Barry: all the sauces (3x04)

Soooo much good stuff to get into here!

Cons:

I'm not 100% clear on why Barry decided to let Mr. Cousineau off the hook here. Maybe I missed something, but so far this season I've been able to follow Barry's completely twisted and bizarre logic. He's trying to make it up to Gene for killing his girlfriend. I suppose he thinks he's succeeded now that Gene has a bigger part on the show? So why was he motivated to take the job from Hank? Because Fuches got under his skin? I'm fine with not being completely clear on every step in Barry's thought process, but I thought I'd mention that I was a little fuzzy on why he'd relax his hyper-fixation on Gene so quickly.

Pros:

Where to even start? I've mentioned that I don't really enjoy Sally as a character all that much, but mostly in a way that I think the show intends for me not to like her. This episode was the perfect encapsulation of that. Her utter delight at her success grates on my nerves, even as I try to push back against that instinctive irritation. Why shouldn't she be pleased about what she's accomplished? On the other hand, could she be nicer to the people around her while she's accomplishing it? I loved her breaking down in tears as she was speaking at the premiere, that was the perfect blend of stressful and funny and genuinely moving to watch.

And her young co-star telling her that Barry is violent, the way it opens Sally's eyes and she's able to break free of him? That was great. I'm really curious to see where this goes. Barry and Sally's relationship already seemed tenuously connected to the rest of the story-lines on the show. I want to see what Sally gets up to, and I'm also curious to see if these two are actually done with each other. I suspect not so much.

Obviously the comedy is on point the whole way through this episode, and it would be pointless to sit here and list the jokes that I liked, but suffice it to say, Barry on the help line with the bomb detonator app was truly hysterical. Perfect joke, 10/10, no notes.

This show has this very specific ability to make me laugh and also keep me on the edge of my seat. Even as I was chuckling at the customer service person offering suggestions about the Bluetooth and WiFi, I was also extremely stressed out once Cristobal went inside the house. I had my fingers crossed that he'd get out alive, but I wasn't sure if he would! That was great tension building.

I'm honestly incredibly moved by Hank and Cristobal's relationship; the brief scene of Barry handing off the injured Cristobal to Hank after the bombing was really touching. This show is so absurd, the characters are so bizarre and different and in most cases profoundly bad people, and yet there's this part of you that wants them to work everything out and be okay!

I'll leave off there for now. I truly have no idea where this season will take us next, and that's half the fun!

9/10