Barry - The Power of No

I have watched all of the first season of “Barry” and scattered episodes of the second season when recovering from the ups and downs of “Game of Thrones”, and The Power of No, just what a fucking great episode it is. This show is really just a revelation to me. But there have been certain episodes that just resonate with me above others. I think both seasons really are quite fantastic, but there are these episodes that hit high notes, while others are fine melody. I guess I can name off certain moments that struck the most impressions.

A scene where Sarah Goldberg, after her Sally Reed returns from a rather (yet another) disappointing meeting with Hollywood staffers looking for the next big star, told she must be content (for the time being, supposedly) with small parts until her time comes. Sally’s “reel” is played for those producers, including a colleague (who might just be behind her inability to rise out of the bit part purgatory), Lindsay (Jessy Hodges), and it is essentially an assemblage of unflattering cameos and nonsense roles that show zero range. She feels she is above them, standing on stage before Gene’s class, her peers, trying to explain her case, as he just sits and listens, stone-faced without any “passage of wisdom” or “pearls to share”. What I think is just brilliant about it is that Gene doesn’t give any guidance and Sally begins to crumble out of her confidence, unveiling her past, which included a marriage and abuse within it that perhaps she never quite come to grips with, and her entrance into LA was running away from that ugly history. Perhaps she’s allowed that to stymie her progress, to undermine any leeway into the business. But she works it all out on stage and no one brings her to that conclusion…she does that. To stand up there and say, “I’m strong and independent. I have risen out of the past and am a new person,” as if she’s trying to convince others of something she hasn’t perhaps ever truly believed wholeheartedly herself…it really is quite a special moment in an episode with plenty of them. Much like Barry, I feel the show is indicating to us that Sally will eventually have to face her past, and that running from it will only get her (or him) so far.

Detective Loach’s Achilles Heel is his ex and her new boyfriend. He lost his partner, Janice Moss, and through his investigative prowess eventually links Fuches to Barry. He goes to Cleveland to interview Fuches, who was being released from jail, asking him about the lost tooth found in the garage of dead Pazar and his men. Fuches trying to frame the loss of his tooth on a hooker prying it from his mouth and finding a route to Pazar’s abode is quite the stretch of credibility Loach just rightfully critiques. Fuches must confront Barry, even if the two had decided not to meet again, about Loach’s visit. Again, Barry just can’t escape his past and a major contributor to his killing is Fuches. And Loach, quite cleverly, sits outside a small LA apartment complex in a van, spying on their conversation, now having linked the two officially by recording. So that problem escalating for the both of them presents a challenge that you would think won’t go away.

While Fuches is an issue Barry can’t seem to shake, NoHo Hank and his jealousy of Esther in regards to his relationship (and ultimately hers) with Christobal is yet another troublesome nuisance he also much contend with. NoHo wants Barry to intrude inside a Buddhist temple harboring Esther and her gang, demanding a special bullet be used for the hit. The bullet has his own marker on it and would indicate his responsibility to those he wishes to impress. But Barry questions how to retrieve the bullet once it is fired into Esther and NoHo doesn’t quite have an answer. That is how NoHo’s mind operates. He has a grandiose idea but its actual rationale is up for much debate. And when Barry goes into the temple, he has a clear shot without any serious obstacle but because of his conscience and guilt, with thoughts of a particular Afghan hit and present day experiences that are starting to emerge as angels on his shoulder (I guess you could consider NoHo and Huches as the devil) gnawing away the ability to just execute people. When in the car with NoHo while he runs through what he wants to do about Esther and why, Barry asks him if he’s evil. NoHo nonchalantly and without a delay tells Barry that of course he is.

When Fuches confronts Barry about the death of Janice and Loach’s interrogation of him, a reminder of the past once again surfaces…Barry, no matter how hard he tries, just can’t run far enough. Atonement has yet to truly effect Barry, but eventually, much like Walter White, an answer for past sins seems inevitable.

I loved this portion of the episode that focuses on Gene’s location of a picture with his son when both were young. It causes Gene to meet up with him in his adult life as an organic fruit salesman at the stand, resulting in failure to communicate amicably. Gene doesn’t ingratiate himself, though, with the use of his teaching and career as a reason for his failure as a father, and his son just dismissively requests they just remain distant because such efforts to connect seem too difficult to even attempt. Gene looks at his theater posters, enshrined on the walls in the halls as you walk to his office, impacted by what his son said about using the class as the means to further flatter his ego through the students. A proposal by Barry to use their teacher-pupil beginnings instead of his Afghan experience (the stage reflecting a certain painful memory that shaped and defined each actor before a live audience) is ultimately shot down by Gene due to how his son’s declaration that the class was nothing more than food to feed his narcissism left a lingering punch.

Again, “Barry” has really provided, as Sally mentions on stage to Gene in her desires as an actress, “meaty” work for the entire principle cast. Especially Winkler and Root, with Goldberg the gem that I hope gets an Emmy nom when all is said and done. Her frustrations are quite understandable although she continues to be brought down a peg or two despite considering herself completely worthy of something more substantial in Hollywood. Meanwhile Barry trying to skirt another revival of his Afghan lie (his “pain” is seen in his memory as a celebration of a kill that wasn’t necessary with fellow snipers) doesn’t work. These characters, Barry, Fuches, Sally, even Gene, all have made mistakes (as have we all) and they leave behind unresolved issues that haunt them. **** / ****