Last week, Barry Season 4 cleared up the confusion regarding whether or not we were seeing another one of Berkman’s dreams or if there had been a time jump. Well, it turned out that there had been a time jump of eight years, and in these eight years, things had gone from worse to “Oh my god, this is hell.” Barry and Sally had moved somewhere to the south of North America and were living as Clark (yes, it’s a Superman joke) and Emily. They had a son called John, who was being homeschooled and brainwashed with the help of religion (Christianity, to be specific). Since Warner Brothers had announced a biopic on Gene Cousineau and Barry Berkman, Gene came out of hiding to talk to them about it, thereby prompting Barry to pick up the gun again. While last week’s episode didn’t feature Fuches or NoHo Hank, episode 6 of Barry Season 4 is the full package.
Spoilers Alert
Gene Cousineau Doesn’t Want Warner Bros. To Make A Movie On Him And Barry?
Given how today’s episode of Barry Season 4 opens with Berkman teaching Sally how to use a gun and then using religion to convince Sally, John, and himself that he’s doing the right thing by going to kill Gene, it shows that Barry hasn’t really changed. For ages, people have used religion to “wash away their sins” and “find a direction.” And while the idea behind it is noble, you can’t actually become a new person by walking through the doors of religion, and Barry is proof of that. While Barry heads over to L.A., we see Fuches exit the jail, fully transformed from the inside out. He has evidently won over the trust of his inmates, and although it started out as a joke, Fuches has become The Raven. I just want to point out that Bill Hader said somewhere that Stephen Root is going to be sexy this season. I didn’t believe him because he had spent five episodes getting beaten to a pulp. But after seeing him with those tattoos, black fingernails, and slicked-back hair, I get it.
The first place that Fuches goes to, along with his henchmen, is nohobal. What is nohobal, you ask? Well, the name is clearly a combination of NoHo Hank and Cristobal. When Fuches enters the high-end building, we see that it’s a million-dollar company based on sand mining. So, Hank has continued Cristobal’s idea, but he’s still clearly guilt-ridden about Cristobal’s death, and, hence, he’s overcompensating via the company name and the statue of Cristobal in the lobby. By the way, since the statue doesn’t look like Cristobal from any angle, I think it’s meant to underscore the fact that any art that’s not made out of respect for its source of inspiration is going to be bad. We briefly see Barry at the airport, listening to Pastor Pat’s podcast (great alliteration joke), and slowly realizing that following the righteous values of Christianity isn’t going to allow him to kill.
Then we arrive at Gene Cousineau, who apparently doesn’t want Warner Bros. to make the biopic on him and Berkman. This came as a total surprise to me since I thought that Gene had “resurfaced” because he wanted to exploit the ordeal involving Berkman, Janice, Jim, etc. so that he could return to the limelight. However, by his own admission, Gene has become a selfless person now. He has apparently realized that he shouldn’t turn trauma and death into entertainment while he was hiding in a kibbutz in Israel. Israel?! How did Gene even get there? He was in a cabin on Big Bear Lake. Anyway, the “how” of it all probably isn’t important. What matters is that Gene claims that he has learned to look at the bigger picture instead of trying to make the picture about himself. He’s told by the Warner Bros. executive that the movie will be made with or without him, and Gene says that, in that scenario, he’s going to fight the studio legally. Before Gene and the executive can talk further about this topic, a representative of the district attorney tells him that he has to meet Buckner.
Did Someone Attack Barry’s House While Sally And John Were In There?
We briefly see Barry driving away from the Burbank Airport and switching from Pastor Pat to Pastor Carl because Pastor Carl is teaching about which kinds of sins are sinful and which kinds of sins aren’t sinful. So, there’s a very clear pivot for Barry as he looks for a way to justify his decision to kill Gene without dealing with the moral and ethical weight of it all. He doesn’t have anyone to talk to. Therefore, podcasts with traces of radicalism are what he is leaning on for support. Just to further Barry Season 4’s commentary on conservatism and gun culture, Hader shows Bill buying guns and bullets from what looks to be a department store. Semi-automatics are being sold across an aisle with stuffed toys. And although it can seem absurd to people who don’t live in North America, this is incredibly realistic. Well, at least the seller shows the repercussions of gun violence before selling the gun. If you are wondering what’s the point of the disclaimer, well, there isn’t any. Someone who is buying a gun has violence on their mind. Images of wounds aren’t going to dissuade them from murder.
Talking about the person who is in Barry’s crosshairs, Gene Cousineau sits down with Buckner to go over the details of his return. Gene blames the DA for not doing anything about Barry, thereby forcing him to go into hiding. Gene seems awfully proud of the fact that he’s taking a stand against the movie that is being made about his and Barry’s “relationship.” However, his hypocrisy is exposed when Buckner asks him about his son, whom he shot eight years ago. When Gene came out of whatever hole he was hiding in, he didn’t meet his son. He went to the Warner Bros. lot to talk about the movie. What does that tell you about what Gene prioritizes?
