addition of new characters or rather as if being magnetically pulled into this dance with death. The fact he actually sings in this episode couldn’t make that any clearer.
Last edited by flyonthewall2983 on Sun Jun 05, 2022 11:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Persona
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Re: Barry

#54 Post by Persona » Sat Jun 04, 2022 11:18 am

Caught up through the first two seasons, excited to get into S3 now.

Yes, there is a bit of formula and obviousness to what the show does, but damn if it doesn't do what it does well.

The way the show so fluidly and effectively hits its very different types of beats is a testament to the quality of the direction (specifically Hader and Murai) and editing. In that way, it reminds me of a more absurdist-leaning Breaking Bad.

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Re: Barry

#55 Post by swo17 » Mon Jun 06, 2022 4:50 pm

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Fuches' delivery to the police was amazing

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Computer Raheem
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Re: Barry

#56 Post by Computer Raheem » Mon Jun 06, 2022 7:34 pm

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I think what I've found continually interesting this season is how far the show has been willing to push us into recognizing how much Barry's influence has corrupted those around him. The parallels between Barry's lashing out at Sally in Episode 2 and her yelling at Natalie and her agent on this week's episode are somewhat obvious, but even things as minor as Cousineau's covering for Barry this episode show the damage of being around him and letting him in your life. It reinforces this idea that the season has been building with Cousineau and reinforcing with Barry and Sally's respective arcs - how one's current behavior, whether that be a strive to grow as a person or the want of forgiveness for past indiscretions, does not negate the damage that your previous actions have caused to people. The fantasy sequence this episode forces us to consider this. Characters whose deaths haven't factored into the series for entire seasons, brought back only to remind us of how our lead, who we've sympathized with for nearly three entire seasons worth of television, is little more than a destructive influence on people's lives, causing nothing but pain, trauma, and grief. Fuches' building of an army also deepens this theme - just the sheer amount of people that Barry has indirectly caused pain to sours his entire character's modus operandi. His guilt and want to grow is legitimate (and points to the writers for acknowledging that, instead of doing a more obvious but less rewarding slide into complete amorality), but that does not negate the pain and suffering he's already done.

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Re: Barry

#57 Post by swo17 » Mon Jun 06, 2022 7:37 pm

Very good points

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Persona
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Re: Barry

#58 Post by Persona » Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:03 am

Well, I caught up through S3:E6 and was writing a term paper on here about the whole series (drawing aesthetic and tonal comparisons to recent Schrader, Wes Anderson, and--uh--NAPOLEON DYNAMITE) but an internet snafu has spared you all, haha.

To quickly rehash my unpublished thoughts, S3 has been good but a bit weird for me. As Chris noted, the characters in this season are being played and presented quite differently than in the first two seasons (especially Barry, Sally, and Cousineau), and probably wisely as it feels like a smart course correction to treat Sally with more dimension and agency and Barry as more psychotic and pathetic, etc. That said, Barry feels like a very different character. Maybe the end of S2 set up this trajectory well enough but part of me feels like I am watching a pretty good S4 that is missing a S3. Even possibly just a S3:E1 that served as interstitial epilogue/prologue between the two seasons might have been enough to fill in what feels like a gap in the arc.

Regardless, there is a degree of intention to what could be perceived as flaws, e.g.
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any number of ways Albert could have been brought back into the story organically and yet it almost feels like they purposefully didn't bother doing that.
The show has always leaned absurdist and the more segregated narrative elements of this season only reinforce the feeling that BARRY is basically a serial story skit show (never more apparent than E6's weakest scene, the barely verbal discussion with the Vanessa Bayer character). But most of the skits are good and feed into each other well enough. Beignets by Mitch is such a comic strip running gag in this episode you have to accept that the show really, really is not taking itself seriously even though it occasionally allows its characters real emotion and trauma.

