So somebody's gotta talk about Sally watching Barry adoringly while he does the Macbeth monologue in the biopic, yeah??? How Hollywood takes a woman's accomplishment and hands it to a murderous and violent man they'd rather paint as a hero? How uncomfortable it was as an audience member to watch them give Worst Actor On Earth Barry Block one of the hardest monologues in Shakespeare as if Sally would EVER be happy for someone else's success???

God Hader does such an incredible job at making me uneasy. The long fade outs. The space in each shot. The highly manufactured family image. The surrealism of the house in the middle of no where but there are enough children to play games, the graphic videos he showed his son, and then the ambient music over the credits—it all makes me feel like I’m standing on needles, can’t wait for more.

Bill Hader gave us a subtle reminder that, yes Barry can still be a comedy because he gave us “Barry Berkman was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery with full honors”. if you didn’t laugh at that idk what to tell you

EXCUSE ME this parallel?? the way they didn’t show cristobal after?? I FEEL SICK.

Gene absolutely wrecking his reputation and history spending the rest of his life in prison by killing Barry who was actually willing to turn himself in in the end.

succession should’ve ended with a time jump that shows kendall as a high school drama teacher and the tomshiv baby watching a made for tv movie about their family’s business that paints logan as a saint and tom as a genius businessman with his loving wife

Hank died when Cristobal did, it just took his body time to catch up.

this scene physically HURT

how's your week going?

You know, this is low-hanging fruit, but one of the things that was really interesting to me about the Barry finale was that in the dramatization of his story, they made a point to make him a renegade, an individual who thinks for himself and won't relinquish his autonomy. They put a tagline in his mouth that would be guaranteed to make it into any big-budget action trailer and play well with the hyper-individualist macho crowd that would watch this film from inside their bunkers--something like "I don't feel like following orders anymore"--but that is the absolute antithesis of Barry's entire being.

His whole sense of self is distorted around his need to follow orders and his desperation to not have to think for himself; when he starts to try to think for himself, it goes terribly almost every time and he digs himself deeper and deeper, making terrible decision after terrible decision until he can't come back from them anymore, if he ever could. Because he's never known how. He never learned. And that was never a problem within the trajectory of his life--in fact, it was preferable.

Barry sees himself as some kind of empty shell, and so does Fuches for a long time; it's convenient for Fuches and just a hollow truth for Barry that he doesn't give much thought. He's numb. He's tired. But you're not left with the impression that this is a new state of being for him--he's been a vessel for so long that he doesn't necessarily even feel the slide into major depression that follows his discharge. That's why he did so well in a rigid, hierarchical organization where independent thought is discouraged.

Anyway, it's just an interesting contrast. One of the most reinforced aspects of his character is his lack of self-direction and autonomy--either that he has none or that he doesn't know what to do with what little he has and so does nothing with it--but that doesn't play into the marketable fantasy that they're exploiting in-universe and satirizing IRL, and in fact it's inconceivable to the people writing the film because, to them, it makes him weak and discomfiting. They don't really know Barry; no one talked to him. It's based on hearsay and what they imagine that situation to be like. And one of the things they imagine is that of course this proud soldier would chafe against authority--that's what they would do, that's what their audience wants to believe they would do. It's what they do in these movies; it's satisfying, popular, and drives the narrative more than a drone would.

It's romanticized in the same way that the violence is glorified. He's out for himself while simultaneously upholding an incompatible social ideal, and this dissonance doesn't trouble them (for obvious reasons--namely because the rules don't apply to them, but also because they, too, lack the critical thinking skills that Barry does. They believe in rules, but for other people; they believe in consequences, but for other people--like we see Barry demonstrating when he wants to do the right thing, but he convinces himself that he should get away with horrific deeds because he's special, because he means well).

Meanwhile, the demographic it's marketed toward probably leans, ironically, more authoritarian, while unironically harboring this power fantasy that Barry stands in direct contrast to. He's reliably obedient. He doesn't question authority, for a long time. He doesn't think critically, only strategically and usually only in service of someone else's goals. And that's about the long and short of the demographic who would be really into the film. But Barry wants to believe that he's more than that--he grows to believe this, dissatisfied and trying to break free--and so does the audience.

And so Barry, who always did what he was told and wanted to be led by the hand through life for as long as he could and who was so profoundly lost for so long, is immortalized as an independent, self-actualized, decisive person overflowing with ambition and initiative--someone who forges his own path and knows what he's searching for. He's an otherwise self-reliant guy who's lost his way, not a guy forcibly ejected from his comfortable niche and struggling to be a person outside of it.

anyways this is my hope prediction for how barry ends

When you visit your serial killer ex boyfriend and he asks you why you're not leaving and you can't say it's because you need him to love you and your acting teacher says the adoration is hard to resist and you can't say it's because you know him because you've killed a man too

But he knows that and he's not ratting you out and that's almost love and you say you feel safe with him but the second it's out of your mouth you realize it's not true and your career is in the tank and you watch him mouth I love you through the glass and you wonder if adoration is enough to fix you at this point

BARRY, 2018-2023

i’m gutted but if my favorite character in any piece of media is going to die i at least want it to be as cinematic and narratively satisfying as humanly possible. barry hbo you will always be famous.

I do like Barry’s sort of casual matter of factness when it comes to his hitman experience and pointing things out, that tone of “Hey that guy is here to kill me he probably has a weapon.” while worried had the same kind of tone an upper IT manager gives pointing out an obvious server issue that popped up