HBO's Barry: The Worst Thing Each Character Has Ever Done
Season 3 of HBO's Barry is finally back, and it's darker than ever. Indeed, whether they're assassins, mobsters, or struggling actors, the characters in Barry have done a lot of irreconcilable things in order to achieve their goals. The series, written, directed, and starring Bill Hader, follows a hitman balancing contract killing with becoming an actor, all the while wondering if he can change his stripes.
But Barry isn't the only person diving into their id and trying to locate their authentic selves; Chechen gangsters, self-involved actors, and even Barry's acting coach are all examining their true nature and pondering if there's something more to their lives than what they're comfortable with. Unfortunately, finding themselves means screwing each other over in the process.
Barry was able to reconcile being a hitman with the fact that he believed his marks were people who deserved to die. Eventually, however, this line of reasoning became more difficult as he found himself forced to pull the trigger on people who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time — like Detective Janice Moss.
Whereas Barry had already given Chris the opportunity to make a choice that didn't result in a grim fate, Janice was a different story; she had to do her job tracking down Barry, and he was forced to remove her once she became a threat to his idyllic life with Sally. What's worse? Not only did he kill one of Barry's best characters, but he also ruined Gene's life by murdering the woman he loved.
Despite claiming to have Barry's best interests in mind, Barry's mentor Monroe Fuches wasn't above kidnapping his acting teacher when the hitman tried to end their partnership. This, after Fuches had already agreed to work with the police to entrap Barry after he tried to leave contract killing the first time.
Using Gene, an innocent man and father figure to Barry, just to hurt his protégé, proved not only that Fuches was capable of extreme moral deviance, but that he didn't really care about Barry. If he couldn't have him, no one could.
Not believing that Barry, the "Michael Jordan of assassins" would actually be able to take out Ryan Madison, NoHo Hank tried to perform the hit himself and then neutralize Barry in the process. For all of Hank's reputation for being a nice guy, Barry found out just how ruthless the Chechen lieutenant could be.
Even after Barry shot him in the shoulder, Hank tried to kill Barry again while he was at his girlfriend's apartment, which nearly got him shot a second time. Despite this, Hank continues to see Barry as a friend and Barry continues to tolerate Hank's strange friendship.
Sally's brand of encouragement tends to be a death by a thousand cuts, with her back-handed compliments and cutting jabs providing an unhelpful undercurrent for her self-absorbed personality. Sally has been the victim of abuse, however, and her retaliation to it has been to reclaim power anywhere she can, even if that means being passive-aggressive.
But when she manipulates Barry's emotions during their personal acting scene project, at one point trying to get the entire acting class against Barry when he inevitably erupts from her antagonizing, the cracks in her facade begin to show.
A mostly washed-up actor who has resorted to running an acting class as a means of making a living in between disappointing auditions, Gene Cousineau's life isn't exactly enviable. But no one could accuse him of being disloyal to his dreams. Unfortunately, he pursued them at the expense of his family.
Gene may be a likable Barry character, but he has a tumultuous relationship with his son because he neglected him in order to pursue an acting career, a point which haunts him right up until the moment that he and his son get a second chance to bond. Much of the tragedy in Cousineau's character comes from embodying the best and worst of his craft and providing a commentary on the nature of acting as a profession.
Often the only person who doggedly pursued the connection between Gene Cousineau's acting class and Barry Berkman, her most convincing suspect in the murder of Ryan Madison, Detective Janice Moss was a meticulous and thorough police officer.
Her one blunder was mixing business with pleasure, and creating a conflict of interest by becoming romantically involved with Mr. Cousineau. This led to her becoming much too close to Barry and his ties to LA's criminal underworld, ultimately resulting in her death.
Just when it seemed like Cristobal and NoHo Hank were about to go 50/50 on their LA territories, Cristobal decided to partner with the Burmese mafia. This gesture not only alienated Hank but necessitated Barry's involvement as well, as Hank's disillusionment with the Burmese angle resulted in him wanting its leader taken out.
Esther and Cristobal joining forces meant that Hank's time was up as the de facto leader of the Chechen mob. When he was forced to involve Barry, this meant Cristobal not only lost a lot of skilled fighters at the monastery showdown but also hurt Hank's feelings.
While Barry should never have involved Taylor in his contracts, there was no doubt that when it came to brute strength and efficiency, Taylor was an invaluable asset. His "shoot now, ask questions later" approach proved vital during the stash house shoot-out, but mismatched when it came to assassinating Cristobal Sifuentes, a Bolivian crime lord with connections to major international drug cartels.
Had Taylor listened to Barry and gone for a more subtle approach, he might have lived to enjoy his new hot tub, but because he had poor impulse control, he was forced to become a casualty of war (and his own stupidity).
Barry's old Marine friend should have never gotten involved with his wet work, but the former logistics officer couldn't resist the allure of Barry's exciting life of contract killing. Chris thought he would be intimidating some local drug dealers into cooperating with the Chechen mob and then go home to his family, never realizing that things might take a violent turn.
When he was forced to shoot someone in order to save Barry's life, he realized how much that sort of violence was unnatural for someone still in touch with their humanity. Ultimately, he couldn't live with what he'd done and was going to turn himself in to the police, forcing Barry to have to remove him as a connection.
Had Goran not decided to get greedy about the LA territories and enlist Barry to claim a stash house from the Bolivian mob, he might not have subsequently found himself in Barry's crosshairs after the job went south. Forced to place the blame on someone, Goran chose to kidnap Barry's mentor Monroe Fuches for inspiring him to go after Cristobal Sifuentes in the first place, ultimately sealing his own fate.
The Chechen mobster's avarice not only caused him to jeopardize any future relations he had with the Bolivians, but it also forced him to kidnap and torture Fuches, who unfortunately for Goran could rely on Barry to save the day.
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