If you have not yet tried Barry, I highly recommend gobbling it up now that its final season is here. Everyone on it is so excellent, and Bill Hader’s direction has been truly outstanding (I’m sure you’ve heard people gushing about a motorcycle chase filmed on an actual LA freeway, but it’s just… it was so perfect and astonishing that they pulled it off). It’s interesting: We caught up on Barry at the beginning of the pandemic, and then moved onto Ted Lasso’s first season, and somehow these two totally different shows were perfect for that time despite being polar opposites. Ted was more about hope and kindness and coming together, and Barry was more about whether you can ever truly change. But, also, Barry is a man trying and failing not to be an actual hired gun, and Ted is man trying not to fail at being a metaphorical one. And now they’re both ending on their own terms in the same time frame. I don’t feel great about Barry Berkman’s chances of surviving this season, but can we push for a crossover? Let’s say Stephen Root’s character on Barry is Ted Lasso’s presumed-dead father, who actually just ditched them because he preferred a life of crime. NoHo Hank and Roy Kent would get a lot from each other — actually, Hank would also get along great with Danny Rojas and Jamie Tartt, and Sam. Keeley can manage Gene Cousineau’s return to the zeitgeist. You feel me. This can work.
