{"id":165,"date":"2023-05-21T04:39:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-21T04:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2026-08-14T03:03:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:03:55","slug":"barry-s4e7-endgame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=165","title":{"rendered":"Barry S4E7: Endgame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barry<\/em>\u2019s penultimate episode was one of the series finest. Hysterical yet full of drama, action and twists and turns, all of which have become hallmarks of the show. It\u2019s astonishing how much Bill Hader and team packs into 30 minutes. A tightly compacted story that is still funny in ways unlike any other show on television. I\u2019m going to miss Barry. <\/em>If you haven\u2019t seen Barry<\/em> S4E7, \u201cA Nice Meal\u201d yet, we\u2019re about to get into heavy spoiler territory here. You\u2019ve been warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Family Divided<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Barry wakes up in Barry<\/em> S4E7 tied to a chair in Jim Moss\u2019 house wearing a VR headset. I\u2019ve now officially seen everything. Kudos to Bill Hader for getting over the absurdity of the situation while at the same time getting across Barry\u2019s genuine fear of dying and not seeing his son again. I\u2019d like to point out no mentions of Sally during the VR torture scene. Make of that what you will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sally and John have flown to LA and honestly, good for her. Sally needed to snap out of her funk and take action and here in Barry<\/em> S4E7, she did. She turned to Gene for help, which is so ironic considering that her husband was on his way to kill him. I think it speaks to how alone in this world Sally truly is more than anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Gene didn\u2019t answer his door, Sally\u2019s fight or flight response was to run to a cop down the street. Which shows that on the inside, she\u2019s starting to fight again. Just the fact that she was willing to speak to a cop with all her legal baggage is an indicator that she knows she\u2019s in bad trouble and needs help. Plus, she has a child to look out for. It was equally as encouraging to see her be more proactive with John this week, unlike how hands off she\u2019s previously been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the cop wasn\u2019t a cop after all. It was a hallucination of the man she killed, lending further credibility to the theory that last\u00a0week<\/a>, the attack on her home was in her head. It should be noted that in the attack scene from last week, it was the dialogue from the scene where Sally killed the man that she was hearing. Perhaps her subconscious is guiding her through this life-or-death situation while she\u2019s battling crippling depression, all while forcing her to look at the things that have brought her some of the pain she faces today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Although Barry was able to free himself at Jim\u2019s house, Sally and John were captured by Hank\u2019s men. Hank is ready to give Fuches whatever he wants and what he wants is Barry. Hank taking Barry\u2019s family hostage sets up what should be quite the dramatic finale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Same Old Gene<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The final season\u2014more specifically the last few episodes\u2014have posed the question of whether or not Gene can change. Much like the show has shown us that Barry is not capable of change, neither is Gene. Heading into Barry<\/em> S4E7, Gene was on a crusade to have the film telling Barry\u2019s story shut down. But his ego was used against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subplot about Daniel Day Lewis\u2019 agent reaching out to Gene resulted in hilarious scenes and one of the best twists the show has had to offer. Gene\u2019s over the top instructions during the meeting in the woods warrant the viewer to pause the show so they can laugh at Gene barking out orders such as \u201cAct like you\u2019re speaking on your phone\u201d only to rush up to the man, completely dropping the act when Mark Wahlberg was mentioned as being interested in also being in the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To watch Gene tell the agent that Barry wasn\u2019t all bad and was misunderstood and sympathetic hurt. We as viewers wanted Gene to turn this corner. We wanted him to put Janice\u2019s death in front of his own selfish desires. But he didn\u2019t. The idea of two Hollywood leading men playing himself and Barry was all it took for Gene to give up his quest for justice for Janice and try to take an offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing the final scene of Gene\u2019s in\u00a0Barry<\/em>\u00a0S4E7, when he\u2019s led into what he thinks is a meeting with Mark Wahlberg, but is really being arrested for Janice\u2019s murder, was a twist I didn\u2019t see coming. The connection the DA and Jim Miss came to, believing that Gene was working with the Czech mob and had Barry kill Janice because she was onto him feels far-fetched. It almost reads like the setup to a bigger twist, like they need Gene in jail for a purpose rather than crimes they believe he\u2019s committed. Gene has done a lot of shady things, but he doesn\u2019t deserve to go down for Barry\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Fast and the Furious<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hank vs Fuches was the feud I didn\u2019t know that I needed in my life. Barry<\/em> S4E7 gave us many gifts, including heads in boxes, the best family meeting of all time and Hank flexing on Barry big time. He was talking about office supplies!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hank hiring FUBK\u2014four ultimate badass killers\u2014was funny enough. The FUBK were supposed to kill Fuches and his men and \u201ctell him NoHo Hank did this.\u201d Instead, The Raven\u2019s Flock as they\u2019re now known not only killed FUBK, they sent four boxes, one head in each, back to Hank\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What came next was perhaps my favorite scene in any television show in a long, long time. Fuches asking his new girlfriend and her adult daughter about their feelings after seeing four men decapitated. Just the sight of Fuches as this criminal leader was funny enough. Then seeing him talking to these women who he\u2019s known for days was almost too much. Toss in Fuches\u2019 men and their hilarious ideas on how to prevent these women from seeing future killings\u2026chef\u2019s kiss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The End?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gene has been arrested for Janice\u2019s murder. Sally and John are being held hostage by Hank. Fuches has beaten Hank into submission. Barry is free and is on his way to save his family, all while being hunted himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next week\u2019s finale has a lot of moving parts. It\u2019s hard to predict how it will all wind up. With Barry<\/em>being equal parts comedy and drama, you know there will be laughs but there\u2019s a lot of narrative ground to cover too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving Barry<\/em> S4E7 and heading into the series finale, I find myself thinking of Sally and John. The innocents of the show in many ways. I don\u2019t have any firm hopes for the series finale but I do hope those two wind up OK. Especially John after he finds out the truth about who his parents are. In this series about whether or not people can change, we\u2019ve mostly been given our answers. John and Sally, though, they deserve something better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barry\u2019s penultimate episode was one of the series finest. Hysterical yet full of drama, action and twists and turns, all of which have become hallmarks of the show. It\u2019s astonishing how much Bill Hader and team packs into 30 minutes. A tightly compacted story that is still funny in ways unlike any other show on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164,"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-165","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\/165","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=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}