Maybe he’ll reunite with Fuches in a prison cell. Barry, who has been narrowly escaping death all season, couldn’t outrun his past forever.
DOUBLE SHOT OF LOVE SEASON 3 EPISODE 11 SERIES
It’s been exhilarating to be proven wrong since then, but once again, “starting now” could double for a satisfying series finale. The first finale, down to its memorable last words, capped off a compelling character study with just enough ambiguity. When Barry’s near-perfect Season 1 finale aired, I decried its Season 2 renewal as the latest case of creators not knowing when to let a good thing rest. He still can’t do the right thing without a gun pointed at him. But as he breaks down, Barry’s driven by animalistic fear for his life and what might come next-not true remorse or a desire to actually earn forgiveness. In the opening moments of this season, Barry refused mercy (“There’s no forgiving Jeff!”) in the same spot where Albert decides to spare him. It’s a lesson that Barry still hasn’t managed to learn, apparent from his confrontation with Albert (James Hiroyuki Liao).
In contrast, his choice to help Jim seems to come from love. Cousineau embarked on a forgiveness tour of his own that, while seemingly sincere, also wasn’t entirely unselfish. Of course, Cousineau never actually forgave Barry this season, but his fearful silence became much easier to swallow after Barry’s actions led to his success.
Similarly, it’s another closeup that breaks Cousineau’s resolve when Jim interrogates him, sitting so close that we see their noses touching. But even as he embraces his lover Cristobal (Michael Irby), Hank looks haunted by the violence he’s strived to avoid enacting with his own hands. Elena’s (Krizia Bajos) death is quick, and her assistant dies offscreen. The following scene plays out in reverse when NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) hears his fellow Chechen prisoners ripped to shreds by a panther offscreen. We watch her beat him to death in silence and from a physical remove, but the distance shatters with an extreme closeup of Goldberg’s face as the horror and shock sets in. Hader keeps these moments from being gratuitous though, instead telegraphing their impact by lingering on characters’ changed faces.Īfter an excruciating near-minute of Sally being choked by one of the Episode 6 bikers, she stabs him, then beats his offscreen body in a soundproof room. Throughout the stomach-ache-inducing episode, Barry forces us to confront the aftermath of violence in uncomfortably close quarters. Much of the season’s violence has corresponded with thrilling setpieces, like Episode 6’s motorcycle chase, and morbid humor, like Barry’s customer service call in Episode 4 when he can’t get the bomb to detonate.Ĭonversely, the finale’s violence is brutal and exacting. Still, up until the finale, Barry has evaded any lasting consequences through convenient luck, his own skills, the incompetence of others, and acts of mercy. It’s a shift that co-creators Alec Berg and Hader have also bolstered through Fuches recruiting his vengeance army of Barry’s victims’ relatives (consider the insidiously cruel detail that Barry still attends the charity runs dedicated to Chris). Barry descended from a bumbling anti-hero to full-fledged villain by threatening the two people he claims to love, Cousineau and Sally. (It perhaps also helps that Barry has never been particularly bright.) After all, the most predictable alternates, prison or death, would likely hasten the show’s end. And while Barry didn’t shy away from his most ruthless acts, the murders of Janice and his Marine buddy Chris (Chris Marquette), it was also easy for us to keep rooting for Barry to get away with it. Bloodshed is simply par for the course for a show with a reluctant contract killer tangled up in the warring factions of a criminal underworld. From our perspective, his downward gaze points toward a framed photo of his daughter smiling.īy the show’s own design, Barry’s rising body count has never overpowered the accompanying dark comedy. He might have caught Barry, but that doesn’t bring Janice back or change the fact that he has to walk back into an empty home.
The gathered police dissipate, Cousineau gives a goodbye wave, and Jim is left standing alone on the grass. The episode’s final moments are silent and shot from inside the house, showing the aftermath of Barry’s arrest taking place through a window. But Hader ends the season not through the eyes of Janice’s murderer but by considering how the trauma of her death still permeates. As was perhaps always inevitable, Barry gets caught. Janice’s father Jim (Robert Wisdom) enlists Cousineau to help him set up Barry, who falls for the bait by once again equating violent acts with love. Directed by Hader, “starting now” calls back to the first finale, though we know better by now to expect that the title phrase means a fresh slate for the wannabe reformed hitman.
By Season 3’s waning seconds, Barry refocuses on Janice.
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