Barry: wow (4x08)

I mean... "wow" seems like a pretty good word for it.

Cons:

Footage not found, honestly? This was more or less perfect television. The only shot I didn't like was the fade up on the clapping audience towards the end with Sally directing a high school production of Our Town. I think because we'd had a few very iconic, in-your-face shots leading up to it, and that one felt like it pushed over the edge for me, in openly acknowledging, I guess, the theatre of the whole thing? But that's the tiniest of nitpicks.

Pros:

Where to even begin? I think what I'll do is just run down the ultimate fates of the characters we most care about.

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.

Barry: the wizard (4x06)

I was legit terrified that kid was dead on the couch. Yikes.

Cons:

I think Jim, Janice's father, is one of the least rounded-out characters on the show. He kind of exists to be this ultimate threat, constantly hiding in the shadows. And that's... fine, I just always like it better when Barry's own actions directly lead him into danger. And I get that that's happening here, because he murdered Jim's daughter, but I still wish there was a tad more meat to his character and his motivations. A father wanting vengeance for his murdered child makes perfect sense, but what else does he have going on?

Pros:

Everything with Sally and John home alone was... pitch perfect in how insane and scary it was. First the chilling ennui of John's sadness at being left alone with his mother, and Sally's attempts at mothering quickly pivoting into drugging her child into a stupor so as to put them both out of their misery temporarily... God, it was just awful to watch. When Sally was trying to wake him up from the couch and he wasn't moving, I was super scared he was going to die of alcohol poisoning or something. Terrifying.

And then even more terrifying, we've got the figure all in black following Sally around, locking her in  her room... I love the way they shot that, because for a split second I thought the figure had slammed the door while inside the room, trapping Sally alone with the mystery person, but then instead it was locking her in. The circumstances of what exactly happened here are completely obscure to me. As John wakes up from his deep stupor on the couch, it's to hear his mother talking on the phone to Barry, leaving a message, asking him where he is. The mysterious assailant could be anything, from a crazy hallucination of Sally's, to vengeance from the guy she choked in the bathroom at the diner, to someone from Barry's past coming to haunt them... it's really not clear, and I love how messy it is. Frankly I was just relieved Sally was unable to figure out how to load a gun properly.

Barry: tricky legacies (4x05)

This show makes me wish I was smarter and better at articulation so I could explain what I think is genius about it.

Cons:

I almost wish the episode hadn't included the intrusion from the past at the end, and had instead ended with Barry and Sally and their son just... living their strange lives together. The bit at the end with Cousineau returning from hiding and ready to tell Barry's story, and Barry saying he'd have to kill him, felt like more of a plot gimmick than anything, and I think it would have been cool from a pacing perspective if like... that happened at the start of the next episode, leaving this one in this strange unfamiliar space with nothing to latch onto from the past. It's a small thing, I just thought the very ending of the episode was the weakest part.

Barry: it takes a psycho (4x04)

Well. I am sad.

Cons:

One of the things about this show that always takes me just slightly out of the moment is when Sally is "acting". Because the woman playing Sally is a good actress, absolutely. But how good am I, the viewer, meant to think that Sally, the character, is as a performer? I find it frustratingly ambiguous, and maybe that's the point, but I always get taken out of the immediacy of the scene a bit. When Sally examples the monologue to try and help Kristen, am I supposed to be impressed? Or embarrassed for her? A little of both? When it comes to the commentary on Hollywood and acting in general, the show is clearly trying to say something, but I feel like I never quite know what that thing is.

Pros:

It's a brilliant move to keep Barry out of the majority of this episode. He's escaped from prison, we don't know where he is or when he'll pop up. It's like he's a slasher villain, in a way. Super effective way to build tension through every moment in all the scenes, whether with Hank, Cousineau, or Sally. And then when he does turn up, it's to find Sally ready to drop everything and run with him. Which I both did and did not expect to be how it happened. I find it fascinating that Sally's willingness to run with Barry is completely dependent on how poorly her own life is going at the moment. She's on the cusp of opportunities, but she's being overlooked in favor of the taller, more curvy acting student Kristen who doesn't actually have her talent. Then Barry is there, and you can basically see it take over her face: fuck it. Let's go. I loved Barry's reaction, that meek little "really"? As he kind of can't believe the thing he's been wanting but which seemed so improbable, is actually happening.

