A disillusioned hit man wants to start a new life after following his quarry to an acting class.A disillusioned hit man wants to start a new life after following his quarry to an acting class.A disillusioned hit man wants to start a new life after following his quarry to an acting class.
- Dead Lawyer
- (uncredited)
Featured reviews
A dark, quirkily funny opening episode. The thought of an assassin first of all pondering his career choice and then considering acting is absurd. However, like much of the comedy in the episode this absurdity is wonderfully understated. It's the deadpan matter-of-factness about Barry's chosen profession and current life that make this so funny.
With this setup it is intriguing to see where this goes from here.
As for that plot, I must see further episodes to fully develop my thoughts on this one. Nevertheless, the plot of this episode is well-delivered; the decision to dump the viewer into the story with no context whatsoever creates an intrigue, and the decision to have the protagonist explain the context of his life current with a monologue occurs naturally.
Hopefully, this show delivers on its potential.
To start with, the plot kicks off well and is pretty riveting straight away. There are memorable characters, which is a classic for HBO. It's dark tone and sense of humour make it for me. The suspense also lets the episode have another layer on top of its already brilliant structure. Bill Hader did an extremely good job on this one and I hope to see it get better and better. It has a lot of potential and it could go literally anywhere.
Overall, great plot and characters 8.2/10.
The story is nothing huge, but the characters makes up for it as well as how well it manages to blend dark humor, light moments, drama and great acting! All this could feel overwhelming.. but It doesn't! It knows what It is and it works!
Bill Hader is already great as Barry! You connect with him as a man struggling with pursuing his own interests or others!
Excited for more!
Did you know
- TriviaThe acting class goes for drinks at Residuals, which is a real bar in Studio City. It takes its name from the residual payments that union actors receive when their work is broadcast on TV. These payments are sometimes quite small, so the bar allows actors to exchange any residual check of one dollar or less for a drink. There is a shot in the episode of several residual checks pinned up behind the bar.
- GoofsThe shadow box showing Barry's Marine Corps memorabilia has his rack of ribbons upside down, with the Purple Heart and Silver Star ribbons at the bottom and campaign ribbons at the top. No Marine (indeed, no one who ever served in uniform) would make this mistake.
- Quotes
Barry Berkman: You wanna know what I'm good at? I'm good at killing people. You know, when I got back from Afghanistan I, ah, was really depressed. You know, like I didn't leave my house for months, and, ah, this friend of my dad's, he's, uh he's like an uncle to me. He, uh, he helped me out and he gave me a purpose. He told me that, that what I was good at over there could be useful here and, uh, it's a job. You know. All right the money's good, and, uh, these people I take out, like they're they're bad people, you know, like they're pieces of shit. Um... But lately, you know, I've like, I'm not sleeping and, ah, that depressed feeling's back, you know. Like, like I know there's more to me than that. Maybe, I don't know, maybe there's not. Maybe this is all I'm good at.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 70th Primetime Emmy Awards (2018)
- SoundtracksChange for the World
(uncredited)
Written by Charles Bradley, Menahan Street Band, Thomas Brenneck, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, and Homer Steinweiss
Performed by Charles Bradley
(Title Theme)
Details
- Runtime
- 33m
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 16:9 HD