Puzzling Over Barry Series Finale One Week Later (HBO)

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Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

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I'm a producer, writer of film
and television and now a podcast producer.

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And despite having every streaming service,
I never know what to watch. So

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anytime I watch something good, I
talk about it on the show. This

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way, you'll never have the same
problem I do. I watched this tonight.

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There's always something good to watch.
Let's get started. Today on the

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show, we are talking about the
series finale of Barry and kind of just

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Berry in general. This is something
that some of the listeners reached out to

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me about and I'm kind of glad
I waited a week to do it because

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the last episode of Barry was so
weird that I feel like I needed time

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to process it. Barry in general
has gotten increasingly weird and surreal, and

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I think that that's going to create
a more polarizing reaction from the audience because

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it's strange and it's not what we're
usually looking for at a TV I think

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for most people, and towards the
end particularly, it got super weird,

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and really, ever since the time
when they did this big jump forward and

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it's years later and Barry and Sally
have a child and they're sort of hiding

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out in the middle of nowhere,
and it almost is like a different show.

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And because of the extremity of what
happens, not only that point,

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but then in the last couple episodes
after that, they have to kind of

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collapse time and that forces some narrative
shortcuts. And so I want to say

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before I get into all this,
I like the last episode of Barry.

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I think it's cool. I applaud
the boldness of it, and I think

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that I watched it again actually this
morning. It's like emotionally true, but

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it's I do think it has there's
some narrative stuff that is worth unpacking.

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So I do want to be clear
that I do like it, but I

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have issues. So let's just kind
of walk through this here. Robert Wisdom's

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character, Janice Moss's dad is depicted
as like the smartest guy in the world,

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but he leaves Barry in a position
in his garage where Barry is able

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to escape really easily, which doesn't
you know, there's no magic secret of

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that. It's it is a narrative
shorthand, right, It's just a way

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of getting from point A to point
B. I don't know that it's really

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plausible or consistent with the character that
was established, so you know, take

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that forward a will And then also, and I think this is actually probably

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even the better example. In the
last couple episodes, Fuchs is determined to

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get Nojo Hank to admit that he
betrayed and killed Christo Ball, And it

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makes sense on an emotional level and
a thematic level, But why would his

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character care that much about that?
You know, I just didn't understand on

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just like a practical level. So
that's why, you know, the way

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that it plays after that big time
jump, it almost is like a really

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awesome piece of Berry fan fiction.
I think that's how it feels. It

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feels like if someone wrote a piece
of Berry fan fiction that was fantastic and

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it went viral and we all loved
it. We thought it was great,

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but it was still sort of like
a weird, what if kind of different

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thing, like its own experimental thing. If you take it on its own

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terms, I think it definitely works. But just reading the tea leaves online,

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I mean, I think I was
the only one who had sort of

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a mixed reaction. Now, one
part that I did see mixed reactions about

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which I totally loved, straight up, just absolutely adored. Is at the

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end when they do the fake movie
that was made out of inspired by what

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happened in the show, they have
Kuzano played by a British actor, which

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that was great. I just I
thought that whole thing was hilarious and I

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loved even the fake silly action in
the fake movie was still choreographed and photographed

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better than most actual movies. Barry
was always very underrated, and how well

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it choreographed action. If Bill Hayter
wanted to, he could make a great

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action movie. But also the end, the same issue is there, which

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is that you know you're watching Barry's
son wants this movie that is loosely based

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on his father's life, but we
don't really have an emotional connection with the

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son because we don't know we don't
know him, Like if his name was

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Barry's son, it would be the
same impact. Even though you know,

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they did a great job, like
I think given how late he was introduced,

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they did as good of a job
as they possibly could. But it

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speaks to the fact that this was
I mean, it's just a big high

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wire act at the end, and
there's just not enough time, right,

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There just wasn't enough time to really
establish all this in a way that has

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its foot on the ground in reality
in a really strong way. Again that

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said, I thought it was hilarious. The final note that Barry was buried

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with full military honors at Arlington,
I thought was hysterical. So the show

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is true to itself thematically emotionally.
It's a show about creating identity, and

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that's what the end is about creating
this idealized identity, even if it has

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no burying on reality, and people
wanting to do that about for their own

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identity. So all that is there. But I think it's fair to say

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I kind of can't help but think
back to where we started, and so

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it actually to prepare for this,
I went back and watched the beginning of

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the first episode, and it's all
about normality, about the mundane qualities of

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life. We see Barry kill a
guy and then sit in the middle seat

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on an uncomfortable plane ride, go
back to a messy apartment, play video

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games alone. Stephen Root is giving
him a hard time about extra day in

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the hotel room because it adds to
their expenses. His rental car sucks.

