Barry: What?!
April 23, 2019 3:23 PM - Season 2, Episode 4 - Subscribe

Barry's patience is put to the test when a figure from Sally's past arrives in LA. Gene gets a pleasant surprise and encourages Barry to believe that change is possible.
posted by rhizome (11 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Textbook Gavin De Becker in this one, I almost started biting my nails again.
posted by rhizome at 3:25 PM on April 23, 2019 [1 favorite]


loved both the title screen drop and the episode title drop this week.
posted by JimBennett at 4:55 PM on April 23, 2019 [6 favorites]


Really interesting when Barry went to kill Sam and wound up pointing a gun at Sally's head with his finger on the trigger. I think a lot fell into place for him (and honestly, for me!) in that moment, which was cool. I also like that he outright said that he doesn't want to be a violent piece of shit anymore. Now that he's got a goal, maybe he can actually get there. Other people wanting to use him as a hit man nonwithstanding.

I also think it's interesting that his acting group is basically his new "squad," and Sally is his new soldier bff (sorry, I forget that character's name). Maybe just the fact that he didn't mow down the guy who hurt her, like he went into that house and murdered the man he thought was his bff's killer, shows that he's changing. Barry's so weird because he has basically no social skills at all but the dude craves community like no other.
posted by rue72 at 7:19 AM on April 24, 2019 [3 favorites]


loach’s turn made perfect sense to me. literally the only things we know about this guy are that a.) he’s obsessed over his failing/failed marriage and b.) he’s a cop. the fact that a supersedes b is a surprise but it fits everything we’ve seen from him so far (and explains why he wanted to do this whole thing alone instead of bringing his new partner into it).

moss’s death matters because at some point gene or sally is going to find out. maybe they’d be willing to forgive barry for just being a contract killer, but for murdering someone so close to them? absolutely not.
posted by JimBennett at 11:30 AM on April 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


I was shocked but not surprised at Loach's turn. The guy's super squirrely and not exactly doing things by the book.

If I wanted to get deep into apologia, Loach's handwriting is telegraphing in Dunning-Kruger hard, and when its really that bad, it's almost never confined to just one domain. To me, it's completely believable that Loach thinks he's doing the best thing possible (while also being in complete fear that he's doing the worst thing possible but the D-K keeps the former in the forefront of his mind).

Contract killing keep trying to suck Barry back in is funny in a really grim way, but still amusing.

I hope that the writers do something self conscious with Sally's story - its something that happens far too often and the 'real' story is more powerful in many ways than the 'made up' story. That Sam ticks every box for abuser behaviour (stalking, the interaction with Barry before driving off, manipulation [cafe-closed-just2seconds-making her enter the room and let the door shut behind her, etc.]) makes me think that at least a couple of the writers had gone through something similar themselves.

There's a scene gag that I found hilarious, but the greatest thing about it was the timing (right before the Loach turn) - Fuchs struggling on the ledge, Barry says that he'd come up right away, cut away, Fuchs is still struggling, cut back, and Barry's managed to get up on the balcony during those couple of seconds.

That balcony is super free-climbable. It's a security travesty.

But anyway, the timing is great because we get a Fuch's WTF moment followed by tension relieved with Barry's own WTF moment.
posted by porpoise at 5:18 PM on April 24, 2019 [5 favorites]


I did not see that coming. This show keeps me hooked. Also, Gene's "let me get my ledger" was perfect right after the whole "sure, people can change" discussion. Gene has to be Gene.
posted by jzb at 7:13 PM on April 24, 2019 [10 favorites]




porpoise: I was shocked but not surprised at Loach's turn. The guy's super squirrely and not exactly doing things by the book.

I feel like the bigger driving force is the fact that he's not great at balancing personal relationships with his work, and possibly not emotionally balanced in general, so he's latched onto the idea that his wife left him for someone else, not for other reasons.

In short, it seems like his relationships trump professional conduct. Which makes him go off-book. So I agree, in a round-about way :)


ellieBOA: Hank was meant to be killed in the pilot, and Janice may not be dead!

What?! Oh right, never believe an off-screen death.

But was she wounded and presumed dead by Barry, or did they make some arrangement? The former seems very un-like Barry, but what kind of arrangement would they make? Janice seemed so happy with Gene!

OK, I really like this show.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:10 AM on April 25, 2019


Janice may not be dead!

Yeah, no. That teaser article's a month old, and the key moment in this episode was Barry telling Fuches that there are things that he regrets "like killing Moss." She's dead.

I think what Hader's driving at there is the idea that it'll take a while for some of the characters to find out about Moss's death. That was the trigger for Loach's twist this episode; and "Barry murdered Moss" is definitely the bomb under the table in Barry's increasingly-intimate relationship with Gene.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:40 AM on April 25, 2019 [3 favorites]


> Barry's so weird because he has basically no social skills at all but the dude craves community like no other.

This is not 'weird' at all.
posted by Poldo at 6:23 AM on April 26, 2019 [7 favorites]


Barry’s conversation with Gene was perfect and I wept. Utterly cathartic.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:27 PM on December 10, 2019


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