In what is bound to be a bittersweet next couple of months for HBO subscribers, the Emmy-winning dark comedy series Barry will be lowering the curtain with its upcoming fourth season. Star, director, and creator Bill Hader clearly struck gold with the series, and his timeless portrayal of a ruthless assassin who wants to be a great actor is both absolutely hilarious and positively gut-wrenching. Every single time Barry seems to get closer to finding some level of normalcy, it all comes crumbling down when he's forced to kill again to protect his newfound identity. The result isn't the happy life he wanted, but rather a hectic and stressful reality for himself, his girlfriend, and his mentors both in acting and in murder.
Judging from the trailers for Season 4 alone, the climactic season of Barry is primed to be its most hectic yet, with the titular anti-hero likely wanting revenge on the people who disrupted his perfect life. Barry may be in prison now, but the events that led up to this point were perhaps far more shocking than his eventual incarceration. Not to mention, it's been a year since we saw the characters of Barry on HBO, so if you're looking for a comprehensive recap of all the major story beats before Season 4 premieres this month, here is a complete recap of Barry Season 3.
Barry Falls Back Into His Old Hobbies After the Massacre in Season 2
Being betrayed by his old fixer Fuches (Stephen Root) left a pretty big scar on Barry. While he killed almost every Chechen and Bolivian gang member in that church shootout, Fuches ultimately escaped, leading Barry to realize that he'll never really be free of his hitman past if Fuches is still his enemy. Be it a misstep into bad habits or just a desire to plan his eventual reunion with Fuches, Barry has once again started to take dark web jobs to assassinate various targets, feeling he will never be able to truly forgive Fuches.
Things are actually going much better for Barry's girlfriend, Sally (Sarah Goldberg), who's currently flourishing in her acting career and even creating a new streaming show, with her former fellow student Natalie (D'Arcy Carden) becoming her ward and assistant. Good things are also happening for NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) and Cristobal (Michael Irby). Though their criminal empire was hit by Barry's previous rampage, the two have found happiness in a romantic relationship with each other. Even Fuches has found some semblance of happiness, living on a quiet farm out of the U.S. where he's free from any criminal charges and his murderous pupil.
Barry has a mountain of issues to deal with, but things get really complicated when his beloved acting teacher, Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler), confronts Barry. Gene has officially discovered that Barry was the one responsible for killing his girlfriend, Janice (Paula Newsome), and plans to shoot Barry right then and there. Barry dispatches Gene and gets ready to reluctantly kill his mentor, but then comes up with a brilliant plan to win Gene's approval again.
Gene Cousineau Gets His Comeback
Barry thinks the best way to get Gene to forgive him for Janice's death is to help him start his acting career again. This task proves easier said than done, with Barry even screaming at Sally in her office when she says she can't help him, all of this being in view of Sally's younger co-star, Katie (Elsie Fisher). Barry does manage to get Gene a guest role on a serialized crime show, and though Gene still resents Barry for taking the woman he loved, Gene's small role in the show proved to be a massive success.
Gene's agent, Tom (Fred Melamed), is finally able to work with Gene again and the previously problematic actor has even reconciled an old conflict with actor Joe Mantegna. Gene also reunited with an old girlfriend and director in Annie (Laura San Giacomo), whose career he ended up destroying following his bad-boy antics in the past. Gene also tries to use his new power and influence to write that wrong by getting Annie to direct his Master Class series.
In addition to getting Gene his acting career back, Barry also gives Gene an absolutely massive amount of money that he's collected. It seems like a generous gift, but there's a pretty significant condition. Barry subtly tells Gene that if his teacher decides to betray him and go to the police, not only will he kill Gene, but he'll also kill his son and grandson. After making a threat against him and his family, Barry then asks Gene to tell him that he loves him.
NoHo Hank, Cristobal, and the Bolivian Cartel
NoHo Hank and Cristobal are truly in love in Season 3, but that perfect criminal life is thrown in jeopardy with Cristobal's father-in-law and boss, Fernando (Miguel Sandoval), comes to LA. Bringing with him plenty of Bolivian thugs, Fernando thinks there's something off in Cristobal's alliance with the Chechens and gets very close to discovering his relationship with Hank. Desperate to make this problem disappear, Hank goes to Barry to see if he can kill Fernando and the Bolivians in a bombing while saving Cristobal. Barry succeeds, but this is not the end of Hank and Cristobal's problems.