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He goes for another job, and
Noah Hank says, we need you to

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kill a guy who's sleeping with Gran's
wife at a holiday inn in Studio City.

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So again it's all just super grounded
in reality and the humor. The

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idea is about identity, the characterization. It's all drawing from how real can

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we make this supposed to where it
goes later, which is surreal. So

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I think even though the surreal stuff
is brilliantly done on a certain level,

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it's just not going to have I
think it doesn't kind of stick to your

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bones in the way that the stuff
that is very based on reality does.

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So I think that was my thing
is that Again I liked it a lot,

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but I do think it plays like
an experiment and a worry the experiment

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and an experiment that I thought was
cool, but I don't think that it

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like I don't know. I almost
wish that we could have also the alternate

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version that stayed in reality, even
if it meant it would take longer and

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you know, another two seasons of
walking that through to the ending that they

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ultimately got to. I would have
been interested to see that. It's interesting.

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I've listen to a bunch of interviews
with Bill Hater about this, and

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he talks about his writing and how
he will sometimes make a choice to skip

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a bunch of stuff because he's like, I just thought that would be boring,

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Like if I showed you so for
example, Barry escaping from and how

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does he end up? Where ends
up with Sally and all that, and

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and Bill said something, the fact
of you know, showing the escape from

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prison and logistics is that he felt
like would be sort of boring. And

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I really like that as a writing
strategy. I think it's that's actually a

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brilliant way to approach it and would
prevent a lot of you know, kind

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of weaker writing. That being said, it's almost like for me, a

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little bit too much of that towards
the end, I kind of needed more

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connected tissue, you know, somewhere
in the middle, That's what I'm saying.

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I like that it has the boldness
to skip around, but I just

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felt like I kind of needed just
a little more, like, you know,

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a middle ground. And the last
thing I want to say that I

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absolutely loved and it just shows you
that Barry sticks to sort of the courage

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of its convictions, and it's so
honest about its characters. At the end,

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we see Sally in the future and
it's like this bucolic idyllic the snow

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is falling, and she's a teacher
and she teaches theater and she finished,

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she leaves a performance, and her
son is like, all right, mom,

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like love you and instead of saying
I love you back, she says

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basically like was the show good,
and then never says I love you back.

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So she's still just like narcissistic.
She's still like not a great mom.

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It's not like she became like the
best mom in the world. So

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I just thought that was a really
interesting, kind of brutal choice that,

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you know, they could have very
easily just let her say I love you

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back to her son. They wouldn't. But again, I think that the

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show had a real courage of its
convictions throughout. And I'm very I mean,

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look, I'm very interested to see
whatever Bill does his career. I

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wur watch anything he does. It
does feel like, in a weird way,

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this end was like a little too
abrupt, but at the same time,

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maybe it's it was kind of time
for it to end. It almost

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feels like Bill, he is so
talented and he got to do like many

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movies, like he got to do
like his version of like a scene from

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Heat with the car chase in the
highway, which is amazing. He got

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to do his version of of like
a really good Blumhouse movie, that that

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bit where the guy is clad all
in, you know, like it's like

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a full costume movie covering his face
and he's following Sally around. He got

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to sort of use the show as
a vehicle to explore all these different genres

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so effectively. And yeah, I
don't know. I think it's almost like

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it you can't cage the bird for
too long, right, Like he kind

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of just needed to. I think
he needed it to end as well as

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the show you know, came to
at a certain point they had to end

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it. But all that being said, if you told me, you know,

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there was some magical way that I
could see two more seasons that played

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it out again with that more sort
of grounded in reality approach, I would

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have loved to see that. So
regardless, awesome show, as you can

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hear, I'm sort of stumbling over. It's like I feel to two different

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way at the same time about how
it ended. So I would really love

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to know what you think, especially
now having had a week to sort of

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digest it. Did it work for
you, did it not work for you?

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Did you want more? Did you
want less? You know, how

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did you feel about the end of
Barry? I would love to know.

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You can always reach me at dan
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TikTok. That is a show for
today Until next time, Bye bye.