Barry’s fourth and final season to premiere on April 16
Bill Hader Explains Why He’s Ending ‘Barry’ With Season 4, HBO Debuts Teaser and Release Date (EXCLUSIVE)https://t.co/ArD3HnOtB6
- Variety (@Variety) March 7, 2023
• The rumors were true, Barry is ending after four seasons. Series creator, star and director Bill Hader spoke to Variety about the ending. Variety also posted the season 4 teaser trailer and the season four poster.
• In a press release, it was revealed that the first two episodes of the season will premiere on April 16, with the finale airing on May 28.
• The season 4 logline: [Spoiler (click to open)]"Cousineau (Henry Winkler) is hailed as a hero as Barry's (Bill Hader) arrest has shocking consequences. It's all been leading to this - the explosive and hilarious final chapter of Barry"
#Barry is back for its final season on April 16. Check out the first teaser trailer: pic.twitter.com/hLeYClWxg7
- Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) March 7, 2023
• The teaser trailer shows us Barry's new life in prison, encountering Fuches in person for the first time since the season 2 finale in the prison yard, and shots of Sally and NoHo Hank presumably finding out about Barry's arrest. Gene appears flanked by Jim Moss in a few scenes, Cristobal and Hank are still together. More importantly Barry is back on his bullshit, swearing vengeance on someone over the phone.
First poster for the final season of ‘BARRY’.
The series premieres on April 16 on HBO. pic.twitter.com/4nMUWnK7o4
- DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) March 7, 2023
• In the interview, Hader says that a "very clear ending" presented itself when he and co-creator Alec Berg were writing season 4 during the pandemic.
• It's confirmed that the season will have eight episodes.
• Hader says that after coming up with an ending he would still find himself thinking, "but we have such a good time!" and didn't want to say a premature goodbye to the show. "We didn't want to admit it to ourselves, you know what I mean?"
• He didn't break to Amy Gravitt, executive VP of HBO comedy programming who has worked with Hader on Barry since the project's inception in 2016.
• Hader says that Gravitt let out an "anguished sigh" after he told her that he felt the story was naturally ending at season 4. Gravitt tells Variety that despite her initial reaction she trusts Hader's judgment. "Every decision that he's made about the story, or the jump between seasons, has made sense - so I had to go with his gut on that. Obviously, now that we're here, we're feeling sentimental about it. But it really does feel like it's the right time to finish the show."
• Gravitt says of the Barry ending: "I've been using the word 'satisfying' a lot."
• Hader says that even though people claim season 3 was a good place for the show to end, he thought that there were so many questions about Barry and the other characters, "so many things unsaid," and that "what happens in season 4 is structurally radical in some ways, but it made sense for what I think the characters needed to go through, and what I think the show is always kind of headed towards. You realize, well, we could pad a lot of stuff, and just make story. But if we're going forward, it ends in season 4."
• Hader is asked about the darkness of season 3, and he reveals that they actually wanted to go darker and that it happened by virtue of what was happening to the characters. He also says that "a lot of people - maybe us included" thought Barry was going to get better, but as they wrote it they realized that they don't know if that would ever happen.
• He says that season 3 and season 4 felt like a 16 episode season to everyone working on the show.
• He adds that "there's something that happens in 4 that is kind of strange, though thematically it makes a lot of sense." When asked about if that happens at the beginning of season 4 he says, "you'll notice it! It's fun. It was a lot of fun, but it was also incredibly bittersweet."
• He adds, "The last two episodes, while we were shooting, were not fun. It was very sad."
• Hader directs every episode of season 4, and says that he learned a lot from directors like Hiro Murai, Maggie Carrey and Liz Sarnoff who directed episodes in the first and second season, and from Alec Berg who directed episodes from season one to three.
• He says that during season 3, executive producer Aida Rogers told him, "You have all this in your head, and anybody else directing it - you're driving them crazy," and that eventually they just told him that he should just direct them all in season 4 to make it easier on everyone and "Because I've been champing at the bit to do this for so long."
• Hader is asked about where viewers will "find" Barry at the beginning of the season, and Hader replies that he's in prison. When further pressed Hader reveals that Barry being in prison is all that he can say and he's only saying it because it's in the marketing materials.
• The interviewer asks Hader that if there is any chance at redemption for Barry, and he responds: "we asked ourselves that up to the ending. Me and the writers, we would talk about it. I don't know. I'm interested to see what people think about how it concludes. I don't think he's given up."
• He's asked whether any other series finales helped inform or influence the Barry finale but he responds no, that he doesn't watch a lot of TV but that he likes "satisfying endings" like the ones at the end of good books. He also adds that he's never seen Barry in terms of a TV show, and that he doesn't refer to the final episode as the series finale. He adds, "it's just the end of the story."
• This interview took place a month ago, and he said that they were doing some reshoots which he says is for clarity. "It has so many twists and turns, and people's allegiances change, and things like that, that it can be confusing."
• Because they're doing reshoots and editing and ADR, Hader says there's an "ongoing goodbye" to Barry at the moment. He does say that the last day of principal photography was "incredibly sad. It's been an amazing, life-changing experience for me, personally. So I was happy I was able to tell the crew that, these people who worked for so many years. To be able to thank them was very important to me."
• When asked about the impact of making Barry has done to him, he replies that he doesn't know at the moment and that it will probably hit him years from now, like when he left SNL. He says that for him it all hits later when you realize you can do all of these things because of what you learned when working on the show.
• He says that right now his feeling is "'the story ended.' I just wanted to tell this story, and the story's done." He apparently said that to Hiro Murai in a recent conversation, and Murai warned him that he's going to be really sad when the last episode airs, as the last episode of Atlanta airing really effected Murai.
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