And the directing continues to be a saving grace. Hader has flexed his ability on that end admirably throughout the series but the climactic setpiece and pointed denouement of S3:E6 might be a new high point for him. Every beat of the chase sequence is given such interesting perspective and executed at such a high level, it has to be one of the more accomplished and unique action scenes that I have seen in television. And the end of the episode was the perfect use of punctuation.
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A little bob of Barry's phone shows a glimpse of red before the actual reveal. The show's dedication to detail pays off in giving set up and narrative congruity that would otherwise feel lacking. Rarely does something feel rushed or haphazard in the show even as it packs in so much into its half hour segments. It's a sharp contrast from the litany of TV shows that feel written and directed by roughly a hundred people who are barely on the same page outside of following the same aesthetic template from the pilot crew (and TOKYO VICE couldn't even do that much).

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Barry

#59 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jun 13, 2022 1:11 am

Strong finale
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I love how Winkler's arc this season left him: After pivoting away from his shameful moral complicity regarding Barry's threat, in cognitive dissonance toward attempts to redeem himself, Winkler is stripped from that delusional cocoon of a safe space and confronted by his dead lover's father, in a coarse intervention of whiplash to forced sobriety. Similarly, Barry is suddenly visited by a ghost from his own past, causing him to break down as well. The manner in which Barry conveys to Sally that he'll take the blame for her killing is heartbreaking too, because -as many have mentioned already in regards to Barry's behavior this season- it's a retroactive gesture that may be all that's within his power to offer, but disregards the trauma she'll live with as a result of his wreckage. The way her face is filmed in close-ups during that scene is so suffocating and fearlessly raw, that we're left impotent right with Barry watching her- an awareness of irredeemable harm imposed in the air without a solution.

The show never moves into a didactic place in presenting how Barry can only take responsibility for the 'now', because the showrunners understand that there are multiple tragedies at play: that he can't account in any meaningful or tangible way for anything else he's done, and that his involvement with others as he's walked the Earth has had irreparable consequences on those innocents. Albert's demand that things change "starting now" reinforces that truth for both Barry and Cousineau: that we can only control how we engage from this point onwards- to make ongoing 'living amends' is the only method to actually atone for the past, which is impossible in many respects.

Barry's reaction and his compulsory behavior that leads him to an arrest drives home an even sadder reality- that these changes in behavior are challenging, can feel impossible, and that self-fulfilling prophecy can sometimes create an overwhelming narrative where it becomes impossible for us to enact. Winkler was able to, while Barry was not- at least not yet- and so hope does exist, somewhere. Though it's significant that Winkler needed a 'support' to make it happen, as this is a show that understands and has sympathy for people living in isolation, even when physically surrounded by others supporting them in shallow surface-level ways. It's the deeply ingrained traumas, negative core beliefs, resentments, secrets, self-imposed alienation, etc. that makes us feel powerless to do the right thing, but with a man demanding he rise to the occasion, serving as a moral crutch, Cousineau was able to- and this mirrors exactly what Barry has lacked in receiving, and thus has been unable to give. Consequently, Sally wasn't so lucky in getting the support she needed, but what the show has outlined in an indirect manner is that she and Barry were fatalistically doomed in this respect through their absent aids.

I, for one, am excited to see Barry take this opportunity as a 'gift of desperation' and grow. Maybe he'll get support where he's going. The show will never violate its own ethos and turn him into some do-gooder entirely, but I hope it has hope for rehabilitation its in narrative plan and allots some of that to Barry. I have faith.

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Persona
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Re: Barry

#60 Post by Persona » Mon Jun 13, 2022 9:30 am

Watched episode 7 and I might have spoken too soon on the treatment of the Sally character. It seems the M.O. was to set her up in a position of power only to show her as still reactively swayed by her environmental influencers--and intensely so, to her undoing. But I guess it's even further ammunition against sympathizing with Barry at all--as noted above, this season isn't just condemning his behavior but also constantly reminding us of the consequences and collateral damage.

All well and good but Sally now feels a bit of a pawn to that intention. And the mirror moment in E7 to how Barry treated her was so underlined and highlighted, all caps, I had to remind myself that yeah, no, this show never has and never will be interested in subtlety or subtext. That's simply not how it rolls.

