Barry: a nice meal (4x07)

This is one of the funnier episodes of Barry that we've gotten in a while, which is always so weird to say when you think about the literal events going on here.

Cons:

Again, I think the times in this show when they go for the obvious meta stuff, like Gene saying "Barry is a complicated and sympathetic figure" and then the undercover actor agent guy being like "but he killed people though" is kinda like... yeah, okay, I get your point. I don't know. Usually when this show barrels down the camera and says the quiet part out loud, I like it. But every once in a while I wish they'd let us get there on our own, I suppose.

I also still think Jim is the character who makes the least amount of sense to me? That's probably okay, as far as things go, but I thought I'd mention it.

Pros:

I cannot believe that next week is the finale. Holy shit, this is gonna wreck me in all the best ways. So much to talk about, I'll try and be quick!

First off, you've got Sally and John in LA, trying to get in touch with Cousineau in order to find Barry. I love that Sally has this single-minded determination. If she can just get to Barry and abdicate responsibility back to him, it will all be okay. I think the most haunting moment was John asking what they'll do next, and Sally saying they'll just keep doing what they've been doing. It was chillingly bleak, the very thought of this "family" continuing to do what it's been doing. Yikes.

Barry spends the episode first being tortured by Jim, shown images and given drugs to make him hallucinate, I think? It's a little unclear what's happening there but I don't really mind that, I like that it adds a sense of unreality to events. Eventually Jim learns about the money that Barry gave to Gene, and he goes off to set a trap to lure him in, leaving Barry unattended in his house.

Gene, as we might have guessed, doesn't stick to his guns for long about not wanting a movie to be made about Barry and him and Janice, once someone calls and claims that Daniel Day Lewis and Mark Wahlberg want to be attached to the project. Despite everything he said about not wanting to elevate Barry or dishonor Janice's memory, he can't resist the shiny allure of a successful Hollywood career, even after all this time. That's part of the tragedy of this whole show, this depressing sense that maybe people can't really change. That hint of connection between Gene and his son seems to be out the window, as it now seems that Jim, Leo, and law enforcement suspect Gene of having something to do with Barry's crimes, including Janice's death. Why else did Barry hand over $250,000 of Chechen drug money to him?

And then in the funniest but also most intense/violent section of the episode, we've got Hank vs. Fuches. Hank sends a bunch of super assassins after Fuches and his men, and receives boxes with their severed heads delivered to the office. The bit where Hank was opening the boxes had me laughing out loud at how gruesome and ridiculous it was. And then adding to the hilarity, Fuches and his men brainstorm how to make things go better for Fuches's new girlfriend and "daughter" figure, who were there to witness the horrible violence. Hank tries to blow the house up from afar, but misses, and then his driver is killed as he runs away into the hedges, with Fuches's men shooting after him.

So then of course Hank pivots. Time to help Fuches find and kill Barry, instead of trying to do away with him. How? Well, kidnap Cousineau of course. Funny thing, though. Sally, having called Cousineau earlier asking for help, was directed to go to his house. Cousineau isn't there, off being questioned by the FBI after falling for the seduction of an amazing opportunity for a movie based on his life. So when Hank's men show up, it's to find Sally and John at Gene's place.

It's just such a brilliant piece of plotting, everybody coming together for this final showdown, I guess you could say, between Hank and Barry, but with everybody else's ultimate fates also left up in the air. I wonder what Fuches is going to say when he finds out what Hank is up to. I wonder who walks out of next week's finale alive...

9.5/10