It seems like this show really found its breaking point when it decided to go all out with the weirdness in the second season. Before that, it had been mostly straightforward action show about a guy wanting to be an actor while trying to get out of his life as a hitman. Now, it's a big bombastic show with trippy dream sequences and over-the-top outbursts that just makes it so much more fun to watch. Again, it was fun before, but it has been changed into a show that's hilarious but also takes itself very serious in a none-serious way. Okay, that didn't make a lot of sense, but I know what I mean, so that's good enough. It's been able to beautifully blend the comedy and the drama through its big worldview and takes every chance that it can get to be more than what it is. I love that for a show that, at first, didn't seem like that much in compared to other shows on television. "Barry" has gone into that territory where it's slowly becoming one of the new addictive drugs on TV that we constantly want more of and are going to miss when its run ends at some point. But for now, we can still enjoy it and this episode has a lot to enjoy. It picks up straight after the previous episode and sets the stage beautifully for the upcoming finale that, while it has a lot to answer, also has an easy road because of this setup.
With this episode, it feels like the writers are doing what they can to prepare every character for what's to come. There are moments with every single main character and they all progress to a point where it feels like there's no coming back from wherever they've gone. I like that the show puts out these stakes for each individual. Granted, it's not world-ending stakes, but they're stakes that may end their lives. And it feels real. They've all gone down the rabbit hole and there's no saying whether or not they'll be able to come back out again.
Bill Hader's acting role in this episode was quite smaller than usual, which might give him some more time to focus on the direction of the episode, which was quite great. He understands the quiet basics of filmmaking yet uses the style of the show to change that formula up once in a while. And he gets character. There are so many characters in this episode alone, yet they're all wonderfully crafted into the story, making them wear their purpose on their sleeves. It's going to be tough for Barry to get through this situation, but knowing him, he probably will.
Countless attempts have been made on his life at this point, but this episode featured the most heartbreaking of them all. A poignant moment arises when a grief-stricken dad can't push himself to kill Barry, and that delivered a great reminder that not everyone is an awful human being, which is exactly what Barry needs to realize. But there's more to come, and he'll have a lot of people to look out for in the final episode, and if he's not careful, he may end up finding himself on the way to the hospital more than one more time.
It's clear that this show is building to something grand and epic. However, knowing the writers, they understand the virtue of keeping things simple and small, yet embrace the weirdness of the world, so I'm not sure that it's going to epic in the way that we think. This episode had moments where it felt like an epic, but it keeps it grounded because it gets the fact that we need to be taken by the characters and the only way to do that is if we believe them and their stories. I'm sure they'll be able to bring this home.
With "candy asses," the writers have prepared the audience for a doozey, using their time wisely to create interesting conflicts going into the big finale. It delivered on character and put everyone in situations that are beautifully crafted to bring them all down, but I'm sure that they'll find interesting ways to go forward from here.