Coming back to Barry, we see that he has dived headfirst into radicalism now as we hear him listening to someone called Pastor Nick, who is clearly voiced by Bill Burr. And Pastor Nick essentially gives Barry the green signal to kill indiscriminately because sometimes an unhinged man has to do what an unhinged man has to do. Sally is clearly having a tough time with John, who is very distraught. What does Sally do to calm him down? She pours vodka into his juice! It’s hilarious and sad because she’s introducing alcoholism into John’s life at such an early stage, and you know that some people won’t see this as an example of bad parenting.
The narrative jumps to Fuches and Hank, and we see that Fuches has brokered a good deal with Hank after doing his bidding in prison for eight years. Fuches and his friends are housed in Hank’s best villa. In return, they’ve to protect Hank’s properties. That said, Fuches has a Barry-shaped issue on his mind because he hasn’t forgiven him for the betrayal. Hank assures Fuches that he’s handling it in a way that doesn’t attract any kind of attention from the Feds, starting with looking into the whole situation with Gene.
As for Gene, he finally goes to Leo and apologizes to him for shooting him. When Leo asks him the reason for his return, guess what Gene says? That’s right; he explicitly states that he’s back to kill the movie about Barry and himself. Leo doesn’t buy Gene’s selfless act, and I don’t think we should as well. I mean, even if he came back for the movie, he could’ve told his son that he came back for him. That would’ve been a lie, yes. But that would’ve allowed Leo to reconcile with Gene. Now, even that chance is gone.
By the way, while Gene and Leo are having this conversation, Barry prepares to make his move. However, he is stopped due to Gordon’s arrival, i.e., Leo’s son. It looks like Gordon dislikes Gene too, and the reason is pretty obvious. Gene is the man who shot Gordon’s dad. Why wouldn’t he hate him? So, while Barry waits for Gene to be alone, we see Sally either having a breakdown or her house being attacked by intruders. It’s not very clear because it does look like she’s being followed by a masked specter, and someone is ramming into the house with a truck. However, what Sally hears are the dying words of Shane Taylor, i.e., the member of the biker gang that Sally killed. That’s why I think that it isn’t an actual attack but a psychotic episode, which is a result of Gene’s return, her inability to be a good mother to John, her professional situation, everything that Barry represents, and of course, the alcohol.
Barry Finally Enters Jim’s Garage
Fuches, accidentally or intentionally, gets into an argument with Hank by reminding him that he’s responsible for Cristobal’s death, and the statue and the name of the company are just Hank’s way of hiding his guilt. This evidently infuriates Hank because nobody likes to be called out like that. So, he cancels his deal with Fuches. Now, Fuches is on his high horse because he has his own gang, he has recently entered a relationship with an age-appropriate barista, and he sees himself as a father to that barista’s daughter from a previous marriage. So, he tells Hank that he isn’t going to move out of the villa like Hank wants him to. However, the thing is that this isn’t the same Hank from eight years ago. This is a much more hardcore version of him, and it is hinted at through Anthony Carrigan’s performance. On top of that, Hank has the blessing of his Chechen superiors. Therefore, no matter how powerful Fuches thinks he has become, he won’t be a match for Hank. Well, at least that’s what I think, and Fuches can prove me wrong by breaking apart Hank’s empire and becoming the new boss of L.A.
At the end of the sixth episode of Barry Season 4, we see Berkman taking the opportunity to kill Gene as he’s all alone in his house. But before he can enter, he is kidnapped by someone. Before the kidnapper is even revealed, the backdrop of the garage behind a tied-up Barry gives away the fact that it is the one and only Jim Moss. The garage has become one of the most notorious places in the show and maybe even in all of television history. There are no torture devices or anything sinister in there because Jim Moss is the torture device. We’ve seen him break Gene into pieces. And although we didn’t see Jim work his magic on Lon O’Neil, we did see him speak only in German after his session with Jim. Now, you can say that Gene and Lon were easy targets with no experience in countering mental games, and Barry is much more adept at military tactics. The issue here, though, is that this isn’t the same Barry from his Afghanistan days. This Barry needs religious propaganda to kill an individual. He is barely holding onto his sanity. Physically speaking, he isn’t in the best shape. So, do you really think he is going to hold out against Jim Moss? There’s a good chance that Moss isn’t in the mood for mental torture, and he wants to use his fists this time. What is Barry going to do then? You know, just for kicks, I do want to see Barry repurpose Jim’s methods and cause his unraveling. That said, he’s in a tough and very interesting spot right now, and we’ll have to wait till next week’s episode to see how things go down.
