Barry: Chapter Five: Do Your Job

July 29, 2018 12:41 AM - Season 1, Episode 5

Barry looks to hit the reset button with Sally, but a scene from "Macbeth" triggers a reaction that pushes them farther apart; Moss moves to interrogate members of Gene's acting class after a shooting video surfaces.

“I feel like Shakespeare whiffed it on this one.”

Barry takes a darker turn in another brilliant episode.

Things get interesting when the class begins breaking down the meaning of the scene. One student suggests the scene is meant to convey Lady Macbeth’s guilt in planning murders and everyone begins to chime in about how killing leaves a stain on a person’s soul that can never be cleaned. Barry scoffs and bristles at this idea, before eventually erupting. Obviously already grappling with the morality of his hitman job and the thought of killing Taylor, Barry has an outburst about how following orders doesn’t make him a psychopath.

A guilt-ridden Barry tries to wash the blood from his hands

In “Chapter Five: Do Your Job,” Barry’s guilt over his deeds takes center stage as he reluctantly prepares to raid a Bolivian stash house with a disturbed marine named Taylor. When Barry spills the beans about Taylor’s involvement, Fuches orders Barry to kill him after the job is done because he knows too much. Over the past four episodes, Hader and Berg have methodically developed Fuches as the true villain of the series, illustrating how his manipulative tactics keep him rich and place everyone else in danger, but his conversation with Barry showcases him at his most abusive. He pushes Barry to convince himself that Taylor, a fellow Marine who isn’t a “bad guy” despite some troubling behavioral tendencies, needs to die and that sometimes you have to just shut up and do your fucking job. Obvious parallels to Lady Macbeth and Macbeth aside, their relationship resembles one of a parent and a child stuck in a detrimental co-dependent loop, but the trauma and the pain only ends up at Barry’s feet.

Barry Recap: Shakespeare’s Whiff

In the warehouse shootout nimbly captured by episode director Hiro Murai (for my money, the most exciting TV helmer currently working), Barry witnesses the savagery that would ensue if he let go of his humanity. Taylor’s got a serious fetish for violence, describing the prospect of murdering two dozen men as “a party” and running into a firefight with the gleeful battle cry of “LEEEEEEEEROY JENKINS!” Barry doesn’t want to turn into a bloodthirsty freak like him, and the thought that passivity might be all it would take to get there chills him to the bone. So when all the Bolivians have been slain and Barry’s got the muzzle of his gun against the back of Taylor’s head, the terms of his choice are clear. He can maintain his regimented lifestyle and sink deeper into turpitude, or he can invite chaos into his life in exchange for a shot at redemption.

Barry makes the right choice even though it spells near-certain doom for him, an encouraging step toward the light.

posted by the man of twists and turns (2 comments total)

They could have massaged the 20 seconds around the LEEROY JENNNNKINS a little more, but it's a good reference and this show is really hitting its stride here. I don't know what's going to happen with Fuchs the longer Taylor isn't dead.

I'm liking the hot-and-cold Sally, and the way this part illustrates how Hollywood Insanity affects the world around aspiring actors ("I'm an actor! ...and a barista.").

I can't imagine the pitch for this show, but I would totally believe it if it was Alec Berg going to Bill and said "hey man, whatever you want to do," like that one episode of Seinfeld.
posted by rhizome at 12:32 PM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

I haven't lol-ed in a while, but the "I smoke that dude for you, and that dude, and that dude... lets go check this shit out!" got a giggle out of me.
posted by porpoise at 7:08 PM on April 3, 2019