Mixed feelings about the finale but some really memorable moments (the Hank storyline was particularly striking). It was interesting how much the last two episodes largely abandoned the humor that has been present throughout the series. Still the absurdist touches, of course, and tragicomic aesthetic and staging... but yeah, virtually nothing to induce a chuckle or a smirk down the stretch here. BARRY really went in on the weight to finish.

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Murdoch
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Re: Barry

#61 Post by Murdoch » Mon Jun 13, 2022 6:49 pm

I've found it interesting how Sally has been received, quite a few media outlets and Sarah Goldberg herself labeling her unlikeable and morally corrupt (I'm thinking primarily of this article, but there are a few others as well).
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I think her arc is the most intriguing of the cast, a struggling actress, who is ambitious but a thorn in the side of her classmates, that finds her big break, only for the network to cancel her show and land her in the writers' room of a shitty replacement. Her past abusive relationship and her struggle to overcome that through her art have been far more interesting to me than anything with the Chechen mob.

Goldberg's talent is a big reason the character works so well. She injects a kind of exhaustion to the character, from the rather breathless way she speaks to the agitation that lingers in her interactions. The character has obviously been through a lot, well before Barry ever arrived, and his appearance in her life has only added another dimension of struggle. When she breaks up with Barry, it felt like a great moment for her character, that she wasn't going to put up with more abuse and succeed on her own. That she fails and returns to Barry is the most devastating moment of the show to me. That moment is made all the more devastating when Sally is almost choked to death and her beating her attacker to death in a blind rage.
I'm interested to see how she progresses next season. Perhaps I'm overly forgiving of her character's flaws given her past and her struggle for success, but I just have a hard time seeing the monster that others see.

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Persona
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Re: Barry

#62 Post by Persona » Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:29 am

I certainly don't think she is a monster. Like most of the characters in the show, her flaws are presented in a heightened way because the characterizations of the show are very surface and loud without quite dipping into caricature.

One of the things I think the show has struggled with is allowing Sally time to show true appreciation or deep valuing of others. We see glimpses here and there of her doing that, but unfortunately I think she comes off as the most self-centered character in the show. Whether or not that makes her unlikable then comes down to how much understanding one is willing to give the character based on her past and how so much of her behavior is about her basically fighting to empower herself.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Barry

#63 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 14, 2022 1:03 pm

Absolutely, it's also worth noting that she's a woman operating in systems governed by oppressive forces doused in patriarchal power imbalances and violence - the acting studio is headed by a narcissistic male; the TV network apparatus is certainly patriarchal despite us seeing mostly women in charge, but it's also now ruled by cutthroat algorithms; she's embedded in a world of violence - trapped in a self-destructive fatalistic cycle of emotionally and physically abusive relationships by men, despite her motivations and actions to evade them. There's a resilience, but also a behaviorist outcome that's repelling to audiences in an absolutely gendered way for how we respond to it, and stems from expressions of self-advocacy in friction with stress from these systems.

Her intense outburst in the elevator reminded me of the Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump debates, where Trump was able to aggressively attack Clinton, but when Clinton would even begin to initiate a tiny fraction of his pitch, she would come across to the masses as 'hysterical' and off-putting. I remember watching those debates and recognizing my impulsive thoughts in the moment saying "Don't do it!" and then realizing how tragic that is- that if a progressive is reactively discouraging her ability to reckon with the man in the room based on the immediate socially-ingrained connotation it would elicit, how many people out there will character assassinate her for doing exactly what he's doing. I kinda think that's what's happening here if audience members dislike her character but don't extend the same simplistic devaluing of traits to the men on the show. This also happened in Breaking Bad with audience's sympathetic ropes extended disproportionately to Skyler vs Walter White, and probably countless other examples I have no need to dig into and recite to better serve this point.

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Re: Barry

#64 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Jun 17, 2022 2:42 am

What a powerfully frightening, tragic and emotionally enormous season of television.
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I have to respect the feeling of finality towards the end, and the supposed complete revolutions in human behavior we see right until the moment Cousineau appears amongst the SWAT officers charging in.

