The Dark Humanity of <i>Barry</i>
The first murder in Barry happens offscreen. Barry (Bill Hader) walks robotically out of a hotel bathroom toward a bed where—the camera pans to reveal—a man has been shot in the head. Barry removes the silencer from a revolver and grimaces, slightly, as if he has indigestion. He pats himself down to check he hasn’t forgotten anything, looks at his watch, and leaves the room.
The premise of Bill Hader and Alec Berg’s new eight-part HBOcomedy is that Barry is an assassin, but a reluctant one. Essentially gentle and conflict-averse deep down, he’s eager to hang up his weapons and try something new. As he explains to an acting coach, Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler), he’s a former Marine who came back from Afghanistan with crippling depression and no
