BARRY Season Three: Five Quick Thoughts on “limonada”
The screws tighten. After a mostly table-setting premiere episode, the tension rises ever further. Every character seems to be put to the ringer this week (with the notable exception of Fuches, who is a total no-show). Barry seems to have lost his mind completely, as he tries to force someone, anyone in town to give Gene a job in order to give him a second chance (and subsequently, the hope is, to give himself one). Gene just wants to survive the night intact.
Sally, meanwhile, has to endure an embarrassing explosion from Barry in her office that she feels the need to apologize to him for later. On top of that, her show (which she feels isn’t ready) is having its premiere date moved to later that week, which means press starts now. More on her in the next item.
Finally, the romance between Cristobal and Hank seems to be on ice for now, as the head of the Bolivian crime family (and his father-in-law? Right?) has come to Los Angeles to take care of business. Cristobal manages to get Hank and his men out of their flower shop front before the subsequent raid, but he can’t keep dodging forever. He has to say goodbye to Hank. For now.
“limonada”, then, would seem to show that BARRY hasn’t lost its touch when it comes to its core principle: stirring up the circumstances of the show as a natural extension of its characters’ choices. Good stuff!
The psychology of Sally. One of the unsaid characterizations of Sally as a human being has been her penchant for holing up with violent men. It’s been played for irony before in the second season, when many parallels could be drawn between Barry and Sam. However, this particular chicken comes home to roost this week when Barry screams at her in front of her coworkers, even pinning her against the wall. Her behavior in the aftermath is really, really precise and honest: she texts him all day before calling him and apologizing. Maybe the one sign that she can pull herself out of this mess is that it does seem to register to her that he doesn’t apologize back.
“I have too many dogs?” One of the very best examples of how cleverly structured the humor in BARRY can be is found in Gene’s excursion in the lesbian couple’s backyard. Yes, it kind of copies the “something funny going on in the background of a serious conversation” thing that they did all the way back in the second episode of the show. BUT, I mean…the way we see one big dog chase after him. Then, another. And another. Then a few smaller ones. The puppy parade continues. THEN, it’s revealed that the couple is splitting up over there being too many damn dogs? Chef’s kiss!
“You’re going to enjoy everything that comes with getting a second chance.” So Barry is just an outright villain now, eh? It’s a testament to the show and the way it gets you to track and understand Barry’s desperate, goofy logic that it doesn’t really, truly feel like it, even when he directly threatens the life of Gene’s son and grandson (with the grandson sitting right next to Barry!!). But it does seem like we’ve reached a moment of no return here, and I genuinely don’t know what the show does with it from here. We’re at a point where a second chance and forgiveness seems quite literally impossible, so I dunno how the season, or show as a whole, resolves.
On the other hand, I didn’t know how the show was going to wriggle out of Loach circling in on Barry, and that led to “ronny/lily”, sooooo stay tuned!
“The Man Show doesn’t hold up”. No. No, it does not.