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Persona
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Re: Barry

#65 Post by Persona » Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:03 am

Yeah, I'm pretty mystified as to what a S4 would hold, though it sounds like they intend on doing at least one more.
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Certainly there's a lot of potential for the Hank/Cristobal storyline in how it could continue. But Cousineau? I think that's probably about as good an ending as we could ask for him and anything else might feel tacked on.

Sally I feel like would need to be a storyline basically disconnected from the rest of the show, to date and in that season. Watching her try to heal in Joplin could be great but, yeah, would basically be a thing unto itself. But I would take that over them doing a cheap walk back of her returning to L.A. after like 1 episode or something.

And then as far as Barry goes, I can only imagine the government will try to use his killing ability. It's the only thing that makes sense, this facade that maybe being apprehended will be good for Barry when really nothing ever was going to be good for him, his violence will be used--it's just a matter of who's using it. Maybe Albert makes an arrangement for Barry, and it's painted as a path to redemption. Killing for his country again, killed "real bad guys" to atone for his other killings, and it just leads down a darker and darker hole. Even then, though, I don't know how much the show can get out of that without the juxtaposition between Barry and acting and Hollywood.

If it's just going to be Barry in prison or sentenced to death or whatever... yeah, seems like a dead end and not even enough substance there to carry for one season if the next one is the last.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Barry

#66 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:15 am

I've been reading some enlightening interviews with Hader regarding his intentions with the tone of the show, Barry as a character, and potential directions to go from here. He'll be directing every episode of season four, and has no idea where the show will go - it's being written fluidly without a planned endgame.

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Persona
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Re: Barry

#67 Post by Persona » Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:43 am

I read that, too. I don't feel like there are too many directions he can go with his character that make sense, just a couple decent options. I can imagine some stuff for the other characters that isn't great, hopefully the writers do better than I would, lol.

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Re: Barry

#68 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:49 am

Persona wrote:
Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:03 am
Yeah, I'm pretty mystified as to what a S4 would hold, though it sounds like they intend on doing at least one more.
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And then as far as Barry goes, I can only imagine the government will try to use his killing ability. It's the only thing that makes sense, this facade that maybe being apprehended will be good for Barry when really nothing ever was going to be good for him, his violence will be used--it's just a matter of who's using it. Maybe Albert makes an arrangement for Barry, and it's painted as a path to redemption. Killing for his country again, killed "real bad guys" to atone for his other killings, and it just leads down a darker and darker hole. Even then, though, I don't know how much the show can get out of that without the juxtaposition between Barry and acting and Hollywood.

If it's just going to be Barry in prison or sentenced to death or whatever... yeah, seems like a dead end and not even enough substance there to carry for one season if the next one is the last.
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I think Barry and Fuches break out of prison together. Barry on the run from the law so directly could really build on both the tension and the humor to no end.

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Persona
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Re: Barry

#69 Post by Persona » Fri Jun 17, 2022 12:33 pm

See, I don't know how well BARRY would work on a more conventional thriller storyline. But obviously there would be a lot of humor & action opportunities there.

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swo17
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Re: Barry

#70 Post by swo17 » Fri Jun 17, 2022 12:50 pm

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Do we think Fuches is done trying to off Barry, if they're both in prison together?

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Re: Barry

#71 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Oct 20, 2022 2:46 pm

Fourth season will be its last, according to Anthony Carrigan.

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Computer Raheem
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Re: Barry

#72 Post by Computer Raheem » Thu Oct 20, 2022 3:14 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:
Thu Oct 20, 2022 2:46 pm
Fourth season will be its last, according to Anthony Carrigan.
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Re: Barry

#73 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Oct 21, 2022 4:13 pm

Sad obviously but I am not surprised. I think four is a good enough number of seasons.

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Re: Barry

#74 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Mar 07, 2023 1:32 pm


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Re: Barry

#75 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Apr 17, 2023 8:55 pm

First two episodes are on HBOmax. Not sure if it’s just how they want to open the season or this is how the pattern for the season will be.
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I get the feeling there is some transference happening where Gene will wind up more a monster this season then Barry has all along

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