But, arguably, the one that clinches the title is the one that does all of those things at once. Bill Hader’s HBO hit Barry is a hysterical comedy, a harrowing drama, a subversive action thriller, and a mind-bending psychological horror series rolled into one indescribably astounding show. Hader is firing on all cylinders as a writer, director, and producer on top of being a series lead who can make the audience laugh and cry and stunned into a silence within a single half-hour episode.
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Perhaps the most incredible thing about Barry’s success, breaking new ground in an era of television that seemed to have no new ground left to break, is that it has no right to be as great as it is. The show is difficult to recommend to friends and loved ones because the elevator pitch sounds gimmicky. Hader stars as a cold-hearted assassin from Cleveland who stumbles into an L.A. acting class, discovers a passion for performing, and decides to give up contract killing to pursue a career as an actor. On paper, that premise doesn’t sound substantial enough to sustain a sketch, let alone an entire series, but Barry has been universally praised by critics from the very beginning and it’s currently stronger than ever in the midst of its third season. So, what’s the secret?
The genius of Barry is that Hader and co-creator Alec Berg take the story and the title character seriously. The show is a much deeper psychological study than its hitman-turned-actor logline would suggest. The writers have plumbed the depths of Barry’s dark, broken, dangerously fragile soul and found surprisingly poignant parallels between contract killing and acting. Initially, Hader and Berg set up a standard arc in which a killer learns to be a better person and stops killing.
But Barry’s storytelling has completely subverted expectations by doubling down on the character’s irredeemability. The more self-aware Barry becomes, the more murderous and monstrous he becomes. His guilt manifests itself as self-loathing, but it never creates any real change – it just sends him further down the psychopathic rabbit hole. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The thing that makes Barry truly great isn’t its ability to dig deeper into its antihero’s darkness than any other show on TV; it’s Hader and Berg’s ability to get huge laughs at the same time.
In exploring both the comical and grisly sides of its premise, Barry has struck a wholly unique tone in a TV landscape full of derivative knockoffs intent on replicating the success of previous shows. Barry manages to be both shocking and hilarious at the same time in a near-impossible tonal balancing act. It has Breaking Bad-level intensity and Office-style deadpan humor, often simultaneously. The show has its cake and eats it, too. Its satire and juxtapositions are as rich as Grosse Pointe Blank, but the hitman action is still just as visceral and engaging as John Wick.
Above all, what keeps fans coming back to devour each new episode of Barry every week is that the show is totally unpredictable. In an age of storytelling that tends to play it safe to keep franchises going with sequels and spin-offs, this is a show that has no safety net or plot armor. The stakes are constantly being raised, the characters are always in grave danger, and anything is possible. Every episode could take a very dark turn at any moment. The show about a hitman who wants to be an actor was expected to be one-note and paper-thin, but the end result is anything but.
Much like a certain story about a chemistry teacher who becomes a drug lord, Hader and Berg are using a pulpy high-concept crime premise as a lens to explore the human condition. Barry deals with lofty philosophical issues and explores the morality of killing on a Shakespearean level. The show’s latest season is digging into the notion that anybody can be forgiven and whether or not that’s actually true when it comes to an odd case like Barry. This isn’t just any old TV comedy; this is a new breed of storytelling.
Barry’s third season is currently airing on Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
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