The first episode of “Barry” Season 4 established where Berkman, Cousineau, Fuches, Sally, NoHo Hank, and Cristobal are, both physically and mentally. Barry and Fuches were shown to be in the same jail. Although Fuches was ready to frame Barry for all the crimes that he had committed in the past because that would have allowed him to walk out under FBI protection, he walked back on that decision after realizing that Barry wanted to bury the hatchet. On the way to her home in Joplin, Sally learned that Barry had been jailed for killing Janice Moss. And while her father showed some kind of support, Sally’s mother cold-shouldered her and aggravated her because she used the name of her abusive ex-husband, Sam, in her show. We found out that Hank and Cristobal were living “happily” in a home in Santa Fe. When Cristobal learned about the construction sand shortage in the area, he decided to turn that into an opportunity to get back to the top after their latest debacle. Hank was on board. But as soon as he learned about Barry’s imprisonment, he got distracted. Cousineau was getting ready to oscillate between his acting masterclass and testifying against Barry. However, he went back to his old ways and decided to mine all this attention he was getting.
Major Spoilers Ahead
Sally meets Barry
Episode 2 of “Barry” Season 4 opens with Berkman, his face completely distorted due to his injuries, in his cell, and thinking about his past. To be specific, he is reminiscing about the time his father introduced him to Fuches, thereby drawing a direct line from his first chapter with his handler to what’s evidently Barry’s last hurrah with Fuches. Meanwhile, Fuches goes to the FBI and cancels their deal, which requires him to rat on Barry. He cites Gale Winograde as his attorney and refuses to give away any further details about his relationship with Barry. Fuches addresses a bunch of inmates watching what seems to be “Yellowstone,” which is a weird choice because it’s a Paramount+ property and not something that Warner Bros. or HBO own. Usually, movies and shows try to casually highlight IPs that they’ve produced instead of someone else’s. So, it’s surprising to see an HBO show promoting a Paramount show. Anyway, Fuches refers to himself as The Raven, which is an alias that NoHo Hank assigned to him when he was being interrogated by the FBI. He tries to recruit the inmates into his gang because he knows that he and Barry are going to be there for a while. However, he hopes that if Winograde is as good as everyone says he is, they can restart their lives soon.
Talking about starting anew, Cristobal approaches an Asian smuggler named Bong and requests that he sit with the Guatemalans so that they can work together in the sand mining and construction businesses. The meeting is set in a Dave and Busters outlet in Torrance, where Cristobal and Hank use their relationship as an example of how enemies can set aside their differences and live harmoniously. This evidently convinces Bong and the Guatemalans, and they move on to the next phase of their meeting. That said, Hank has his mind set on freeing Barry from prison. Sally does come to meet Barry in prison to confirm if he has buried the motorcycle gang member and whether it can be traced back to her. Barry says that she’s safe. With that out of the way, Sally accuses Barry of lying. Barry says that he didn’t lie to her. He merely omitted the details that he didn’t want to include in his reality—which is a roundabout way of saying that he lied. He says that he did that because Sally made him humane. Sally tries to reciprocate this by confiding in Barry about the sense of security she feels around him. But when she sees him repeatedly saying that he wants her to know that he poses no danger to her, thereby contradicting his abusive phase with her, Sally leaves.
Barry Decides to Work With the FBI
During Hank and Cristobal’s presentation to the two gangs, who are cutely sitting with their plushies, Cristobal sticks to the script and talks about how they are going to go about the sand mining and construction businesses. But Hank goes off-script to propose the idea of jailbreaking Barry. Neither the gang nor Cristobal responds positively to this because Barry is bad news, and trying to get him out would destroy their future plans. Cristobal tries to get this through Hank’s head, but Hank seems to be adamant about getting Barry out of prison. We see the man of the hour hallucinating yet again about one of his interactions with Fuches when Barry was just a kid. However, that memory blends with Barry’s imagination, where he sees an aged version of him slow-dancing with an aged version of Sally at a wedding ceremony. Barry probably thinks that if things had played out well, he would’ve grown old with Sally and attended their children’s weddings while looking lovingly into each other’s eyes.
Sally, on the other hand, doesn’t have the privilege of daydreaming. She has to face reality, which is being labeled as the “C-girl” and losing all her prospects of working as an actress ever again. Lindsay advises her to take her chances in reality shows or podcasting because, given the buzz around her, people will want to see the “real Sally” instead of a fictional character she’s playing. Sally decides to go to Cousineau, who is telling a skewed version of the events that transpired between him and Barry, thereby painting himself as the mastermind who trapped Barry. Now, while Hank is planning to spring Barry out of prison, Fuches is planning to use legal ways to get him and Barry out of prison, and Cousineau is showing Barry in an idiotic light; Barry is playing his own game. He agrees to work with the FBI and give them all the details they need about all the gangs in Los Angeles if he can get out with a plus one.
Season 4, Episode 2: Ending Explained: Why Does NoHo Hank Want to Kill Barry?
After Cousineau is done detailing his (fake) ordeal with Barry to the Vanity Fair interviewer, Sally confronts him. He essentially rubbishes her trauma and tells her to teach acting, which is just so weird but in line with who Cousineau is. Although he’s a Boomer, he acts exactly like a terminally online Millennial or Zoomer who only knows how to use any traumatic event and turn it into a theatrical production. Cousineau knows that he’s in the spotlight, although he tells the interviewer that he doesn’t want any of it, and the more he can spill about his relationship with Barry, the more attention he’ll garner, and that’ll help him with his career. Yes, what Cousineau tells Sally is a version of what Lindsay tells her to do. It’s just that Lindsay laid it out as plainly as possible, while Cousineau makes it look like he’s giving god-tier wisdom, even though we all know what he’s peddling is absolute trash. Coming back to Barry, he has apparently exited the jail or has been moved somewhere else with his plus one. But given how Fuches finds out about it, he isn’t Barry’s plus one.
At the end of the second episode of “Barry” season 4, we see Fuches understandably feeling betrayed and calling up Hank. He tells him that Barry is hand-in-glove with the FBI and is giving up all the information he has on the gangs in LA, which includes Hank and Cristobal. Hank had his mind set on getting Barry out of jail, causing him to get into an argument with Cristobal. After learning about Barry’s treachery, he cancels his plans to get him out and decides to kill him. Yes, this moment harkens back to the first season of “Barry,” where Hank and his men were tasked with killing Barry. Since the tone of the series was lighter back then, Barry ended up working with Hank and training his men to become better assassins, which cemented Barry and Hank’s relationship. Things are much darker now, though, and I don’t think Hank is willing to treat Barry as a friend. Cristobal criticizing Hank for being too emotional is uncalled for. However, it seems that Hank has reached his limit, and we’ll find out what Hank looks like if he lets go of his humanity.