Barry: you're charming (4x03)

You know you've got something special when the sight of a man dangling dead from a bunch of cords out of the ceiling can make you... laugh? This show is fucking weird.

Cons:

I feel like the part of this show I've always had the hardest part connecting with is the part that's actually about acting and the world of Hollywood. There were a lot of things I liked about Sally's scenes as a teacher. I liked that she repeated Cousineau's tactics and seemingly got a genuine reaction out of an aspiring actor, only to be told by everyone else that her behavior was abusive and unnecessary. It was a good way to subvert expectations. But at the same time, the woman she screamed at ends up sticking around, claiming Sally's method actually worked. That felt a little cheap to me. Almost a validation of the thing the scene seemed to be trying to repudiate. The whole concept of getting to some deeper, truer place in the name of acting is sort of... farcical, right? What is the show trying to do with Sally's character, with the fact that she's here, back where she started, in some sort of position of authority but ultimately with nothing to show for all her hard work? Maybe I just need to keep watching to understand more.

Pros:

The stuff with the reporter, O'Neil, was so bizarre and hilarious. I loved Gene realizing what a fucking idiot he'd been, and trying to walk it back. The scene with Gene inside O'Neil's house, talking to his wife, was one of my favorites, just the utter absurdity of him having gotten away with something so brazen as breaking this woman's window and coming inside to smash up her husband's stuff. And later, we see that after some time with Moss, O'Neil is reduced to near catatonia, mysteriously speaking only in German, a language he apparently didn't speak before. That's just the kind of absurdity that makes this show so funny and great.

Barry: yikes/bestest place on the earth (4x01/02)

We're back for the final season!

Cons:

When there's a show this good, I feel myself unequal to really talking about it or explaining the ways in which it's brilliant. If I had to delve into what isn't working for me so far in these first two episodes, the first thing I'd say is that Sally running home and then immediately coming back to LA was sort of odd. I guess I expected her to stay put with her awful mother for a bit longer. Would have been interesting to see how that played out.

I also think that Barry can go a little too hard on the meta stuff for my taste, and I know that's what the show is going for, I'm not saying it's bad, it's just... personal preference means that watching Cousineau play out his history with Barry in the form of a one man show felt a little more time-wasting than it did comedic to me personally.

Barry: starting now (3x08)

Uhhmmm. Billiam Hader can we talk? Jeezus CHRISt on a cracker.

Cons:

I think the introduction of the Albert character this season was probably the weakest point structurally. When we get to the big climax and Albert is pointing a gun at a sobbing Barry, I just kept thinking that this guy isn't someone I really feel connected to, in terms of his personal investment in Barry's fate. It's a small thing, but that's one element of the season and this episode that just doesn't click with me as strongly as everything else going on.

Pros:

Let's start with Sally. I love that I predicted something of this a couple weeks back, without knowing I was making a prediction. Sally is back, and she wants Barry to torment Natalie, the way he'd offered to do to the streaming site lady earlier. Barry tells her no, that he doesn't want her to go down that path of violence. Then, we get an intruder breaking in after Barry. He tries to choke Sally and kill her, but she manages to stab him with a knife and then beats him to death brutally with a baseball bat. The killing mostly happens in a closed sound booth so we get to see it but not hear it. When Barry wakes up from being knocked out, he grabs Sally and tells her that he did this, that it was him, that she needs to leave and pretend she was never there.

Barry: candy asses (3x07)

Well then. Just one more episode and the season is over? What is this nonsense, time is fake!

Cons:

This was probably my least favorite episode of the season? The pacing has been so frenetic and then this one really felt like a held breath, like a pause, in the midst of the chaos. While I expected that to be a good thing, it didn't quite come together for me.

Barry's only role this episode is to almost die and to hallucinate the people he's killed. I get that there were other things to focus on, but I'm not sure I learned anything new about Barry from this. He's dying, he feels guilt about the things he's done... this is not new information.

Meanwhile a lot of this episode was taken up with the investigation stuff over who killed Janice. I understand that for the purpose of propelling the plot forward, you need all of this. But Fuches telling Barry's big secret to yet another person, everyone getting rattled and angry at Barry for what he's done... there's really nothing new here, it's just turning the dial ever-so-slightly on stuff we've been watching all season. It's not that any of this is bad, it's just not quite as invigorating as I know this show can be.

