{"id":145,"date":"2023-05-07T04:11:12","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T04:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=145"},"modified":"2026-08-14T03:06:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:06:46","slug":"barry-s4e5-who-is-barry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"Barry S4E5: Who Is Barry?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last week\u2019s<\/a> episode of Barry<\/em> was a tipping point for the season and series. I wrote of the darkness that surrounded all of our characters and questioned if there could be better times ahead. We saw what appeared to be a flash forward and questioned if it was real or not, and exactly how far in the future it might be. Well Barry<\/em>\u00a0S4E5, titled \u201cTricky Legacies,\u201d answered some of our questions in daring manner. If you haven\u2019t seen the episode, you\u2019ve been warned. We\u2019re entering heavy spoiler territory now.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark & Emily\u2026 plus John
<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Barry<\/em>\u00a0S4E5 takes us into the future. Yes, the flash forwards appear to be real. There will be people who don\u2019t enjoy this episode, the same way some people didn\u2019t enjoy LOST<\/em>\u2019s infamous \u201cAcross the Sea,\u201d which notoriously detoured from the main journey with just two episodes left in the series. \u201cTricky Legacies\u201d isn\u2019t a \u201cnormal\u201d Barry\u00a0episode, some might argue. It\u2019s an artistic leap that Bill Hader and company took and hopefully will be applauded for.

So what did we get from this journey into the future? The flash forwards are set eight years into the future, meaning that Barry and Sally had their child quickly after going on the run. They\u2019ve adopted new names, Clark and Emily. They appear to live in the middle of the United States, possibly in Kansas? Barry is trying really hard to be a different man but Sally is struggling to feel anything.

Barry has turned to religion, quoting the Bible and watching religious services online. Hader brilliantly displays Barry\u2019s effort to not be the man he was. You can see it in his actions. He\u2019s convincing when he speaks. He wants to be Clark. But he\u2019s a survivalist still, who believes that anything other than a bunkered down existence will lead to trouble for his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Barry
Screenshot \/ HBO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Barry doesn\u2019t want his son John to play baseball, going as far as to show him videos on YouTube of young baseball players dying from the game. It shouldn\u2019t have been as laugh out loud funny as it was, but I have to admit pausing the episode from laughter.

Barry is educating their son John at home, teaching him basic math as well as about Abe Lincoln. This thread of the story here in Barry<\/em>\u00a0S4E5 was perhaps the most important: Barry went from spotlighting all of the admirable things Lincoln did to discussing the flaws in his life and personality. Lincoln was a complex character, even if he isn\u2019t always remembered that way. The gears were turning in Barry\u2019s head.

The story of this series has always been a man trying to balance the good and bad parts of himself. To just be OK with himself. Watching Barry change course with Lincoln was an analogy for his feelings on himself and his current situation. Does he have to be full Clark? Can he still be Barry, just not kill people?

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ballad of Emily
<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sally\u2019s journey in Barry<\/em>\u00a0S4E5 was harder to watch, for me at least. Her unhappiness is on full display. She can\u2019t hide it. She\u2019s hurting. She wants to feel something\u2026anything and it doesn\u2019t matter what it might be that makes her feel. She wears a wig to the diner she works at, which she steals from and drinks at. And she also appears to be giving Xanax to her co-worker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sally
Screenshot \/ HBO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sally, in full \u201cEmily mode,\u201d learns that a man that works there is attracted to her and is telling people how he thinks of her when he masturbates. So Sally leads him on, into a bathroom, after he admits to having killed people before and other criminal activity. The man undoes his pants and Sally lures him in, only to start choking him. He rips her wig off and begs her to stop. She wasn\u2019t trying to kill him, but she was letting him know that she\u2019s more dangerous than he is. That she is someone to be feared. For her, it was about power. No, she didn\u2019t like being sexualized but she also needed to feel that rush of putting a man like that in his place. She needed to feel\u2026something. As an exclamation point, she told the owner of the restaurant that he was stealing from the register and got him fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Screenshot \/ HBO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At home, we could see how emotionally detached Sally was. She couldn\u2019t comfort her son when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. She couldn\u2019t invest in these new lives the way Barry could. She still held on to her acting dream and watched Natalie\u2019s sitcom, which was a smash hit. Sally knew the life she wanted and this wasn\u2019t even close to it.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plot Twist

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In an unexpected turn of events, we would see Gene show up at Warner Bros, asking to speak to the man in charge of the studio. He had long hair and a beard and we would learn that he\u2019s been hiding outside the country for the last eight years from Barry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Gene
Screenshot \/ HBO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTricky Legacies\u201d ends with Sally learning that Gene has resurfaced to be a consultant on a film telling the story of Barry Berkman. Barry tells her that he has to kill Gene, so we know where the story is moving from here. It is hysterical to think that Gene has been hiding overseas for 8 years from Barry, only to return to help tell Barry\u2019s story on the big screen, but that is classic Gene I suppose. His ego won\u2019t allow him to not be a part of this.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The End is Near
<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Barry<\/em>\u00a0S4E5 answered some questions but left us with many others. What has happened to Hank over the last eight years? Did Gene\u2019s son die as a result of the gunshot? Has Fuches become a prison lord? I\u2019m confident we\u2019ll get some resolution there still.

\u201cTricky Legacies\u201d will inevitably be mixed in terms of reaction. The series has never shied away from artistic chances and risks. Advancing the story eight years and totally disorienting the audience with just three episodes to follow was a risk but one that should pay off. The show was essentially telling us that the last eight years could be summed up with what we saw here. What\u2019s to come next is more important.

But what is to come? Barry says he\u2019s going to kill Gene but what does that ultimately change? Nothing really. Sally obviously can\u2019t stay in this environment. Barry seems to be questioning his Clark persona but now they have a child to think of. Are they going to hit the road as a family to kill Gene? Can they go back to any form of their old life? Will Sally ultimately leave Barry and perhaps even this son, to try and return to her acting dream? Barry<\/em>\u00a0S4E5 left us with more questions than answers. Until next time my friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s episode of Barry was a tipping point for the season and series. I wrote of the darkness that surrounded all of our characters and questioned if there could be better times ahead. We saw what appeared to be a flash forward and questioned if it was real or not, and exactly how far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[283],"tags":[290,18,17],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-recaps","tag-barry","tag-bill-hader","tag-hbo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}