Editor's note: The below article contains spoilers for Season 4 Episodes 1 and 2 of Barry.In HBO's hit dark comedy, Barry's titular character Barry Berkman (played by creator, executive producer, and show lead, Bill Hader) has spent the last three seasons of the show desperately searching for a reason to keep going. Throughout the series, Barry Berkman's actions have made it clear that he isn't sure he has a reason to live. Shellshocked by his violent past and conflicted by a complicated relationship with father-figure/nemesis Fuches (Stephen Root), Barry found refuge in theater, as many emotionally torn people do. Truthfully, Barry's hilarity rests in the Coen Brothers-like duality in Barry's desires for a "regular" life amid his apparent inability to achieve that normalcy. But Barry seems to have lost that comedy in its final season in way of a darker finale.

Barry Berkman is different. In the bombastic nature of television, art imitates life with careful exaggerations of real-life circumstances. Barry is a man who wants to be pardoned for his sins but doesn't seem to understand their weight.

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Are Barry’s Sins Too Great for Him To Be Forgiven?

Bill Hader as Barry Berkman in Barry Season 4.
Image via HBO Max

Barry is inherently selfish, and the reality is that he never wanted to change; he wanted someone to say that his lifestyle is okay — and it's not. Barry is finally at a point where he can't justify his actions, and now he wants a reckoning for his guilt. In a recent interview with Variety, Bill Hader likened Barry's character arc to going to therapy — just being aware of things you could improve about yourself isn't enough. Barry has tried to professionally change, attempting to abandon his life as a hitman and move into life as an actor. Still, he has yet to make personal changes or take accountability for his wrongdoings. Notably, in Season 3, Barry showed that he made no changes but tried to live as he wanted to. This attempt is a real-life decision we can make, but Barry's flaws and mistakes are just too significant.

Barry is so lonely at this point in the series that he wants to forgive Fuches, who is easily the series' main antagonist. Yet, in Season 4, we see a visceral reminder of his nuanced role in Barry's life that gives way to Barry's repeated forgiveness toward him. In flashbacks, the audience sees that Barry's father introduced Fuches to Barry as a friend. It's evident to the viewer that Fuches is awful — he can manipulate Barry due to his original stance in his life, which makes him the worst character in the series. Fuches has acted as a wolf in sheep's clothing, seeing Barry as nothing but financial gain, while Barry trusts him like family.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Barry didn't get into the hitman game with the intent of murdering innocent people, but he did. That said, isn't it possible that we all deserve a second chance when we have agonized over our sins? Furthermore, if any character on TV has suffered in his version of hell, is it not the morally conflicted Barry Berkman?

Barry Is in a Prison Both Literally and Mentally

Barry (Bill Hader) looking at Sally (Sarah Goldberg), who looks up at him with a worried expression on her face in Barry.
Image via HBO

After the culminating events of Season 3, Barry found himself in a literal prison. In typical Barry fashion, he frantically calls his former acting coach, Gene Cousineau (the beloved Henry Winkler), to ask if he is mad at him, unable to accept that Gene is the reason he has finally been caught. Barry even reminds Cousineau of his love for him. Barry has not fully grasped the weight of his decisions, but he feels the loneliness accompanying his moral decay. Karmically, his loneliness seems to mirror the despondence we saw in Cousineau during Season 2 following Janice's (Paula Newsome) unexpected death.

As the loneliness sets in, we find him no longer hoping for a new life, but punishment and absolution. Still morally conflicted, Barry voluntarily insults a kind but naive correctional officer who attempts to free him of some guilt. Barry doesn't care about this guard, nor his attempts at compassion for him, so his insults are harsh and threatening. His defiance leads to a severe beating, but Barry doesn't seem to fight even though he could hurt the guard.

Later, in Episode 2, he sees an equally tormented Sally, his ex-girlfriend (played by Sarah Goldberg, who perfectly captures Sally's wide spectrum of emotional distress throughout the series) who is still reeling from the PTSD of being with Barry, getting canceled, and, in one of the most shocking TV moments of last year, killing a man in self-defense. Sally admits that she feels safe with Barry, only for him to obsess over her comment from the second it leaves her lips until she walks away. The complicated reality of this admission is that the only reason why Sally feels safe with Barry is that he's the only one who knows what she's going through. Sally is completely isolated, unable to communicate with others as she holds the weight of an act she had to commit and suffers a guilt she never deserved. Effectively, Sally is in a prison all her own that Barry created. As a result, Sally is now an entirely different person from the annoying self-obsessed woman we met in the first season, and surprisingly, all the audience can do is feel bad for her. She is now so emotionally secluded that she has no one to turn to but the monster who created her circumstance.

Does Barry Deserve His Loneliness?

Barry frowning and looking to the distance in Barry.
Image via HBO

Categorically, yes. With all this said, Barry does deserve the loneliness he's feeling. Barry has wreaked havoc on people's lives (even outside his unconventional work life) for his own gain. He does deserve his loneliness, but that doesn't make him undeserving of penance. Barry knows that his actions are past redemption, and therein lies the reason for his severity to the kindly guard. The sympathetic but misguided officer doesn't understand the breadth of Barry's actions because he wouldn't have been so kind if he did. Barry is finally crumbling under the weight of the actions and the realization that he could have walked away at any time in the past. He is tired (perhaps subconsciously) of the sycophants around him excusing his acts of violence for their own benefit. At this moment, Barry only sees forgiveness as a possibility if Gene and Sally can give it to him, which is the ultimate tragedy of Barry Berkman: His happiness and self-fulfillment lie entirely on outside validation.

Barry is fighting PTSD, depression, and extreme loneliness, but regardless of what he's facing, he's done some awful things. The righteous question of whether a broken man like Barry can redeem himself brings to mind Barry's dream sequence in the Season 3 finale and the final question to Barry's dilemmas: Is that really where he's going?

Barry Season 4 currently airs every Sunday on HBO Max.