Barry: 710N (3x06)

Well dang! As always, I never have any idea where an episode of this show is going to take me.

Cons:

As I've been saying all season, Fuches is definitely the character that I feel the least interested in. His stuff isn't bad, it's just never as gripping as everything else going on in a given episode. I was shocked when he got shot right at the start of this episode, but then his journey for the rest of it was just kind of boring to me. He's staying with a kind family who cares for him, at one point it looks like he's giving up on revenge on Barry, but then he decides he's not done yet, and contacts Detective Moss's father to speak about her death. So ultimately, Fuches ends this episode on the same crusade as he started it on, with very little to speak for after his detour.

We didn't see much of Noho Hank this week, which makes me sad, and time spent with the police detectives also feels like it's pulling focus from the most riveting stuff the show has to offer. Like I said, none of it's bad, it's just not where I feel the most glued to my seat.

Barry: crazytimeshitshow (3x05)

Oh my god... that kid at the end...

Cons:

We saw a brief glance of Fuches continuing on his quest to turn the families of people Barry has killed against him. Since we have the story of the mother and the son, further Fuches material in this vein seems kind of unnecessary? It's not bad, it just doesn't seem to add an awful lot.

We also see that an FBI agent has shown up to try and help solve Moss's murder. Again, I don't have a huge problem with this, but spending time with these characters is far less interesting to me than everything else that's on the table, so I was always hoping we'd switch back to one of the more pivotal characters soon.

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.

Barry: ben mendelsohn (3x03)

I mean, it's a good show, what more do you want from me?

Cons:

I'd say that Fuches is probably the main character in Barry who offers me the least when he's onscreen. The stuff between him and Barry, the whole fucked up nature of their relationship, great television for sure. Their phone call was captivating. But when it's just him talking to other minor characters, being weirdly settled in his exile, I find that my interest is less than fully held. It's a minor thing, I just think the character type is slightly less captivating than most of the other things going on.

I wouldn't call this show "subtle" necessarily, but one thing I really admire about the performances and the script is how usually the audience knows the inner turmoil of the characters, but it's in-universe believable why other characters don't pick up on certain things. One moment that didn't quite work for me on this level was when Sally's young co-star was asked about Sally's new stable relationship. Her reaction was so awkward and stilted and clearly showcased that there was something to hide. A little over the top for my taste.

Barry: limonada (3x02)

Well, gosh, this is a good television show.

Cons:

So far, the stuff with Hank and Cristobal feels very disconnected from everything going on with Barry, Sally, and Mr. Cousineau. I suppose we'll get more of a connection between these elements as we move forward. I like all the pieces we have so far, but I wish they were woven more closely together.

Pros:

To start with that subplot, I love that Cristobal and Hank's love story has many of the conventional beats of any couple trying to learn how they're going to be with each other, but this one just comes with crime bosses and lots of murder. Cristobal's father-in-law shows up to take down the Chechen operation, but Cristobal warns Hank, saving him and his people. He then breaks up with Hank, though, telling him to run to get away from the Bolivians. I'm curious to see where this will go: for now I'm delighted by the absurdist mix of comedy and drama, given that the stakes of this relationship include drugs and murder on the regular.

Barry: forgiving jeff (3x01)

Oh man, okay! I watched the first two seasons of this show a while back but this is my first experience watching an episode all caught up, so I can't rush on to see what's next. Let's talk about it!

Cons:

Barry is one of those shows where it's pretty much definitionally flawless television, so any complaints I have are in the realm of personal preference.

So there's one thing about this show, and it's that I can't stand Sally. There's the way the show wants me to think Sally sucks, and there's the way that I think Sally sucks, and the two are related but I'm not always convinced they're 100% aligned? Like when she's walking around being all busy on set and squabbling about fight choreography and dress colors, my overwhelming feeling is that of ennui, just oppressive, irritable ennui. Get over yourself, girl. I don't care. You are the worst. So while I know I'm supposed to think all these characters are the worst in some way or another, Sally is the person where when I see her on screen I wish I was watching anyone else.