The premise of HBO’s pitch-black comedy series Barry doesn’t sound like it should work. There are few TV pilots with a logline as oddball as a contract killer deciding to pursue a career in acting. But Bill Hader, Alec Berg, and their massively talented cast and crew have not only made the bizarre premise work; they’ve turned it into one of the greatest TV series ever made.
Across its two seasons, Barry has continually raised the stakes and added more depth to the title character. No other show on the air has the ability to jump between Sopranos-level tension and Simpsons-level hilarity like Barry does.
10 Barry’s Many Unsuccessful Attempts To End His Partnership With Fuches
Every couple of episodes, Fuches does something to screw Barry over and Barry tells him that their partnership is over. However, in every case, he returns to him within an episode or two.
This is likely to change in season 3 after Fuches’ betrayal and Barry’s subsequent attempt to kill him in the season 2 finale. Not only will Barry probably never work with Fuches again; he might actually murder him.
9 Gene Keeps Reminding Barry That He Got Away With Murder
When Barry tells Gene the truth about his experience at war – that he killed an unarmed civilian after mistaking him for the soldier who shot his friend – Gene is horrified and succinctly sums up the worst mistake of Barry’s life: “Basically, you killed somebody and you got away with it.”
Gene keeps reminding Barry that he got away with murder, much to Barry’s annoyance. This gag has an ironic undercurrent because Barry also got away with murdering the love of Gene’s life and, at least for a while, he had no idea.
8 The Bolivian Mafia Are Super Nice Guys
The Chechens open a huge can of worms when they hire Barry to kill their supposed rivals, the Bolivian mafia, because the hit goes horribly wrong. The Bolivians spot Barry’s accomplice Taylor coming from a mile away and instantly catch on to the Chechens’ plan.
It turns out the Bolivian mafia are actually, in NoHo Hank’s words, “like, off-the-charts nice guys.” They wanted to partner with the Chechens, but after finding out they tried to have them killed, a war is on.
7 NoHo Hank Is Jealous Of Cristobal’s Friendship With Esther
When the Chechens and the Bolivians manage to strike a deal to work together, NoHo Hank befriends the Bolivian mafia’s leader, Cristobal.
However, he becomes jealous when Cristobal partners with a Burmese gang and becomes friends with their leader, Esther. NoHo Hank even plots to have Esther killed, purely out of jealousy as she and Cristobal become closer.
6 Ronny Won’t Stay Down
This is only a running joke throughout the acclaimed season 2 episode “ronny/lily,” but since that’s arguably the greatest episode of the series, it’s still pretty memorable. After Barry’s mark Ronny turns out to be a taekwondo master, the two fight across the house until Barry manages to get Ronny down.
But he just keeps getting back up. He collapses from his broken windpipe, but then he reappears in the drugstore, wheezing. He’s shot in the face, but still manages to get back up and roundhouse Loach. Then, when other cops arrive and he’s riddled with bullets, he’s finally pronounced dead.
5 L.A. Acting Students Perform Scenes From Movies
When Barry is telling Fuches about the acting class he wants to join in the show’s premiere episode, he says, “I ended up doing a scene with him from True Romance.” Fuches replies, “True Romance is a movie,” and Barry tells him, “Yeah, it’s L.A. theater, so I guess all the scenes they do are from movies.” This set up one of the show’s funniest running jokes.
Apart from a couple of original scenes and scenes from Shakespeare, most of the scenes performed in Gene’s acting class are taken from movies. When Barry decides to tweak the truth in his own story, he steals Mel Gibson’s monologue from Braveheart.
4 Barry’s Fantasies
Every now and then, when Barry is alone, like when he’s driving, he’ll imagine a life for himself where he’s happy and far removed from the business of killing.
In one of these fantasies, he imagines being married to Sally and they’re both famous actors and Jon Hamm attends their parties (and asks Barry, “Can I take a sh*t in your house?”).
3 Gene’s Cruel Teaching Style
There’s been a lot of debate among the Barry fan base over whether or not Gene is actually a good teacher. While it’s true that his cutting style of teaching brings out better performances in his students, it’s also true that he doesn’t pull any punches.
Gene has made it very clear that his class is more about making money than inspiring artists, but he has still somehow managed to do the latter. He’s particularly cruel to Barry. When Barry asks him to critique his first performance in the pilot episode, Gene bluntly tells him, “What you did was dog sh*t.”
2 NoHo Hank’s Incompetence
NoHo Hank quickly became Barry’s breakout character. Anthony Carrigan plays the role hysterically as a bright-eyed opportunist who left chilly Chechnya behind for a cushy mafia position on the sun-drenched streets of California.
Hank becomes the leader of the Chechen gang by chance and it quickly becomes apparent to his subordinates that he’s not intelligent enough for the position. He’s an inherently positive, nonviolent guy trying to cut it as a career criminal.
1 Barry Is A Bad Actor
Ultimately, the funniest running gag in Barry is that he’s a bad actor. His performances have shown marked improvement since taking Gene’s class, but he’s gone from completely wooden delivery to the bare minimum expected of a dramatic performance.
Bill Hader’s ability to play Barry himself with so much depth and nuance, yet play Barry’s own characters hilariously unconvincingly is, ironically, a testament to his own gifts as an actor.
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