Bill Hader breaks down Barry's intense season finale
When he started writing the third season of #Barry, Bill Hader knew where the story would start and where it would end https://t.co/czz10FqlxG
- Vulture (@vulture) June 13, 2022
• Barry ended its stressful third season on Sunday night. Series star and co-creator Bill Hader spoke to multiple outlets about the wild finale and where the show goes from here.
• When speaking to Vulture, Hader said that he knew from the moment he started writing the third season, it would end with [Spoiler (click to open)] Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) assisting in Barry's arrest. “First day of writing season three on the whiteboard, I wrote down, ‘Cousineau knows, Barry knows Cousineau knows and throws him in the trunk of a car, and that’s in episode one. Sally’s going to have her own show and at some point it’s going to go away. Cristobal and Hank are a couple. Fuches is going to start a vengeance army. And then last episode, Cousineau catches Barry and Barry goes to jail.' That was always where we were headed as we were writing. During that time, you have to be open enough to go, 'Oh, we might get there and say, forget it.' But every step of the way, this just made more sense.".
[vulture interview. tw: discussions of violence]
• Says that the writers never considered killing Barry, but that he needed to get caught. "He’s not Jason Bourne or Walter White. He’s not a genius. He’s a very dumb guy. And it made sense, the idea of Gene Cousineau wanting justice for Janice and then getting it by the end, but he has to go through a transformation himself to get it."
• Barry being given a second chance by Albert (James Hiroyuki Liao) and planning to run away with Sally, only to turn to violence once Gene calls was meant to parallel the way Fuches spurned two chances at paradise for revenge earlier this season.
• The interviewer brings it back around to the season long arc about forgiveness needing to be earned. Cousineau's journey of forgiveness up to this point was selfish, but his final look to Barry was, "Cousineau getting final forgiveness in an episode that is incredibly dire and very rough. It was important to end it on a moment of someone having a real emotional, spiritual win. And that’s Cousineau."
• The final shot of the season was going to be Barry being thrown into a cop car, but once they found the house for Jim Moss (Robert Ray Wisdom), they decided to end the season on Moss's figure lingering outside the house. Hader says, "As a show, people go, 'Oh, it’s a comedy.' It’s a comedy because it’s 30 minutes. Everybody’s trying to put it in this thing. I just view it as a story. The show, and this season very much, was about trauma and victims of trauma. In a lot of these stories, Janice Moss would’ve been killed and then you’re on to something else. It’s like, 'No, the woman who died at the end of season one, that permeates and destroys. It hurts this guy. It affects a lot of people.' And it doesn’t just go away. That was always an interesting notion I had with the show. What Alec Berg and I talk about a lot is that everything has consequences, and if you’ve had somebody you love die, it doesn’t just go away."
• Says it was important that he didn't want the scene where Sally (Sarah Goldberg) is choked by a member of Traci Taylor's motocross gang to feel like an action scene, but wanted the audience to feel the lack of respect for human life and Sally's refusal to give up. Hader and Sarah Goldberg both agreed that Sally should kill the guy, and the fact that she does it in a sound proof booth is meant to signify a part of her being silenced by murdering somebody.
• Talks about the choice to leaning away from comedy for the last two episodes. Said the writers felt like they were forcing things to be funny and it was undercutting the show. "When you’re doing a show about a murderer and dealing with domestic violence and trauma and PTSD and conversion therapy of a gay man, you can’t really be that funny at times. If you’re going to portray it honestly, the comedy comes from other moments, like in life. Flannery O’Connor is a perfect example. Her work can be incredibly funny and incredibly grotesque. It feels like the human experience."
• Says that a friend at Saturday Night Live told him that watching this season has felt like he was, "trying to make the whole world feel as anxious as you are.”
[the wrap interview]
We go long with Bill Hader on that dark #Barry finale and what's next in Season 4. https://t.co/PkteVrbcWe
- TheWrap (@TheWrap) June 13, 2022
• Hader tells The Wrap that he originally wanted to open the episode with an empty beach and Sally laying across the rock and looking into the camera until her eyes glow like a panther, but then he saw Midnight Mass and decided against it.
• The writers finished scripts for season 4 and revised aspects of season 3 due to the pandemic, but Hader won't say what specifically changed because it's vital to season 4's set up. Does say that Sally and NoHo Hank are now murderers and have "Barry's disease" and that their characters will be different in season 4 because of that.
• The interviewer points out that the scene where Sally is attacked is a heartbreaking contrast to the scene in episode one where stunt coordinators act out her abuse on the set of Joplin.
• They talk about NoHo Hank and the panther scene. Hader says that never showing the panther increased the fear but also added an "ethereal" element to it. Said that it wasn't necessary to see the panther or anything on the other side of the wall, and that Anthony Carrigan understood that it wasn't going to play out like an "Rambo" or another action movie. Hader also praises Carrigan because he wasn't hearing anything when they were shooting that scene besides Hader's directions.
• Says that he gave himself a panic attack when shooting the scene with Albert and Barry by the tree. Barry's breakdown proved that he's just a scared boy and not Jason Bourne. He also adds that the cycle of everything started with Albert. "The first time he killed somebody out of anger was the guy he thought killed Albert, and that guy was innocent, and now in Barry’s mind, it ends with Albert. This makes sense. I think when he drops to his knees, he’s thinking, oh right, of course. This is what has to happen. And I tried to stage it where they look the same, almost, like Barry’s in the same position as the Afghani guy in Season 2. Then Albert forgives him, which is what he wanted all season. He gets forgiven."
[variety interview]
Bill Hader Unpacks the Shocking Season Finale of ‘Barry’ and Giving the Characters Forgiveness https://t.co/DGHR1AzucK
- Variety (@Variety) June 13, 2022
• Hader says that Fuches succeeded in weaponizing Albert, like he's weaponized the loved ones of Barry's other victims this season. Says that Barry really only cares about Barry and that this is the first time he's ever truly been put in a position where he feels like he's going to die.
• Says there was never any version of the story where Sally and Barry stay together or run off together. She went to Barry at the beginning of the episode because she wanted him to harass Natalie, but Barry thinks he's her rock.
• Says that Cristobal and Hank are in love and have a loving reunion, but the fact that Hank resorted to violence in a way he never has before, all in order to save Cristobal has changed him.
[thr interview]
Bill Hader on “Disturbing” ‘Barry’ Finale, Why the Story Isn’t Over and ‘SNL’ Life Lessons https://t.co/4jyuoP9uZy
- The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) June 13, 2022
• Hader discusses fan's loyalty to Barry as a character. He says that he never saw or felt that Barry was a hero. "The biggest thing I felt that maybe you could relate to was someone was a murderer and try to not be a murderer, like a noble thing. The only thing he thinks that he’s good at is killing people, and so he tries to be an actor to get in touch with himself. But as time has gone on, as you’re writing a story and discovering more about him, it’s become less about that and more about watching someone with trauma and someone make really awful decisions, and then try to undo those decisions. One of the big lines of episode eight is him telling Sally, 'I did this.' He wishes he could take her burden, but you can’t do that. The more complicated and gray it is, the more interesting it is for me. People will come up to me and go, “I just love Barry.” (Laughs.) It’s very strange. He kills people."
• Says that there is some relief in Barry being caught because now they don't have to write scenes where he tries to keep up the double life. But there's much more to explore with Sally, Hank and Cousineau in the aftermath of this season. Hader also adds that he never considered that him getting caught would signify the end of the show. "I’ve always viewed this as one big Vanity Fair article. I love true-crime stuff, so this is just the part where it’s like, “And then he got caught, and then this happened.” And there’s so much more to it."
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