It doesn't take long for word of the attack to reach Fernando's daughter and Cristobal's wife, Elena (Krizia Bajos). She quickly comes to LA to kidnap her husband to take him back to Bolivia, learning that he had been cheating on her for all these years in the United States. Being so in love with Cristobal, Hank travels to Bolivia to save him, with the lovable Chechen getting thrown into the absolute nightmare that is the Bolivian cartel's headquarters. NoHo Hank finds Cristobal being tortured by Elena before shooting her and bringing Cristobal back to LA.
The Rise and Fall of Sally Reed
Sally has been on the cusp of an incredible career with her new streaming show, and the premiere of the series seemingly shows an excellent debut. Sally is overwhelmed by the incredible turnout and reviews for her show but is notified by her co-star Katie that Barry is a toxic person that she shouldn't be dating. Sally agrees, and right after the show premieres, breaks up with Barry.
Sally moves on rather quickly but finds herself in a downward spiral when her show is taken off its respective streaming service. Turns out, the studio heads have decided to cancel the series and erase it from existence, deciding the project just didn't fit their platform's algorithms. Having the luxury of being a series creator ripped away from her, Sally is then relegated to a writer's room of a traditional comedy. However, when Sally is walking past another writer's session in progress, she notices that her old assistant, Natalie, has plagiarized her ideas. Sally confronts Natalie in an elevator, screaming in her face and calling her every name in the book, not realizing that Natalie was recording the entire encounter. Thus, Sally's agent drops her and her career is officially dead.
Despite being broken up, Barry does try to comfort Sally, though he comes up with the unorthodox solution of him going to Natalie's house and scaring her to drop her show. Sally initially refuses, but later shows up at Barry's to take the idea seriously. Barry regrets telling Sally the idea but finds that she also has an enraged side when an assassin looking for Barry finds her. Sally kills the mercenary with ruthless ferocity before Barry comes in and says he'll take care of everything. As Barry goes to tie up loose ends, he doesn't realize that Sally is now on her way out of Los Angeles and getting on a plane to anywhere else but there.
Fuches Plans His Revenge
No matter how hard he tries, Fuches just can't forgive Barry for all the torment he caused him. Fuches decides to leave his quiet farming life to return to LA, despite being a person of interest in multiple homicide cases. Those cases turn out to be an essential part of his new plan, as Fuches has decided to contact virtually every family member and friend of every victim Barry had ever killed. This decision puts Barry through a gauntlet of people looking for vengeance, causing all sorts of chaos and bloodshed in the streets of LA. The mayhem even catches the attention of FBI agent Albert Nguyen (James Hiroyuki Liao) — a former squadmate of Barry during his time in Afghanistan whose life was saved by the hitman. Albert does catch up to Barry and confronts him, but ultimately gives him a second chance because of the debt he owes him.
Fuches would ultimately make a fatal flaw in contacting Jim Moss (Robert Wisdom) — the father to murdered detective Janice Moss. Jim believes the stranger's story that his daughter was murdered by Barry, taking Fuches for a car ride while they discuss the details. Little did Fuches know, Jim takes the shady fixer to the police station, where Fuches is placed into custody.
Gene Betrays Barry
After dealing with would-be assassin after would-be assassin, Barry gets a call from Gene, who tells him that Jim Moss has damning evidence of Barry's crimes. Prior to this, Jim confronted Gene himself, trying to see what the acting teacher knew about Barry and if he killed Janice. Barry thinks the only way to deal with this is to kill Jim, but when he shows up at his house and is about to pull the trigger, police officers swarm Barry and place him under arrest. The entire thing was a setup, and Jim and Gene conspired against Barry to send the anti-hero to prison once and for all (or so they think...).
Barry Season 4 premieres exclusively on HBO on Sunday, April 16, 2023.