Is ‘Barry’ Redeemable? Bill Hader & Henry Winkler Ponder Ahead of Season 4
Preview
“Are human beings redeemable?” wonders Barry costar Henry Winkler. Bill Hader’s self-destructive hitman Barry Berkman certainly hopes so. Over three acidly funny seasons, the ex-Marine has been trying to give up assassinations for an acting career — and failing spectacularly. The collateral damage — and trail of dead bodies — has been stomach churning.
His hilariously pompous acting teacher and mentor Gene Cousineau (Winkler) hates his guts after Barry bumped off Gene’s lover, an LAPD detective, in order to save his own hide. His self-obsessed girlfriend Sally (Sarah Goldberg), a broken mess after her career went up in flames from self-sabotage, has abandoned him and fled to her Midwestern hometown.
(Credit: HBO)
Even flamboyantly chipper friend-in-crime NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan), of the Chechen Mafia, got caught up in Barry’s trail of destruction. He wound up imprisoned by his boyfriend’s jealous wife and had to listen to a panther devour his fellow mobsters. Yikes!
Despite Barry’s stabs at reform, his volcanic rage and instinct for self-preservation always get the best of him. A fellow vet, Albert (James Hiroyuki Liao), seemed to finally break through to the soldier who had saved his life, demanding that he stop the madness. But when Barry tried to neutralize a new threat in order to protect Gene, he got caught red-handed: Gene betrayed him to the cops.
The final season begins with Barry in prison, and that doesn’t sit well with the unhinged hitman. To be sure, our antihero has plenty of reasons to exact revenge on several targets, most notably Fuches (Stephen Root). The former handler pulled Barry into this dark line of work, then turned his back on him and schemed to get him locked up. “So help me God, if I get out of here, I’m coming for you!” Barry shouts into a jailhouse phone.
He may be motivated, but clearly he doesn’t have a lot of moves to play. “I had no idea how they were going to get out of this corner,” Winkler says. “But Barry is the supreme wiggler.”
In the end, is this wannabe good guy truly capable of change? “He thinks there’s redemption still in the cards,” Hader notes, “which usually ends up getting a lot of people killed.”
Barry, Season premiere Sunday, April 16, 10/9c and 10:30/9:30c, HBO
